Decades before Howard Jones first made USC football a national power, and decades before Sam Barry became the most transformative and influential figure USC athletics has ever known, a USC pioneer made history on two different fronts.
Emil Breitkreutz didn’t win national championships or make Final Fours. He didn’t win three gold medals — or even one — at an edition of the Olympic Games. He didn’t revolutionize sports or send a thunderbolt which rippled through the pages of history in a headline-grabbing way. He wasn’t an iconic athlete the way Jim Thorpe was. He wasn’t a transcendent coach the way Knute Rockne was.
Emil Breitkreutz’s achievements in and around competitive sports were significant, yes… but they weren’t overwhelming. They are important and resonant, but they don’t knock people out of chairs or cause jaws to drop in astonishment.
Why devote a story to Emil Breitkreutz, then?
At USC, he was the first to not only venture something great in a realm of sports, but the first to actually achieve something great… and in two different ways.
As we contemplate a month of July in which the 2020 Summer Olympics were supposed to begin in Tokyo — but will have to wait a year until the summer of 2021 — it is worth sharing the simple story of Breitkreutz, a double pioneer in the annals of USC sports history.
Breitkreutz was the first USC athlete to compete in the Olympic Games.
Before graduating in 1906, Breitkreutz — born in 1883 — competed in the 2004 Summer Games in St. Louis. That alone was impressive and notable. Even better, Breitkreutz managed to land on the medal podium as a bronze medalist in the 800-meter track and field race. Breitkreutz has an eternal place in USC lore as the first Trojan to medal at the Olympics. It might be “just” a bronze to some, but Breitkreutz will forever be known as the man who started it all for USC at the Olympic Games. Every Trojan medalist and gold medalist who has followed in the subsequent 116 years has built on what Breitkreutz started.
“Wow,” you might be saying, “that’s quite a legacy for anyone to have.”
The amazing thing about Emil Breitkreutz is that it isn’t his only significant legacy at USC.
Breitkreutz was USC’s very first basketball coach, in 1906.
Yes. You could look it up.
The program began in December of 1906. The first intercollegiate game was an 18-15 win over Occidental College on January 16, 1907.
Breitkreutz was 6-5 in his one season at the helm of USC hoops. The season is significant less for its win-loss record, and more for the simple fact that it happened.
Emil Breitkreutz is one of the foremost pioneers in the life of USC athletics. He didn’t rewrite the record book; he opened the book and handed future generations a pen in which they could write their names.
America is the product of a pioneer spirit. Few people in USC history modeled that mindset better than Emil Breitkreutz.