Harvard NCAA champs Jesse Jantzen and John HarknessJohn Harkness, noted architect and first NCAA wrestling champ for Harvard University, died in late November 2016, just two days shy of his 100th birthday.
The Boston Globe reported in January 2017 that Harkness died in his sleep in his home in Maine on the evening of Nov. 28, two days before he would have turned 100. Family and friends had gathered a couple of days earlier to celebrate his birthday.
InterMat was alerted to Harkness' passing by Josh Henson, fellow Harvard graduate and former Crimson wrestler. Josh Henson is also a nephew of Stanley Henson, three-time NCAA champ for Oklahoma State in the late 1930s, who like Harkness had been born on November 30, 1916, making them the two oldest NCAA champs.
Harkness won the 175-pound title at the 1938 NCAAs at Penn State, defeating Swede Olsen of Southwest Teachers College in Oklahoma in the finals. He remained the only Crimson national champ for 66 years until Jesse Jantzen won the 149-pound crown at the 2004 NCAAs. Harkness was in St. Louis to witness Jantzen winning the title.
The same year Harkness won the national title, the Crimson captain also claimed the EIWA (Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) title, and named the EIWA's Most Outstanding Wrestler at the 1938 championships. Harkness was welcomed into the EIWA Hall of Fame in 2009.
Beyond wrestling, Harkness was a highly respected architect, the last surviving founder of The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a major architecture firm based in Cambridge, Mass. that designed significant structures around the world during its 50-year history immediately after World War II. Among their most famous works included the Pan Am Building (now MetLife) in midtown Manhattan, CIGNA insurance company headquarters in Connecticut, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building in Boston, and the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece. Although most of The Architects Collaborative work was in the northeast U.S., they also designed a number of school and university buildings throughout the world, including the Harvard Graduate School, Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and the university's athletics facilities on Soldiers Field Road, as well as the University of Baghdad, and two school buildings in Columbus, Ind.
The key word in the firm's name was collaborative. "That concept of collaboration, which was new in the profession, really was transporting," Howard Elkus of Elkus Manfredi Architects in Boston, who formerly worked at The Architects Collaborative, told the Boston Globe.
"He was a monumental figure," said Michael Gebhart of Michael Francis Gebhart Architects, who also had worked at TAC. Collaboration wasn't confined to the office and spilled into lunches at the Casablanca restaurant in Cambridge, where Mr. Harkness might snatch a pencil from a dining companion and sketch ideas on a napkin or anything else handy, including the bottom of a plate. "If we disagreed on a design issue," Gebhart recalled, "we would fake arm wrestle and he would always win."
Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell wrote in 1995, when the firm closed after 50 years. "Numerous other firms were started by architects who'd learned the ropes at TAC."
John Cheesman "Chip" Harkness was born in New York City on Nov. 30, 1916. His father, Albert, was an architect. Mr. Harkness was 4 when his mother, the former Sara Arden Cheesman, died while giving birth to his younger brother, Livingston, who died a few days later. John Harkness, his brother, Albert, and their father moved their all-male household to Providence, R.I.
Harkness was introduced to wrestling at Milton Academy, and continued in the sport at Harvard when he wasn't studying architecture. He graduated with a bachelor's in the subject in 1938 and a master's in 1941.
In 1942, Harkness received his draft notice to serve in World War II. Harkness registered as a conscientious objector and drove ambulances for the American Field Service, including during battles in Italy.
"The main thing about him is that he was very competitive, but he was also a pacifist," his son Fred told the Boston Globe.
Over the years there were reports that Harkness would make pilgrimages to the Harvard wrestling room.
With Harkness' passing, Stanley Henson -- who won three consecutive NCAA titles in 1936-1938 -- is now the oldest living NCAA wrestling champ.
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