Herbert William Kerrigan (January 24, 1879 – September 10, 1959) was an American

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

athlete who competed mainly in the

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

Biography

He was born in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

and died in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Kerrigan competed for the

Multnomah Athletic Club The Multnomah Athletic Club (MAC) is a private social club, social and sports club, athletic club in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was founded in 1891 as the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club, a coordinating body for team and individual spor ...

in Portland and won the Pacific Northwest high jump championships in 1894 and 1896. In the

1906 Intercalated Games The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games (), held from 22 April 1906 to 2 May 1906, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Kingdom of Greece. They were at the time considered to be Olympic Games and were re ...

held in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, Kerrigan won the bronze medal jointly with Greek athlete

Themistoklis Diakidis Themistoklis Diakidis (; August 22, 1882 – May 8, 1944) was a Greek track and field athlete who competed in the high jump. Diakidis was a member of Gymnastiki Etaireia Patron, that merged in 1923 with Panachaikos Gymnastikos syllogos to become ...

. Kerrigan had been favored to win, but was injured by a wave that hit the ship carrying the U.S. team to Athens. The winning height of was the lowest winning height in Olympic history.

References

1879 births 1959 deaths American male high jumpers Athletes (track and field) at the 1906 Intercalated Games Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in track and field Track and field athletes from Oregon Medalists at the 1906 Intercalated Games 20th-century American sportsmen {{US-athletics-Olympic-medalist-stub