Terry McDermott won an Olympic gold and met the Beatles, but his legacy was a life well-lived

Sixty years ago, the New York Times called it a story too unbelievable for Hollywood. How could a young, humble apprentice barber from a small town near Bay City, Michigan, beat a famous Soviet champion at the Winter Olympics?

“He couldn't do it, of course, except that yesterday he did it,” wrote the New York Times of the American underdog’s victory in 1964 in the 500-meter speed skating competition for men.

Late last month, Richard T. McDermott’s family and friends gathered to mourn his passing.  The founder of the Auburn Hills-based company Champion Plastics, which makes injection-molded plastics for the automotive industry, was 82 when he died May 20.

There are many notable figures in and around Detroit who’ve spent their lives working in the auto industry, raising their children and doing their part to help their communities. McDermott — better known as Terry — did all of that and also played a unique role in sports and pop culture history.

Not that he would have mentioned it. Unless someone asked him to first.

In February 1964, Terry McDermott won the only gold medal for the United States at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, by defeating Yevgeny Grishin, the favorite from Russia, at the height of the Cold War.

Days later, while in New York City to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” McDermott posed for a photo that went viral before the concept even existed.

In it, he is surrounded by Sullivan and the Beatles, who were in New York to make their first appearance on U.S. What makes the picture so special, however, is that McDermott pretends to cut Paul McCartney’s hair as John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr look on in shock.

Speedskating isn’t a glamorous sport like figure skating. It’s a tough, solitary physical challenge pursued by a small, tight-knit group of athletes. They don’t expect to become celebrities in their quest for excellence. They just pursue excellence.

McDermott loved the sport, but he didn’t let his achievement change his essential nature. Those who knew him agree he was one the nicest people they ever met, a genuine person who cared about others and put his family first.

His oldest son, Mike, says he doesn’t really remember when it first hit him that his father was an Olympic gold medalist.

“He had just won a couple of medals,” says Mike, who was born three years after the Innsbruck games. “It was pretty neat. … Most people would come around and want to see the medals all the time. I don’t know how many elementary schools those medals have been to over the years for show-and-tell, but too many to tell.”

There were two medals, the gold one and a silver that Terry McDermott earned in 1968 at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. The ribbons on both of them are worn now, according to Mike, in part from so many years of so children trying them on at those show-and-tells. But that’s getting ahead of things.

They called him the Essexville Rocket

Born in 1940 in Essexville, Michigan, McDermott started speedskating as a child with the encouragement of his future brother-in-law, Dick Somalski, a Michigan speedskating figure in his own right. Somalski, who died in 2017, started the Bay County Speedskating Club just after World War II and taught McDermott how to skate.

Jim Chapin, 90, also got into speedskating through his good friend Somalski. Now a retired pharmacist in the St. Louis area (and a former speedskating coach and national official), he fondly recalls seeing McDermott at the club as a little boy, long before he became “an outstanding sprinter.”

“The  thing I remember, I guess he was 6 years old at the time … instead of skating like you normally would with two feet, he skated like a kid on a scooter, where he’d push off on one foot and glide on the other,” says Chapin.

McDermott soon became adept at speedskating and was able to practice regularly to sharpen his skills, thanks to Bay City’s climate in those days. “We used to have natural ice in Michigan from Thanksgiving to Easter. Not anymore, of course,” says Chapin.

At St. John's High School, McDermott met his future wife, Virginia Vermeesch. Married for 59 years, they had their first date at freshman prom and their second at sophomore prom, “and the rest is history,” as his Free Press obituary stated. After briefly attending Lake Superior State University, he left college to focus on his amateur skating career and supported himself as an apprentice barber at his uncle’s Bay City shop.

Nicknamed the Essexville Rocket at home, McDermott was 19 when he finished seventh in the 500-meter event at the 1960 Winter Olympics, held at Olympic Valley, California. That year, the Soviet great Grishin took home the gold in the same race, as he also had done at the 1956 Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

At the 1964 Winter Games, McDermott faced an immediate disadvantage. According to his National Speedskating Museum and Hall of Fame biography, he had broken the skates he planned to compete in and had to borrow another pair from a coach.

When it came time for the 500-meter race, which was done in heats with two skaters at a time, Grishin finished with an impressive 40.6 seconds. Then a Soviet skater and a Norwegian skater tied Grishin for the gold with the exact same times.

But when McDermott took to the ice, he skated the 500 meters in 40.1 seconds, breaking the old Olympic record and nabbing the gold.

Although the Innsbruck games didn’t have the 24/7 social media buzz that exists now — or the wall-to-wall TV and streaming coverage that has become standard for every Olympics — McDermott’s feat was a major news story that also felt like a patriotic moment.

“Oh my gosh, it’s a big deal anytime when you have the entire Winter Olympics and only one gold medal (for the United States) out of it,” says Chapin. “When you consider all the sports that are involved and all the events. That was a very big deal.” Especially, adds Chapin, considering that McDermott defeated the Russians, because “they were a powerhouse.”

Although the rivalry between the Americans and Soviets was strong on many fronts in the 1960s, the Olympic athletes themselves didn’t carry the bitterness. Says Mike McDermott of his father’s epic showdown: ”The Russians weren’t allowed to talk to the Americans, but he said they would give a knowing nod or a wink, as a job well done. He said they were athletes, not politicians. There was a shared respect there, even though their countries didn’t get along.”

All hail the hometown hero

McDermott’s gold medal win brought the media flocking immediately to Bay City.  The barbershop where he worked was “filled with reporters, photographers and television crews from Bay City, Saginaw, Flint, Detroit, Chicago and Toledo,” wrote the New York Times after his race.

The shop’s manager, John Kroslak, put a sign in the window that read “Terry Won, 40.1” and told the Times: “He's so modest that some people — older ones — didn't know what the sign meant. They didn't even know he skated. But we sure had a lot of people in here. Two of them who got haircuts a week ago got another one just so they could talk about Terry.”

Five days after the race, Terry McDermott and his wife were attending a taping in New York City of “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the leading variety program of the era. Invited to be a special guest, the new gold medalist was introduced by Sullivan to viewers, a well-deserved bit of recognition.

It just happened to be the same night, Feb. 9, 1964, that a certain band from Liverpool that was making its American TV debut — an event that would be watched by more than 70 million people.

Ever the showman, Sullivan arranged for McDermott to take a picture before the show with the Beatles, who at the time were considered fashion radicals for their neatly trimmed bowl cuts, the 1964 definition of long hair for men. The photo of the skating barber from Michigan "trimming" McCartney's hair was designed to poke gentle fun at their mop tops, the slang term for the matching Beatle haircuts.

Spending time backstage with the Beatles was a warm memory for his parents, according to Mike McDermott, who notes that, like the Fab Four, they were in their early 20s then. “They got to spend quite a bit of time in the green room with the Beatles before the show. The Beatles were calling my dad ‘sir’ and all they wanted to do was ask about what was going on in the Olympics.”

Decades later, Mike says, his father always remembered John, Paul, George and Ringo as nice young gentlemen.

When McDermott finally reached Bay City, he was greeted like a conquering hero. “He returned to the Bay City area to overwhelming fanfare, as throngs of fans lined Washington and Center avenues for a celebration. National media, statewide dignitaries and even Gov. George Romney traveled to Bay City to greet McDermott,” wrote MLive in an article published after McDermott's passing.

In 1968, McDermott was awarded the honor of being U.S. flag bearer at the opening of the Grenoble Winter Olympics. He came close to winning a second gold there. Though West Germany’s Erhard Keller won the 500-meter race with a time of 40.3 seconds, McDermott got the silver for his 40.5-second finish after skating in the last heat of the race on an outdoor track that was deteriorating from the sun.

”Had he skated an earlier pairing, he may have probably won it because the ice softened later in the day,” says Chapin.

A family man and a businessman

By this time, McDermott already was shifting to building a life in metro Detroit, where he and Virginia relocated in 1967. He became a manufacturer’s representative in the auto industry. It was a job popular in those days during the off-season with players from the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, who could open doors with their sports visibility. In 1980, he launched Champion Plastics, the successful family company that his sons Mike and Matt help lead today.

Most important to McDermott, however, was building a family that grew to include five children (including daughters Joyce, Lynn and Patty), 11 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. McDermott always found time to attend school events and never pushed his kids into speedskating. Instead, he encouraged them to play team sports for the life lessons they offered on cooperation and striving to do your best.

In his public and personal lives, McDermott was known for his friendly, supportive manner. “There was never a problem too big,” says Mike. “He had a very easy demeanor about himself and carried himself with a calm, but confident attitude.”

He also found time to be a dedicated supporter and promoter of U.S. Speedskating (formerly the U.S. International Speedskating Association). He served in many capacities for the organization, from board member to team leader at the Winter Olympics. He was a role model for young skaters about to make their mark, including future stars like Eric Heiden and Bonnie Blair, and helped new generations prepare for the spotlight of international competition.

Jeff Klaiber got to know McDermott as a team leader at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Part of McDermott’s role was to stay in the Olympic Village and provide encouragement and advice to competing speedskaters like Klaiber.

“He could walk into a room and kind of just take the stress out of it by a chuckle or an offhand comment that would be wise, but disarming, too. He was a very self-effacing guy, not a blowhard, not an egotistical man in any way. He connected with everybody because he was genuine,” says Klaiber, who went on to a coaching career and now has a YouTube channel called “Speedskating Deconstructed!”.

McDermott didn’t walk around talking about his glory days. “If someone had a questions, obviously, he was an Olympic champion. ... 'Hey, Terry, how did you deal with your stress on the morning of your gold?’” says Klaiber. “He wasn’t real forthcoming with his own story. He was more there to support others, always.”.

Leigh Barczewski, a speedskater who also competed on the 1976 Olympic cycling team, met McDermott in the late 1960s and later got to know him better as a fellow board member of U.S. Speedskating.

“He always had a good word for everybody. He would come around: ‘Hey, how’s it’s going? How are you feeling today?. ... Definitely one of the nicest gentlemen I ever knew,” says Barczewski.

Younger skaters dreaming of winning their own medals found McDermott to be approachable, not intimidating. Says Barczewski: “You never felt like you should be in awe of him, even thought you should have been. He never made you feel that way. He made you feel very comfortable. That’s the way he was through his whole life.”

In 2014, McDermott looked back on his journey and told WDIV-TV (Channel 4) that he was happy in retirement, dividing his time between his Bloomfield Hills home and Florida for the winter. "I play golf and life is pretty good," he said, low-key as usual.

After his death, he was praised in a Twitter post from U.S. Speedskating: “The USS family is saddened by the news that one of our all-time greats, Terry McDermott, passed away early Saturday surrounded by his family. Terry had a massive impact on our sport. Our thoughts are with those that Terry inspired over his many decades in our sport.”

Ryan Shimabukuro, a coach of the U.S. long track speedskating team, told the Associated Press about the loss of McDermott: “I always had great admiration for Terry. His legacy both on and off the ice will continue for U.S. speedskating and our sport."

Future generations will see McDermott’s name in the National Speedskating Hall of Fame, which he joined in 1977. And as Shimabukuro shared with the AP, there is a banner in the training room of the Utah Olympic Oval, a site billed as holding “more Olympic world records than anywhere else as the ‘Fastest Ice on Earth’” on its website.

Several stars of speedskating are depicted on it, including McDermott, a barber, husband, father and company founder — and the fastest man on ice in Innsbruck in 1964.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Terry McDermott made Olympic and pop culture history, but put family first