NH Olympian Andy Sudduth dies at 44

Marion, Mass. – Olympic rower Andrew Sudduth, who grew up in Exeter, N.H., died of pancreatic cancer at his family's summer home. He was 44.

Sudduth, who also helped develop server technology that are used by many Internet providers, rowed on the eight-man team that won silver in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He rowed on eight national and Olympic teams in the 1980s and won medals four times at the World Rowing Championships. He also won singles sculling events in five separate Head of the Charles regattas.

"He was one of the best rowers in the United States and certainly one of the greatest Harvard oarsmen ever. He had quite an extraordinary record," Harvard men's rowing coach Harry Parker told The Boston Globe.

"He came to the sport with quite exceptional physical attributes. He was very, very powerful, had tremendous endurance, and also developed quite an exceptional skill at making boats go. You have to have all of those to succeed, and Andy did."

"He's physiologically a unique specimen," said Gregg Stone of Newton, a friend and former national champion. "He also just had a single-mindedness, a real ability to focus on the task at hand."

Friends said he brought the same passion to his computer work. He set the computer network for his junior high school in Exeter in the 1970s. While working in a Harvard computer lab in 1988, he was the first person to send out a major warning when an Internet worm hit.

"He was technically one of the most brilliant people I ever worked with," said Brian Shorey, a friend who was Mr. Sudduth's boss at Cisco Systems Inc., where he worked until recently. "His mind went a mile a minute and it was tough to keep up with him."

Sudduth was born in Baltimore and grew up in Exeter. He began rowing at Philips Exeter Academy, where he was also known as a practical joker.

"He was Mr. Mischief," said his former wife, Saiya Remmler, of Lexington. "His middle name was mischief."

He also taught science and math to the couple's young daughters, Zoe and Sophie, at an early age, she said.

When Zoe was in first grade, Mr. Sudduth explained how to figure out the mean arrival time of the other pupils by keeping track of when they entered the classroom, she said.

"He was very playful with the kids," Remmler said. "He never missed an opportunity to teach them or ask really stimulating questions about science or nature."

Sudduth was diagnosed with cancer last fall and remarried in January.

"Being with Andy is like being with a lighthouse," said his wife, Ruth Kennedy. "When he's focused on you, the light is so brilliant. And when he's not, it's so dark because his focus was utter."Sudduth is survived by his wife; daughters; two brothers; his mother, Sharlie Sudduth of Marion; his father and stepmother, S. Scott and Gail of Newfields, N.H.; and a sister, Jennifer Sudduth Walsh of Newton.A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on July 28 in Wickenden Chapel at Tabor Academy in Marion.