William L. DODGE

In addition to his bronze medal at the Olympics, Bill Dodge also won the North American 2-man championship, sledding with Steve Phillips. Dodge attended the Penn Charter and Montgomery Schools near Philadelphia, and was then a 1950 graduate of Yale. At prep school he played football, rowed crew, and captained the wrestling team. Dodge served in World War II as a Seabee in the Pacific, fighting Guam and at Guadalcanal.

After college graduation Dodge traveled through Europe and on a photographic safari of Africa. He then started work at Scott Paper Company in New York, but for most of his life he worked as an independent inventor of children’s games and toys. Among his inventions were ReacTrac, an action game consisting of a three-dimensional labyrinth with a rolling ball; Daffy Drops, which used Rorschach-like inkblots in bright colors to make pictures; Hop and Stomp, a game with suction cups to put on the shoes for hopping and stomping on numbers on the floor; a board game called Nile; and Flip the Clown, a clown on a trapeze.