John P. McBride 1956 John McBride played varsity soccer and varsity ice hockey at Andover, and was also a Phillipian writer, secretary of the Philomathean Society, and president of the Student Congress. McBride continued to exhibit his athletic prowess at Princeton, where he played ice hockey for all four years and broke three scoring records. McBride joined the U.S. Hockey Team in 1961, and by 1966 had retired from his own hockey career in order to pursue coaching. He moved to Aspen and started a successful junior hockey program, and in 2002 he was selected to be a torchbearer for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. While in Aspen, McBride also expanded his interests beyond hockey by founding the North Forty Residential Community and the Aspen Business Center. His goal was to help preserve the environment while also aiding the Aspen economy by creating self-sufficient communities that would reduce the need to commute. McBride continued his environmental conservation efforts by joining the boards of the Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Worldwatch Institute, and then partnering with his daughter Katie to found the Sopris Foundation, which addresses issues of population, natural resource distribution, and political balance surrounding environmental issues. Because of his leadership in the field of local preservation and conservation, McBride was inducted into Heritage Aspen’s Hall of Fame in 2002.
James P. McLane 1949 Jim McLane had an illustrious swimming career that consisted of 21 national competition titles, three Pan American Games gold medals, and three Olympic gold medals (one of which he won at the 1948 Olympics in London while still a student at Andover). Even before coming to Andover, McLane was the youngest-ever Men’s Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) swimming champion when he won the National Long Distance title at age 13. This feat cemented him as one of the leaders of the 1940s “youth movement” that put swimming back in the spotlight as a popular sport. Needless to say, McLane dominated in the pool at Andover, and he continued on to become a swimming star at Yale, where he was coached by the legendary Robert Kiphuth. McLane also became the U.S. team’s oldest Pan American champion at the age of 24. McLane was perhaps one of the greatest tacticians the sport of swimming had ever seen. He almost always had a plan that included complete knowledge of his opponents’ race plan. McLane relished the tactics and strategy of gamesmanship. His classic victory was the gold medal he won in the 1500-meter freestyle at the 1948 Olympic Games. McLane studied the great John Marshall and found that the Australian liked to swim by hugging the lane line on his breathing side. McLane, who had a powerful kick, swam in the next lane and hugged the other side of the same lane line, sprinting out one body length ahead of Marshall. Kicking hard, McLane
8