James Brendan Connolly

James Brendan Bennet "Jamie" Connolly was an American athlete and author. In 1896, he was the first modern Olympic champion.

Connolly was born to poor Irish immigrants from the Aran Islands, fisherman John Connolly and Ann O'Donnell, as one of twelve children, in South Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up at a time when the parks and playground movement in Boston was slowly developing, Connolly joined other boys in the streets and vacant lots to run, jump, and play ball.

He was educated at Notre Dame Academy and then at the Mather and Lawrence grammar school, but never went to high school. Instead, Connolly worked as a clerk with an insurance company in Boston and later with the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Savannah, Georgia.

Altogether dissatisfied with his career path, Connolly sought to regain the lost years of high school through self-education. In October 1895, he sat for the entrance examination to the Lawrence Scientific School and was unconditionally accepted to study the classics at Harvard University.

After the creation of the International Olympic Committee in 1894 the first modern edition of the Olympic Games were scheduled for April 6 to 15, 1896 in Athens, Greece. Connolly decided to participate, and submitted a request for a leave of absence to the Chairman of the Harvard University Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports and was denied. According to Connolly himself, he was informed that his only course of action would be to resign and make a reapplication to the College. Connolly then claimed to have replied:

I am not resigning and I'm not making application to re-enter. I'm getting through with Harvard right now. Good day!

The 1904 Summer Olympics were also attended by Connolly, but as a journalist, not as an athlete. Earlier, he had already published his accounts of the Spanish–American War in the Boston Globe as Letters from the Front in Cuba. He served there in the Irish 9th Infantry of Massachusetts.

Connolly became an authority on maritime writing, after spending years on many different vessels, fishing boats, military ships all over the world. In all, he published more than 200 short stories, and 25 novels. Furthermore, he twice ran for Congress of the United States on the ticket of the Progressive Party, but was never elected.

He never returned to Harvard, but received an honorary athletic sweater in 1948. A year later, he was offered an honorary doctorate by Harvard University, which he turned down. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.  Connolly died in New York City at the age of 88. A collection of items related to Connolly, including his triple jump silver medal, is housed in the library of Colby College in Maine