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Olympic medal record
Men's Ice hockey
Silver 1920 Antwerp Team Competition

Roy D. Schooley (1880 - 1933) was a former treasurer for the City of Pittsburgh, as well as the founder of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets hockey club, which later became the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National Hockey League. In 1920, he assembled the first U.S. Olympic Hockey Team which won a silver medal in Antwerp, Belgium and is credited with helping to foster the growth of hockey in the United States. Schooley was also the brother-in-law of Harold Cotton of the Yellow Jackets-Pirates.

Biography[]

Hockey referee[]

Born in Welland, Ontario, Schooley became a nationalized citizen of the United States on September 27, 1912. He came to Pittsburgh in 1901 as an hockey referee and was viewed as an expert on the sport. He soon officiated many of the games played in the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League.


Hockey manager[]

After his career in politics, Schooley founded the Pittsburgh's amateur hockey team, the Yellow Jackets in 1915, and became the manager of the Duquesne Gardens. He also became secretary of the United States Amateur Hockey Association in 1916. Schooley's skills as the team's manager, brought the franchise International Championships in 1924 and 1925. The Yellow Jackets stopped playing when the United States Amateur Hockey Association folded at the end of the 1924–25 season. When Schooley encountered financial problems he sold the team to James F. Callahan, a lawyer from Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood. Callahan renamed the team the Pittsburgh Pirates, after the city's major league baseball team, and the team joined the National Hockey League in 1925.

In 1920, Schooley became the manager of the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. As manager of the Olympic squad, he had full power to select the players for the team. Three days before the team was to depart for Antwerp, Belgium to begin Olympic play, the Pittsburgh Post reported that Schooley had resigned as manager amid rumors of unspecified friction, which he denied. He cited a family illness as the reason. The team that Schooley built, won a silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.

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