and
Matt McGrath of the
Irish American Athletic Club, posing for a
1912 U.S. Olympic team photo. While it is not entirely clear when this moniker came into use, and was likely not used in the face of any of these giant men, it seems to have first appeared in print in 1937 in
John Kieran's
New York Times column, "Sports of the Times", written by John Drebinger (who was substituting for Kieran). The term was further popularized in "Sports of the Times" columns written by Arthur Daly in the
New York Times, with the first reference to "The Whales" in 1942. On the subject of the origin of this nickname, Daly wrote: "It was on the Olympic trip of 1912 that the 'whale' nickname took hold. Dan Ferris, then a cherubic little boy, recalls it with relish. 'Those big fellows,' he related, 'all sat at the same table and their waiter was a small chap. Before we reached Stockholm he had lost twenty pounds, worn down by bringing them food. Once as he passed me he muttered under his breath, 'It's whales they are, not men.' They used to take five plates of soup as a starter and then gulp down three or four steaks with trimmings. That Simon Gillis would think nothing of having a dozen eggs for breakfast. But what fascinated me was the way he ate them. He'd put a dab of mustard on each and eat it whole, shell and all.' The Irish American A.C. behemoths always were the life of any party." Another tale of the Irish Whales' voracious appetites came from Arthur Daly's typewriter twenty-two years later. In a
Times column in 1964 he wrote: "Some of their more prodigious feats were at the table. The Irish American A.C. was competing in Baltimore when (Simon) Gillis placed an order for a post-meet snack with the head waiter at a local restaurant. He ordered 27 dozen
oysters and six huge T-bone steaks.
Slight Miscalculation - The waiter was ready when Gillis, McDonald and McGrath arrived. The table had been set for a party of 33. 'Do you want to wait for the rest of your group?' asked the headwaiter. He turned pale as he watched three whales devour 27 dozen oysters and six huge T-bone steaks." ==Summary table==