The Star Tennis Player Who Survived the ‘Titanic’ and Went On to Win Olympic Gold

Richard Norris Williams was one of the lucky ones, but he didn’t particularly feel like it. Pulled aboard the RMS Carpathia following the Titanic disaster on April 14–15, 1912, Williams had avoided going down with the ship. But his father hadn’t—and now a doctor examining Williams’s numb, frostbitten legs uttered the word amputation.

The prospect terrified the 21-year-old. Williams was a tennis player raised in Switzerland who was seeking academic and athletic opportunities in America, his talent large enough to perhaps even earn a spot in the Olympics one day. In the course of one horrible evening, all of it seemed out of reach.

Williams shook his head and began shuffling around the Carpathia, desperately willing the blood flow to return to his legs. He was accustomed to sprinting around a tennis court. Now, his greatest challenge was taking just a few painful steps.

Coming to America

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Williams picked up tennis at an early age under the tutelage of his father, Charles Williams. His own talent and his father’s guidance led him to a junior championship at age 12, the first of many he earned throughout his youth. The duo joined the Titanic voyage in Cherbourg, France, on April 10: Williams was bound for Harvard, which had recently sent him a letter of acceptance. For a few days, the future appeared bright. The two even had dinner with the ship’s captain, Edward Smith, on April 14.

Then came word of the iceberg.

At first, Williams and his father did their best to help: Both offered their lifejackets to other passengers and assisted them with boarding lifeboats; Williams broke down a door to free someone trapped in a room.

Desperate to flee the sinking vessel, Williams decided to chance it and jump overboard, plunging 40 feet into the freezing water below. His father would not be so fortunate: Charles was one of the roughly 1500 passengers and crew who perished. According to an unpublished account written by Williams, Charles was struck by a funnel from the ship that had broken off.

There was nothing else to do but try to survive. “It seemed I would never come up,” he wrote of the icy water. “The shock of the cold water was quite bad.”

Williams swam to a collapsible lifeboat that was little more than buoyant platform, gripping its side. But his ordeal wasn’t over—the bone-chilling water posed a serious threat to life and limb. Williams spent an estimated six hours in the water among other passengers clinging to the boat: Of the 30 with him, only 13 were left when help arrived.

When he was examined aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, Williams’s legs were found to be in dire shape. But he resisted the doctor’s pleas to amputate the appendages. The doctor feared hypothermia and gangrene; Williams feared never again stepping on a court.

“I refuse to give you permission,” Williams told him [PDF]. “I’m going to need these legs.” Williams then tried to move around. “As I tried to stand it was like thousands of needles going through my legs,” he wrote.

Williams walked around the Carpathia every two hours, even at night, and gradually, feeling returned to his limbs. Next came daily rounds of exercise. In just 12 weeks, pursuing tennis was once again possible.

Reportedly, Williams’s legs were never at 100 percent again: He was said to experience pain and fatigue beyond the norm when tennis matches ran long. Still, over the next decade, he began an impressive run of tennis championship performances in doubles and mixed doubles, including intercollegiate titles at Harvard, the U.S. National Championships, the Davis Cup, and Wimbledon. His aggressive style of play frequently overwhelmed opponents.

“Watching Williams at his best gave the equivalent pleasure a music lover would receive from listening to Jascha Heifetz play his violin,” wrote fellow tennis pro George Lott. “He was truly a genius.”

 Between 1912 and 1925, Williams was ranked in the top 10 in all but one year. The only thing interrupting his ascension was World War I, when he enlisted as a U.S. soldier.

That left one goal unconquered: an Olympic gold medal.

A Dream Fulfilled

Williams represented America at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. That he was on the courts at all was something of a miracle, given all that he had experienced, but nothing came easily. In singles competition, he failed to advance beyond the quarterfinals—ironically, due to a minor foot injury he suffered early in the match. Williams fared no better in doubles competition. But mixed doubles was a different story.

Williams took the court with women’s doubles gold medalist Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. After getting a bye in the first round when opposing players withdrew, the duo won three straight to reach the finals, where they defeated fellow Americans Vincent Richards and Marion Jessup for the gold.

“I had sprained an ankle badly in the semis, and told Hazel I probably should default, and we’d settle for the silver,” Williams later recalled. “‘Nonsense,’ she replied. She told me to stay at the net and she'd cover everything else. I didn’t move much but Hazel ran everywhere and won the match and the medals for us.”

The achievement was the pinnacle to Williams’s tennis career, which continued for another decade before he retired to focus exclusively on his profession as an investment banker. His widow, Sue, told The Boston Globe in 1998 that he didn’t dwell much on either the disaster or his accolades in tennis. According to her, Williams took 162 of his trophies and had them melted down into one tray-sized memento. Another remaining trophy was used as a carving platter.

“You’d never even know he played tennis if you talked to him,” Sue said.

There is another interesting postscript to his story. For his first match back after suffering from frostbite, he faced off with Karl Howell Behr. The two had something in common beyond tennis: Behr was also a Titanic survivor.

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