Duncan McNaughton

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Duncan Anderson McNaughton (December 7, 1910 – January 15, 1998) was a Canadian athlete who specialized in the high jump. He was born in Cornwall, Ontario, and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In 1930, he competed at the British Empire Games and finished fourth in the high jump. His biggest moment came at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where he won the gold medal for Canada in the high jump. His USC teammate and close friend Bob Van Osdel won the silver, and Van Osdel even helped coach McNaughton in the final moments of the event. A notable anecdote from that era is that McNaughton’s medal was stolen from his car in 1933, and Van Osdel, who had become a dentist, made a replica to replace it. The two remained friends for life.

After his athletic career, McNaughton studied geology at the University of Southern California, where he earned a PhD and later served as an assistant professor of geology. He also earned a Master’s degree from the California Institute of Technology. He worked for the Geological Survey of Canada and explored for oil in South America. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

McNaughton later helped start oil and gas exploration in the Amadeus Basin in central Australia and in Palm Valley in the Northern Territory. He died in Austin, Texas, in 1998 at the age of 87.

Honors include induction into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1955. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists also established an annual grant in his name to support a graduate student.