Charles Thomas McMillen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Olympic medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men's Basketball | |||
| Silver | Munich 1972 | Team Competition | |
Charles Thomas ("Tom") McMillen (b. May 26, 1952 in Elmira, New York), is a former professional basketball player, Rhodes Scholar, and U.S. Congressman who represented the 4th congressional district of Maryland from January 3, 1987 to January 3, 1993.
Prior to entering politics, McMillen was a star basketball player on all levels. In 1970, he was the number one high-school basketball player in the U.S. coming out of Mansfield, Pennsylvania, and was the biggest recruiting catch early in Coach Lefty Driesell's career at the University of Maryland, beating out rival Coach Dean Smith of the University of North Carolina for McMillen's services. McMillen was also a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team that lost the epic and controversial gold medal game to the Soviet Union. Some accounts of the team's meeting following the loss name McMillan as the only member of the team willing to accept the silver medal at the medal presentation ceremony. Ultimately, the team voted unanimously to refuse to accept the silver medal and when approached by the International Olympic Committee 30 years later, the result was the same - keep the medals. They still lay in a vault in Lausanne, Switzerland.
After graduating from Maryland in 1974, McMillen was drafted by the Buffalo Braves. During his NBA career, he would play for the Braves, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, and Washington Bullets before retiring in 1986 to pursue his political career.
He was elected to the U.S. Congress as a Democrat to represent Maryland's 4th district, and served from 1987-1993 as that district's representative. He was forced to run for Maryland's 1st congressional district in 1992, following changes in Maryland's apportionment map after the 1990 U.S. Census. Facing a strong challenge by then one-term Republican Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, the disadvantage of an unfamiliar rural district on the Eastern Shore of Maryland away from his suburban Washington, D.C. base and by revelations that one-third of his political action committee contributions were made by banking interests, McMillen lost the election to represent the 1st congressional district and left Congress.
After the September 11 attacks McMillen acquired many small business interests related to homeland security and consolidated them under a distressed video on demand engineering firm called Celerity Systems, which he renamed Homeland Security Capital Corp.
| Year | Office | Subject | Party | Votes | Pct | Opponent | Party | Votes | Pct | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Congress, District 1 | Tom McMillen | Democrat | 112,771 | 48.43 | Wayne Gilchrist | Republican | 120,084 | 51.57 | ||||||
| Preceded by: Marjorie Holt |
Representative of the Fourth Congressional District of Maryland 1987—1993 |
Succeeded by: Albert Wynn |
 |
This article about a Maryland politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia and WikiProject Maryland by expanding it. |
 |
This biographical article relating to a U.S. basketball player, coach, or other figure is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Categories: 1952 births | American basketball players | American Rhodes scholars | Atlanta Hawks players | Buffalo Braves players | Living people | Maryland Terrapins men's basketball players | Members of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland | New York Knicks players | Washington Bullets players | Sports figures in politics | Maryland politician stubs | United States basketball biography stubs
