Early Life
Cann was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, into a family of accomplished sportsmen. His father, Frank Cann, was the director of physical education at New York University (NYU), which both Tedford and his older brother Howard Cann attended. Howard was an Olympic shot putter, a college basketball and football player, and the NYU men's basketball coach for 35 years.
Cann's swimming career began while he was still a teenager. He attended the High School of Commerce in New York City where he was Captain of the Basketball and Swimming Teams and competed in the New York Championships. Like his older brother he became a member of the Epsilon Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. At age 17 he defeated Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, an event which he later declared was a greater thrill than being awarded the Medal of Honor. While a student at New York University, Cann also excelled in track and field, basketball, and football, where he played halfback as well as becoming a member of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta.
Read more about this topic: Tedford H. Cann
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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