1918
William E. Stevenson Born in Chicago, William Stevenson came to Phillips Academy in 1914. He participated in both track and cross country and was chief of the fire and police squad and captain of ROTC. After graduating from Andover, Stevenson joined the U.S. Marine Corps. WWI ended before he was sent to Europe, so he enrolled in the class of 1922 at Princeton. While there, he became the 1921 AAU champion in the 400-meter race and also was named a Rhodes Scholar; he studied law at Oxford for two years. 10
In the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Stevenson set a world record (3.16.0) in the final leg of the 4x400 relay; his team won a gold medal in the event. At the same games, he also won a bronze medal in the steeplechase event. Stevenson returned home to New York, where he served as a district attorney. In 1931, he and three friends founded the law firm of Debevoise, Stevenson, Plimpton and Page, which still exists today. With the onset of WWII, Stevenson and his wife, Eleanor, joined the
American Red Cross and served in Great Britain, North Africa, and Italy. Both were awarded a Bronze Star for their service. After the war, Stevenson was named president of Oberlin College in Ohio and then appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines under President Kennedy. Subsequently, he became acting head of the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy in Chicago and the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies in Colorado. He died in Florida in 1985.