Celebrating the Birthday of our Founder, the man who lived the most amazing life ~ Buck Dawson
Born on Halloween, which was appropriate if you knew him, in the year 1920, the founder of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, William Forrest “Buck” Dawson came into the world in Orange, New Jersey. Known as “Mr. Swimming Hall of Fame,” it was Buck’s tireless efforts that established the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s presence in Fort Lauderdale, helping give rise to what many view as Fort Lauderdale—Swimming Capital of the World. For a person who could not swim, Buck did more for swimming than any non-swimmer in the world. He was a promoter, author, historian, fundraiser and prankster.
Dawson first got involved in swimming after his marriage to RoseMary Mann Dawson, daughter of University of Michigan’s Matt Mann, 1952 U.S. Olympic Swimming Coach. RoseMary coached swimming at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale for over 15 years.
He was chosen as the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s first executive director in 1963 after helping Fort Lauderdale win the host city bid at the National AAU Convention in Detroit. With the help of Fort Lauderdale pioneer G. Harold Martin, who wrote the Hall’s Charter, Dawson made the Hall grow from an idea to a shoebox collection and ultimately a million-dollar operation as the showcase and archives of swimming. A tireless, smiling, globetrotting ambassador of swimming, he can be credited with helping attract thousands of athletes, fans and press alike who flocked to Fort Lauderdale for sun, fun and swimming. Visiting college swim teams training at the Hall of Fame spread the word up North that resulted in Fort Lauderdale’s annual Spring Break.
It was Dawson who urged the YMCA in 1972 to bring their National Championships to Fort Lauderdale which is now is the largest annual National swimming event in numbers of athletes and spectators in the country. The FINA International Diving Grand Prix, nationally televised for most of the past 30+ years, is a Dawson creation, as is the 45th Annual Fort Lauderdale Rough Water Swim, formerly International Swimming Hall of Fame Ocean Mile and Galt Ocean Mile Swims, and now the longest-running ocean mile swim on the eastern coast of the United States.
At one time or another, he brought the U.S. National Championships of swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo to Fort Lauderdale. It was Dawson who gave the now Fort Lauderdale-based American Swimming Coaches Association roots in 1971 when he and Hall of Fame staff assumed administrative duties for ASCA.
Dawson was the first president of the International Sports Heritage Association, now a 150+ member organization of Sports Halls of Fame which he founded under the name of International Association of Sports Museums and Halls of Fame. His first meeting in Fort Lauderdale in 1971 had only two other organizations in attendance—the Hockey Hall of Fame of Canada and the Canadian Aquatic Hall of Fame. Under Dawson’s leadership, ISHOF became the world’s first “International” Hall of Fame when it was recognized by the 96 member FINA Congress (the world’s governing body of swimming) in 1968. ISHOF was also the first Hall of Fame to have the “field of play,” the swimming pool, on site.
Dawson traveled throughout the year from meet to meet armed with Fort Lauderdale and Hall of Fame brochures, books and bumper stickers, always spreading the word, always willing to talk and teach swimming to anyone who would listen. As swimming’s walking encyclopedia, he was respected in his field not only for his knowledge, but his zest for life, his search for new facts, memorabilia, new ways to teach children to swim and keep the sport alive and growing. Dawson was the link between the age group swimmers and swimming’s legends. He brought Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller to Fort Lauderdale for six years as ISHOF’s Chairman of the Board. Buster Crabbe, Eleanor Holm and Esther Williams were regulars. Dawson was the common denominator that tied the past to the present.
He was born in the same hospital room that produced swimming greats Bill Simon (USOC and ISHOF President), Ginny Duenkel (Olympic Swimming Champion), and Fort Lauderdale’s Alice and Dick Kempthorne of ISHOF and US Swimming Fame, Buck was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Dawson of Easton, PA. His father was President of Dixie Cup Company (and later went on to head the “Keep America Beautiful” Campaign) while Buck attended prep school at Blair Academy (NJ) where he was an all-state track captain and a state champion halfback on Blair’s undefeated football team. His sports talent continued at the University of Michigan and included freshman football and running on the track team where his 880-yard relay team set an indoor world best time. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta. He was elected to Michigauma, the senior honor society, and was managing editor of the Michigan Ensian Yearbook in 1948, his senior year. He completely re-organized the book from cover to cover, and his writing career took off where in the next 55 years he wrote hundreds of short stories and authored or co-authored over 18 books on a full range of subjects from swimming, volcanoes and the environment, the American Civil War and World War II. He received Michigan’s prestigious Hopwood Prize for Writing. Some of his books include A Civil War Artist From the Front (the work of Edwin Forbes, combat artist), When the Earth Explodes, Michigan Ensian (50 year history of Michigan Athletics), All About Dryland Exercises For Swimmers, Weissmuller to Spitz—An Era to Remember (Swimming Hall of Famers from 1965-1987), Age Group Swimming and Diving For Teacher and Pupil (with wife RoseMary), Million Dollar Mermaids—America’s Love Affair With Its First Women Swimmers, Gold Medal Pools (features the world’s most beautiful pools), We Don’t Sew Beads on Belts (a 500 page scrapbook of memories of Camps Chikopi and Ak-O-Mak) and Stand Up and Hook Up (his diary as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne).
Dawson was a combat platoon leader and glider trooper with Co. E, 235 GIR, Division Reconnaissance and Division Headquarters. He is a recipient of 17 decorations including the Bronze Star and French Medal of Honor. He landed at Nijmegen, Holland, on September 17, 1944, in Operations Market Garden, participated in the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Siegfried Line, crossing the Elbe River and meeting the Russians at Grabow, Northern Germany. He also occupied Berlin, in charge of press relations for General James Gavin and the 82nd Division. Among his duties were to escort Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman through the city, to report the progress of the troops. In the process, he befriended Dietrich, serving as the liaison between her and her mother in occupied Berlin. He tried to impress Bergman by jumping off Hitler’s balcony when asked how Hitler may have escaped the raids.
After the New York Victory Parade down Broadway, he wrote the Saga of the All American, the official history of the 82nd Airborne, a task assigned to him in England by General Matthew Ridgeway. His previous service with the 10th Mountain Division Ski Troops had given experience to handle deep snow in Ardennes Patrol. He returned to service during the Korean War as the public information officer for Army Air Support Center, publicity officer for National Army and Air Force Recruiting. He was a writer for Admiral Carney’s NATO command of southern Europe and editor of the Jayhawk (newspaper) for General Gavin’s V Corps, Germany. He spent his last Army year in Walter Reed Hospital recovering from multiple injuries suffered in a jeep accident. He was discharged from the hospital wearing a black eye patch over his left eye, a patch which became his identification mark for the rest of his life. He was a special assistant to the Director of the Peace Corp in the early 1970’s.
After the war, Dawson returned to Ann Arbor to complete his BA under the GI Bill, focusing his energy on Michigan’s Ensign Yearbook. As yearbook editor in 1948, Dawson traveled with Michigan’s first football team since 1902 to compete in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Marlene Dietrich and director Billy Wilder were there to greet Dawson as he was hoping for a break into the movies, which because of the rise of television, never materialized. A $100 bet with Humphrey Bogart on a Dawson declared score of 50-0 horrified Dawson when Michigan only won by a 49-0 score. He wondered how he would come up with the money to pay movies’ toughest guy. On the set of Foreign Affair, Wilder was the one to say, “Don’t worry about it with only a one-point difference.”
His 1955 marriage to RoseMary Mann Corson, a widow with three children, was his invitation to join the Mann family camps Ak-o-Mak (for girls) and Chikopi (for boys), the world’s first competitive swimming camps and located in Ontario, Canada, founded by RoseMary’s father, Michigan and Olympic swimming coach Matt Mann in 1920. Dawson was the campfire entertainment, sports teacher and instigator while RoseMary was the swimming coach, disciplinarian and philosopher—a perfect combination of talent. Dawson was all outdoorsman, a sportsman, the kind of guy you can get lost in the woods with and laugh your head off before he finds your way back. Campers still tell “Buck the Hero” stories.
Dawson’s interest in lake swimming led to his training swimmers for marathon swimming races and included Marty Sinn, Susie Thrasher, Jocelyn Muir and more, taking them on crossings of the English Channel, Lake Ontario and other bodies of water. The camp girls (and boys) competed in the U.S. Long Distance Championship Three- and Four-Mile Swims, each summer usually held in Huntington, Indiana. His competitive spirit flowed into all that Dawson did at Ak-O-Mak and Chikopi including the inter-camp softball and soccer competitions—boys against girls. In his later camp years, Dawson was a storyteller, a cheerleader and biggest booster. With his PR mind, he took Matt Mann’s words and put them to work—”We Don’t Sew Beads on Belts,” meaning camp is all action, all activity.
With Rosemary, he helped organize the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Swim Club in the late 1950’s, one of the country’s first swimming clubs for women. He was Chair of Michigan Women’s AAU Swimming for eight years and served three terms on the United States Olympic Swimming Committee. He shared responsibility with RoseMary in starting National Collegiate Swimming for women and reviving National Women’s Water Polo in the early 1960’s.
Dawson followed RoseMary from Ann Arbor to London, Ontario in 1963, when she became the first women’s coach of any sport at the University of Western Ontario. Then it was RoseMary’s turn to follow Buck the next year to Fort Lauderdale when Buck opened the International Swimming Hall of Fame. By now they had four children, three daughters and one son. Connie was an outstanding women’s swim coach. Marilyn made two Canadian Olympic swim teams winning a bronze medal in 1968 (4x100m freestyle) and serving as team captain in 1972. She won four Pan American and two Commonwealth Games medals. Marci and Bruce were outstanding high school swimmers. Marci pre-deceased her parents.
Dawson was hype, show business, a collector, historian, dog trainer, fund raiser and ladies man. But most of all, he always got his kicks out of promoting somebody or something he believed in: General Ridgeway, General Gavin, the 82nd Airborne, Camps Ak-O-Mak and Chikopi, the University of Michigan, his wife, children, father-in-law, and ultimately the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
A 45-year resident of Fort Lauderdale, Dawson was honored as Fort Lauderdale Distinguished Citizen of the Year in 1987, for his many contributions to the City. Under his leadership, the ISHOF became the center of activity on the beach and the anchor for beach revitalization in the 1990’s. He received many honorary awards including the Wilbert E. Longfellow Commodore and Golden Whale for the promotion of water safety; the R. Max Ritter Award, the highest honor bestowed by U.S.A swimming; the W.R. “Bill” Schroeder Award, the most prestigious award from the International Sports Heritage Association; the Joseph G. Rogers Award, the National YMCA’s Grand Award; and the Davids/Wheeler Award for Meritorious Service to Long Distance Swimming. He was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame as a coach/contributor and into his own International Swimming Hall of Fame as a contributor following retirement in 1986. The International Swimming Hall of Fame recently announced the Buck Dawson Annual Author’s Award presented to the author of an inspiring book related to swimming.
There will never be another Buck Dawson.
Paul Asmuth to receive 2026 Poseidon Award
FORT LAUDERDALE –
The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) is proud to announce Paul Asmuth, of the United States of America, as this year’s recipient of the 2026 Poseidon Award for her incredible achievements in marathon swimming. The award will be presented to Asmuth during the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (IMSHOF) Induction and Award Ceremony on Saturday May 16th, 2025, in San Diego. The Poseidon Award, presented annually by the International Swimming Hall of Fame, recognizes outstanding contributions to marathon swimming. This award honors individuals or organizations that have significantly advanced the sport of Marathon swimming through their personal efforts or initiatives.
This year’s award honors Paul Asmuth who finished 55 professional marathon swimming races from 1980 to 2004, winning a record 18 Majors. During this time, he won seven World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation Championship titles. He completed the English Channel three times – setting the male speed record in 1985. His longest race/swim was the 64 km double crossing of Lac St. Jean in a speed record of 17:06 in 1989. He also won the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, 37 km Around the Island marathon swim in Atlantic City 8 times, 42 km La Traversee du Lac Memphremagog 6 times, and 36 km Capri-Naples 3 times.
Paul raced in oceans, lakes, seas, back bays, and rivers with temperatures ranging between 13 C and 30 C (53F to 86F). He was the first to swim the 38.6 km Sound between Nantucket and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
From 2006 to 2012, Paul advised and coached the USA open water national team including at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics. During this period, he contributed his knowledge and experience to help pool swimmers become open water World Champions/Medalists and an Olympic silver medalist.
Paul was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 1982 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010.
For additional information, please call Ned Denison in Ireland at (+353) 87-987-1573 or ISHOF at (+1954) 462-6536, or visit http://www.ishof.org
2026 marks the 100th year anniversary of Honoree Gertrude Ederle’s English Channel Crossing ~ Get your sticker!!
From the International Swimming Hall of Fame:
Marathon 2026 will mark the 100th year anniversary of Honoree Gertrude Ederle’s English Channel crossing.
The first woman and she set the overall speed record! In an era when women we not supposed to do sports – her swim changed perceptions and opened up sporting opportunities for women.
IMSHOF will produce decals (see picture) for the attendees at the Class of 2026 Induction & Award Ceremony in San Diego on 16th May 2026.
We encourage any other individuals/organizations to contact us (info@imshof.org) to get the full print version – and arrange to get a stack for you local club/event – or even sell. When ordering you might want 2 types (stick on – example a computer top and stick behind – example on the inside of a car window to show outside).
Display with pride
Buck Dawson and Bob Duenkel visiting with Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle at her New York home on her 88th birthday.
Pioneer in Women’s Swimming and 1967 ISHOF Honoree ~ Fanny Durack was born today in 1889
by John Lohn
Aussie Fanny Durack a Pioneer in Olympic Women’s Swimming As The First Champion
On October 27, 1889, Australian Swimming Pioneer, Fanny Durack was born in Sydney, Australia. Durack became the first female Olympic swimming champion at the Stockholm Olympic Games in the 100m freestyle, on July 12, 1912.
When the Olympic Games returned to Tokyo in 2021, one of the highlights was a swimming schedule that was identical for men and women, the 1500 freestyle added for the ladies and the 800 freestyle added to the program for the gentlemen. But the first four editions of swimming at the Modern Olympics did not feature equality, women were not involved until 1912, at which point Fanny Durack made a major splash.
Not long after Hungarian Alfred Hajos became the first Olympic swimming champion, winning the gold medal in the 100 freestyle at the 1896 Games in Athens, Australia’s Sarah “Fanny” Durack developed the urge to learn to swim. It wasn’t that Durack, a youngster at the time, was inspired by Hajos’ efforts, or the performances by any other male swimmer.
Rather, Durack’s desire to swim was triggered out of necessity and in the pursuit of peace of mind. While on vacation as a 9-year-old, Durack struggled with the surf in her native land, and it was that experience which convinced her to become water safe. It was a decision which made Durack swimming’s first female superstar.
From 1896, when the first Modern Games were held in the birthplace of the Ancient Olympics, through 1908, only men were allowed to compete in swimming at the Olympics. During that time, the likes of Hajos, American Charles Daniels, Great Britain’s Henry Taylor and Hungary’s Zoltan Halmay emerged as the sport’s standouts.
It wasn’t like women were banned from the Olympics altogether during that stretch of time, as female athletes competed in events such as sailing, tennis and equestrian as early as the 1900 Games in Paris. Swimming, though, didn’t create a coed program until the 1912 Games, which were held in Stockholm, Sweden.
When it was announced women would be invited to compete in Stockholm, some countries jumped at the opportunity while others were disinterested. Only 27 women took part in the two swimming events, the 100 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay, with host Sweden and Great Britain sending six athletes each. Australia sent two swimmers, Durack and Mina Wylie, while the United States opted to send no women, despite fielding a team of seven men.
Belle Moore, Jennie Fletcher, a team chaperone, Annie Speirs and Irene Steer at Stockholm 1912 – Photo Courtesy: ISHOF
While Durack had put together an impressive career, Wylie actually held the upper hand over her countrywoman in the leadup to the 1912 Games. Wylie beat Durack on several occasions at the Australian Championships and was considered a gold-medal favorite as much as Durack, who had the higher profile.
Getting to the Olympics, however, proved to be an issue for Durack and Wylie, with politics playing a role. Considering the role politics have played throughout the history of the Olympic Games, maybe it was fitting Durack and Wylie had to play a waiting game.
“The Aussie men in charge of selecting the team for the 1912 Games declared that it was a waste of time and money to send women to Sweden,” wrote Craig Lord in an article for the former SwimVortex website.
“The rule book didn’t help, either. The New South Wales Ladies’ Amateur Swimming Association regulations held that no women could compete at events where men were present. A public outcry resulted in a vote and rule change at the association and Durack and Wylie were allowed to make the journey to Europe – provided they paid for themselves. The wife of Hugh McIntosh, a sporting and theatrical entrepreneur and newspaper proprietor, launched a successful appeal for funds and with money donated by the public, family and friends, Durack sailed for Sweden via London, where she was reported to have trained half a mile a day.”
The competition pool was hardly high-tech in nature, constructed in Stockholm Harbor and consisting of salt water. But Durack wasn’t derailed by the conditions. Representing Australasia, a combined team from Australia and New Zealand, Durack opened her Olympic career in grand fashion, setting a world record of 1:19.8 during qualifying heats of the 100 freestyle. She followed by winning her semifinal easily, and then captured the gold medal with a time of 1:22.2, more than three seconds quicker than Wylie.
To read Sarah “Fanny” Durack’s Honoree bio, click here: https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-fanny-durack/
ISHOF Seeking Nominations for the 2026 ISHOF Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal (formerly Paragon Awards)
ISHOF seeks nominations for the 2026 ISHOF Aquatic Awards presented by AquaCal
The International Swimming Hall of Fame announces the call for nominations for the 2026 ISHOF Aquatic Awards to be presented at the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Honoree Induction weekend, which will be held in Fort Lauderdale, date TBD. Sponsored by AquaCal, the awards are presented each year for outstanding contributions and leadership in several swimming and aquatic-related categories.
Candidates may be nominated for the Aquatic Awards in the following categories:
Competitive Swimming
Competitive Diving
Competitive Synchronized Swimming
Competitive Water Polo
Aquatic Safety
Recreational Swimming
Kindly submit your nominees by December 1, 2025. Please include any relevant data to support your nomination, the aquatic category for nomination, as well as a brief biography of each individual, a high-resolution image and their current contact information.
Get more information about the event and see the 2025 winners: https://ishof.org/the-ishof-aquatic-awards-presented-by-aquacal-show-the-very-best-our-sports-have-to-offer/
Nominations may be sent to:
Meg Keller-Marrvin
International Swimming Hall of Fame
e-mail: meg@ishof.org
(570) 594.4367
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Butterflyers ~ Who’s the Best? Play along in our “Name your favorite “Flyer” CONTEST and WIN a PRIZE !!
Honoree Mary T. Meagher bio: https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-mary-meagher/
Since its inception in 1965, the International Swimming Hall of Fame has inducted 338 Swimmers from 28 different nations from around the globe. They all had their own specialized stroke. Some had more than one. Today, we are going to focus on the BUTTERFLY swimmers.
From the early days of the fly with names like Mike Troy, (USA) Kevin Berry (AUS), Mary T. to Matt Biondi (USA), Pablo Morales (USA), Susie O’Neill (AUS), Craig Beardsley (USA) to Michael Phelps and Joseph Schooling (SGP) to today’s Gretchen Walsh!
Who is your favorite Flyer? Name your FAVORITE BUTTERFLY SWIMMER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION ALONG WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS for a chance to win a prize from ISHOF.
Share it onto your social media page and you get two chances to win!
Honoree Joseph Schooling https://ishof.org/honoree/joseph-schooling/
Honoree Kevin Berry https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-kevin-berry/
Susan O’Neill https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-susan-oneill/
Aussie Swim Queen Ariarne Titmus Calls Time On Glittering Career: Retires From Swimming At Age 25
by Ian Hanson – Oceania Correspondent
15 October 2025, 03:42pm
Aussie swim queen Ariarne Titmus (OAM) has officially announced her retirement from all levels of swimming.
The four-time Olympic gold medallist and current 200m world record holder hangs up her suit after a staggering haul of 33 international medals including eight Olympic medals (four gold; three silver and one bronze); nine World Championship medals (four gold; two silver and three bronze) and eight Commonwealth Games medals (seven gold and one bronze).
The 25-year-old, dubbed “Arnie The Terminator” after her breakthrough Olympic performance in Tokyo, retires as one of the greatest distance swimmers of all time.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Titmus achieved an historic third individual Olympic gold medal, defending her 400m freestyle title in “The Race Of The Century’, where she defeated the other two previous world record holders of this event – American all-time great Katie Ledecky, and Canadian swimming prodigy Summer McIntosh.
In doing so, Titmus became the first Australian athlete since Dawn Fraser in 1964, to win back-to-back gold medals in the same event.
Born and bred in Tasmania, whose family left “The Apple Isle” to give their daughter an opportunity to pursue her swimming dreams, unearthing a phenomena who chased those dreams with coach Dean Boxall at the Brisbane-based St Peters Western Swim Club program in Indooroopilly – her “leave no stone unturned and all or nothing” attitude saw her conquer the mountain time and time again.
In a tell-all and at times emotional retirement interview, “Arnie” gives a thought provoking insight into the little girl who left Tasmania to set her sights on Olympic gold – something she admits was probably out of her reach..but the goal to be the best and to chase Katie Ledecky “The GOAT” who she praises for her pursuits…and reveals the toll of her health scare and a what’s next in a life about to re-start at aged 25.
What a true champion you have been both in and out of the pool Arnie…………..Thanks for the memories !
Brief career snapshot below:
Ariarne Titmus: Dolphin #778
Four-time Olympic gold medallist
Two-time Olympian
Reigning Olympic champion in the women’s 400m
Current 200m freestyle world record holder (1:52.23)
At 2024 Australian Selection Trials, Titmus become the first Australian woman since Shane Gould in 1972 to concurrently hold the 200m and 400m free world records
Member of the 4x200m freestyle team that holds the world record.
At the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games became the second swimmer to claim the 200, 400 and 800m freestyle treble at a Commonwealth Games – all in Games records.
Nominated for the 2025 Laureus World Comeback of the Year award for her performance at the 2024 Olympics after recovering from a surgery to remove an ovarian tumour
Photos Courtesy Delly Carr Swimming Australia
How to Build Trust In Leadership And Reduce Burnout – Alain Hunkins for Forbes speaks to ISHOF Chariman and Horner CEO Dr. Bill Kent
Contributor. Alain Hunkins writes about leadership strategy that you can apply.
Most CEOs talk about company culture, but few truly build trust in leadership. Dr. Bill Kent built a company culture so strong that it won a national award from the American Psychological Association (APA).
At Team Horner, a $350 million employee-owned pool-supply company in Florida, culture isn’t a slogan in an Annual Report. Culture lives and breathes in daily experience. From on-site fitness classes to a wellness committee made up entirely of frontline staff and a quiet room for decompressing, at Team Horner, these aren’t perks, they’re signs of a company that truly cares. That commitment earned Team Horner the APA’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace award, placing it in the same conversation as American Express.
For Kent, CEO of Team Horner since 1972, and now in his eighties, wellness isn’t a checkbox: It’s about performance. “If employees are energized about coming to work, they’ll give their best,” he says.
When Culture Starts with Quiet Rooms
Long before ‘well-being’ and ‘wellness’ became HR buzzwords, Kent’s team launched Color Me Healthy, an initiative born from the bottom-up. Team Horner convened its first well-being committee that had only one rule: No managers allowed. The committee’s first request? A quiet room where employees could step away from stress. Kent didn’t overthink it: he approved the space immediately. That humble beginning sparked a broader culture shift. Today, Team Horner invests roughly $300,000–$400,000 annually in wellness, including gyms, personal trainers, and even scholarships for employees’ children.
While such perks sound great, it turns out that wellness alone doesn’t create a psychologically healthy workplace. It takes trust. At Team Horner, that trust was built on Kent’s decades-long practice of treating employees as partners in success.
When Shared Fate Drives Trust and Resilience
Kent took on the top job at Team Horner over fifty years ago. From the start, he believed partnership had to be more than a slogan. “Profit-sharing started in the 1970s. The Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) came in 2016,” he said. That shared ownership mindset became the backbone of the company’s culture, and the reason it survived when times got tough.
When the 2008 recession hit, Team Horner was already feeling the impact of the broader economic downturn. Between 2006 and 2008, headcount had dropped from roughly 400 to 290 employees, a level Kent described as the company’s “point of dysfunctionality.” Even after those painful cuts, the business was still losing close to $2 million a year. With survival on the line, Kent made the hardest decision of his career: a company-wide wage reduction.
“It directly impacted the lives of all our teammates and their families,” he recalls. “But not doing it would have endangered the company’s future.”
What happened next spoke volumes about the trust Kent had built. Instead of anger, employees responded with understanding and even gratitude. They knew the reasoning, the numbers, and the stakes. That shared transparency turned a moment of crisis into a moment of cohesion, setting the foundation for Team Horner’s recovery and long-term success.
This Isn’t Just Feel-Good: It’s Smart Business
Science backs Kent’s instincts. A landmark study from MIT Sloan tracked nearly one million U.S. Army soldiers over five years. Those with the highest well-being (happy, resilient, optimistic) earned significantly more performance awards than others. Well-being, the research concluded, predicts high performance.
Johnson & Johnson quantified the return of well-being: $250 million saved in healthcare costs between 2002 and 2008, with a staggering $2.71 back for every dollar spent on wellness programs. Meanwhile, a June 2025 Harvard Business Review analysis found that employees experiencing high stress file 2.5 times more health claims than their less-stressed peers. Mental health isn’t an HR problem. It’s a financial one.
On a global scale, the cost of burnout is staggering. Another HBR study found that 12 billion workdays are lost annually due to depression and anxiety. Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2025 report paints an equally sobering picture. Over one-third of women (36%) say their stress levels are higher than a year ago, and just over half (51%) rate their mental health as good or extremely good. Yet only 43% feel they receive adequate mental health support from their employer, and nearly 90% believe their manager would think negatively of them if they disclosed mental health challenges. Gallup estimates lost productivity from disengagement and stress at nearly $8.8 trillion globally each year. The math is clear: ignoring well-being erodes both morale and the bottom line.
At Team Horner, their investment in well-being has paid off in more than goodwill. Internal engagement surveys show higher satisfaction and lower turnover than industry averages, and leaders report fewer stress-related absences than a decade ago. This results in a culture that not only builds trust, but actively buffers against burnout.
Avoiding “Wellness Theater” Builds Trust in Leadership
Despite these truths, many programs miss the mark. HBR has warned that workplace wellness often fails when it’s superficial, tokenistic, or devoid of authentic leadership support. A mindfulness voucher or a health webinar can feel hollow if not grounded in a culture of psychological safety.
This is where Team Horner stands apart. Their wellness culture wasn’t tacked on. It was woven in. The wellness committee was employee-led. The quiet room came from a genuine request. Profit-sharing and ownership weren’t symbolic, but built together over decades. Kent’s leadership wasn’t performative. It was real.
A Playbook for Building Trust in Leadership
Kent’s story offers a practical roadmap for executives who want to embed well-being, not as a perk, but as part of performance infrastructure.
Ask employees first.Get input directly from employees before designing solutions. Team Horner’s wellness journey began with one small question: What would help you manage stress at work? The quiet room that resulted became a cultural catalyst. Leaders often assume they know what employees need. The real power lies in asking, listening, and acting quickly on small, concrete requests.
Invest with intention.Treat wellness as essential infrastructure, not a discretionary expense. Team Horner allocates roughly $300,000–$400,000 a year to initiatives ranging from on-site fitness to scholarships for employees’ children. That consistency signals seriousness. Research from McKinsey shows that well-being investments that are visible, sustained, and integrated into strategy tend to improve productivity, retain talent, reduce absenteeism, and strengthen employee engagement over time.
Align incentives.Culture gains traction when people share in the upside. Team Horner’s profit-sharing plan and ESOP ownership structure give every employee a stake in results. Ownership creates accountability and pride, two forces that reinforce trust far more effectively than slogans. “When people think like owners, they act like owners,” Kent says. “That’s when culture starts to sustain itself.”
Crunch the numbers.Well-being has a measurable ROI. Multiple studies consistently link lower stress to higher engagement, retention, and profitability. Leaders should track key indicators, such as turnover, absenteeism, and health claims the same way they track revenue and margin. Those metrics are the financials of culture. As Kent puts it, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure. If you believe people are your greatest asset, start treating their well-being like one.”
Lead authentically.Employees see through “wellness theater.” Programs succeed only when leaders model the behaviors they promote, such as taking time off, setting boundaries, and showing up with empathy. Kent’s decades-long commitment wasn’t performative; it was personal. His consistency built credibility, and that credibility built trust. To build trust in leadership long term, consistency matters more than slogans.
Start Simple
When asked, “If you could give on piece of advice to any leader who wants to create a psychologically heathy workplace, what would it be?” Kent’s response was as profound as it was simple: “Talk to your employees and ask how it feels to work here. That’s always the first step.”
The APA award validated Team Horner’s cultural investment. More meaningful, though, is the loyalty, energy, and resilience they’ve built. In a world where burnout and disengagement are less the exception than the norm, Kent’s story is a powerful reminder: Taking care of your people isn’t just kind. It’s smart. It’s how trust in leadership gets built.
Is swimming more popular than we think?
If you ask a random person on the street what the most popular sport is, the answer might depend on your location. In the United States, the answer might be football or baseball, in Australia, the answer might also be football, which is a completely different sport than our football, it’s what we in the U.S. call soccer. In India, it might be cricket. But would any country name swimming?
I started thinking about that the other night when I was watching a very famous movie, a true classic that I had never seen before, “National Velvet” starring a beautiful, 12-year old, Elizabeth Taylor, in her very first acting role, considered her breakout performance. Also starring Mickey Rooney, Angela Lansbury and Anne Revere as Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Brown. I had, of course heard about the movie “National Velvet,” my whole life, as a 62 year old woman. I knew it was a story about a girl and her horse. It won two Oscars in 1945.
“When Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), an equine-loving 12-year-old living in rural Sussex, becomes the owner of a rambunctious horse, she decides to train it for England’s Grand National race. Aided by former jockey Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) and encouraged by her family, the determined Velvet gets her steed, affectionately called “The Pie,” ready for the big day. However, a last-minute problem arises with the jockey and an unexpected rider must step in as a replacement.”
While watching the movie last night, I was excited when it was revealed that was that Velvet’s Mother (Anne Revere) was a champion swimmer, becoming the first woman to swim the English Channel, winning a hundred golden sovereigns. This becomes key to the story as Velvet needs it for the entry fee to compete in the Grand National Horse Race.
After watching “National Velvet, it made me think of other movies and even TV shows that were NOT about swimming or other aquatic sports yet somehow, swimming found its way into the story. What about “Back to School” with Rodney Dangerfield? Nothing more classic than his diving scene and the “Triple Lindy” in that movie! We even had the clip in the Hall of Fame Museum. I know, I’m showing my age.
Okay, back to the present, what about the popular TV Show, “Never Have I Ever?” The heartthrob of this hit show, is Paxton Hall-Yoshida, a popular, athletic 16-year-old high school student, who is the captain of the high school swim team, but has to give it up after a car accident. After graduating, he attends Arizona State University, but later becomes an assistant swim coach at the high school upon deciding university is not for him.
There’s more: “The Big C”, “Pretty Little Liars”, “Star Crossed”, “The Thirteenth Year’ and many more……
What about you? Can you name a movie or TV Show, that you love, that has swimming or any of the aquatic sports in it, but swimming isn’t the theme of the movir of TV Show??
Maybe, swimming IS more popular than we think!!!!!!
Tell us in the comments a movie or TV Show that has swimming in it!
FLASH! Gretchen Walsh Destroys World Record in 50 Butterfly
by John Lohn – Editor-in-Chief
11 October 2025
Wasn’t it simply a matter of time? Given her prowess as the finest female short-course swimmer in history, a world record from Gretchen Walsh seemed likely during the first stop of the World Cup circuit in Carmel, Indiana. Saturday night turned out to be right moment for such an effort, as Walsh destroyed her own global standard in the 50-meter butterfly.
Clocking a time of 23.72, Walsh sliced .22 off her previous world record, which was set at last year’s World Short Course Championships in Budapest. Walsh shot to the front of the field off the start and was in the lead at the 25-meter mark, thanks to a split of 10.95. She continued to build on her advantage on the return lap, which she covered in 12.77. Walsh finished nearly a second ahead of Aussie Alexandria Perkins, the runnerup in 24.64.
Walsh now owns the seven-fastest times in event history, including the only two sub-24 efforts. During prelims, Walsh set a World Cup record of 24.11 and provided a sense that a world record was within reach at night. To put Walsh’s world record in perspective, the effort would have been good for third place in the 50 freestyle on the opening night of the meet.
In the short-course pool, Walsh now owns world records in the 50 freestyle, 50 butterfly, 100 butterfly and 100 individual medley.