George Helm ROTH

George Roth enrolled at Berkeley but was forced to drop out a year and a half into his studies as a result of The Great Depression. With a wife and baby to support, Roth tried to find work but was unemployed at the time of the 1932 Games. He was said to have taken food home from the Olympic Village to feed his family and after receiving his Olympic gold in front of a packed stadium, had to hitch-hike his way home to East Hollywood. After the Games he found a job with a program that formed part of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and was eventually hired by Shell Oil as a geological draftsman in their Long Beach office.

He began studying at night school and after eight years studies, graduated from Southern Cal, with a B.S. degree in geology and petroleum engineering. In 1952 he set up his own consultancy firm and went on to discover dozens of oil and gas fields in California. He was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and won many gymnastic events in California, although he never won a national title.