Pete Axthelm was a sportswriter and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and its Inside Sports.
11 Facts About Pete Axthelm
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2.
Pete Axthelm attended Hewitt School, a neighborhood public elementary school, and a Catholic high school.
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Pete Axthelm is a 1965 graduate of Yale University, his senior thesis was published in book form by Yale University Press as The Modern Confessional Novel.
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Pete Axthelm took the Law School Admission Test in his senior year, earning a perfect score, but only did so to please his mother.
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Axthelm skipped his Yale graduation to cover races at Belmont Park for the Herald Tribune'Pete Axthelm grew up with his mother 3 siblings, his step father and 2 step siblings'.
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Pete Axthelm went to work for Newsweek in 1968 and covered the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
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Pete Axthelm, who covered the Games wearing a button bearing the letters OPHR, had befriended Smith and Carlos during the Games.
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Carlos had worn an OPHR button during his run, but Smith had not; when Smith asked for a button, Pete Axthelm took his button off and handed it to Smith.
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Pete Axthelm is perhaps best remembered for writing The Kid in 1978, a biography of then eighteen-year-old Triple Crown winning jockey Steve Cauthen.
10.
Pete Axthelm was a longtime heavy drinker, which eventually developed into alcoholism.
11.
Pete Axthelm eventually developed acute hepatitis and died of liver failure on February 2,1991, at the age of 47.