[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 20, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN TRIBUTE TO JOAN LIND VAN BLOM

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALAN S. LOWENTHAL

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 20, 2016

  Mr. LOWENTHAL. Mr. Speaker, in every sport, in every art, in every 
field of human endeavor, there are figures that impact history so 
deeply that the future is reshaped forever.
   They are icons, pioneers, and trailblazers.
   Joan Lind Van Blom belongs among this pantheon.
   A graduate of Wilson High School and California State Long Beach, 
Joan is widely considered the greatest American female athlete to have 
ever competed in the sport of rowing.
   Joan was a trailblazer, paving the way for women in the U.S. to 
compete on the international rowing stage.
   During her rowing career, she was the top single sculler in America 
for nearly a decade and won 14 national titles.
   In 1976, she won a silver medal in the XXI Summer Games in Montreal, 
Canada, becoming the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic medal in 
rowing. Four years later, again a member of the U.S. Olympic team, she 
was the favorite to win the gold in Moscow, but the U.S. delegation 
boycotted the Moscow Games. In the XXIII Summer Games in Los Angeles in 
1984 she returned to the medal stand earning a silver medal.
   The same year she married coach, former Olympian, and National 
Rowing Hall of Famer John Van Blom, and for the last three decades the 
pair have enjoyed the title of the First Couple of Rowing.
   She went on to be inducted in the Wilson High, Cal State Long Beach, 
Century Club, and National Rowing halls of fame. Joan still holds 11 
indoor rowing world records.
   Joan also served the Long Beach Unified School District for over 
three decades, 25 years of that as a teacher and then another decade as 
the district's first physical education curriculum leader. She was 
instrumental in winning a million-dollar grant to put rowing machines 
in each of LBUSD's nine high schools.
   In 2014 she was given the prestigious Ernestine Bayer Award for her 
deep contributions to the entire sport of rowing.
   One year ago she passed away in her Long Beach home at the age of 
62.
   Her smile and joy of life served as a beacon, drawing people from 
her past back to her, and her husband John said the last two years 
while Joan battled brain cancer were filled with reconnections and 
reunions with people from throughout their life.
   In addition to her husband John, Joan is also survived by son John 
Jr. and her sisters, Loretta Madsen and Carol Hansen.

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