Happy Birthday DEBBIE MEYER !!!
DEBBIE MEYER (USA)
1977 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1968 gold (200m, 400m, 800m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 15; PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1967 (2 gold); NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: 19; AMERICAN RECORDS: 27; “World Swimmer of the Year”: 1967, 1968, 1969; 1968 Sullivan Award winner.
Debbie was the first to win three individual gold medals at one Olympics (1968 Mexico). She won two Pan-American golds in 1967. She was the first woman to swim the 1500m under 18 minutes and the first to take the 400m under 4:30, the 500 yd under 5 minutes and the 1650 yd under 17 minutes. Meyer held 24 American Records.
In 1967 she was chosen Tass News Agency’s “Woman Athlete of the Year”. Between the ages of 14 and 18, Debbie was the world’s greatest female swimmer. In the seven years prior to the 1968 Olympics (she began at the Camden Y and finished as belle cow of the Arden Hills Swim Club) she swam 30,000 miles in seven years to set training standards no girl before her had achieved; and yet she remained a happy all-American girl in appearance as in performance setting standards. Just for comparison and a little argument in the battle of the sexes, Debbie’s 4:24.5 in the 400m would have beaten Murray Rose in the 1956 Olympics and her 17:19.9 in the 1500m would have been 39 seconds faster than his 1500m time.
Happy Birthday GARY TOBIAN !!!
GARY TOBIAN (USA)
1978 Honor Diver
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1956 silver (platform); 1960 gold (springboard), silver (platform); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1959 gold (3m springboard); NATIONAL AAU Diving Titles: 8.
Gary Tobian, a successful Los Angeles business man, owned the tower as U.S. National Champion for six years, but won his international gold medals in both the Olympics and Pan American Games off the springboard. He was the last in a long line of U.S.C. National Collegiate and AAU diving champions medaling in two Olympics, 1956 Melbourne and 1960 Rome.
Three WORLD RECORDS fall at ISHOF Aquatic Complex on this day in history…
Martin Zubero
In 1991, the International Swimming Hall of Fame Aquatic Complex played host to the Phillips 66 U.S. Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale.
On this day, August 13, 1991, two World Records were broken at ISHOF. The first was broken by ISHOF Honoree Martin Zubero in the 200m backstroke in a new world record time of 1:57.30, breaking, the record of ISHOF Honor Swimmer, Igor Polyansky, of the Soviet Union in a time of 1:58.14.
The second World Record to fall that day was the 200 breaststroke, and another ISHOF Honor Swimmer would be the lucky guy! Mike Barrowman broke the 200m breaststroke in a time of 2:10.60, breaking his own record of 2:11.23, he has set earlier that year in Perth, Australia.
Mike Barrowman
At the same event, only years later, in 2002, at the Phillips 66 U.S. Summer Nationals, Natalie Coughlin broke the World Record in the 100m backstroke in a time of 59.58. Coughlin broke the record held by China’s He Cihong that was set at the 1994 Roma World Championships, with her time of 100.16
Natalie Coughlin
A Special Happy Birthday to our 2020 ISHOF Honor Swimmer MICHAEL KLIM !!!
Michael
Klim (AUS)
2020 ISHOF Honor Swimmer
He was born in Poland, taught to swim in India, lived in Canada
and Germany as a youth and ended up swimming for Australia, where his family settled
and finally considered home. As much as he moved during his youth, there was a
constant in his life: Swimming. No
matter where he was, no matter what country, Klim could always join the swim
team and feel like he fit right in.
Klim first represented Australia in 1994, at the Commonwealth
Games in Victoria, British Columbia. But didn’t really begin to shine until
1995 when he was named Australian Swimming Rookie of the Year.
Klim specialized in the freestyle and butterfly events and became
one of the most notable athletes in Australian history. At his first Olympic
appearance in Atlanta in 1996, he entered competition ranked first in the world
in the 200m freestyle, but did not make finals. However, he and his Aussie teammates
brought home the bronze medal in the 4 x 100m medley relay, Klim’s contribution
a precursor to his status as an all-time great in relay duty.
It was at the 1998 FINA World Championships in Perth, in
front of a home crowd, in which Klim produced his best performance. On home
soil, Klim claimed seven medals in seven events, four of which were gold. The
effort is considered one of the most outstanding performances by an Australian
at an international swimming event.
Eight months later, at the Commonwealth Games, Klim again won
seven medals, of which four were gold.
Yet, as Klim says, “The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, was
Australia’s coming out party,” or at least its return to the greatness that was
once common. In 1996, Australia ranked fifth
at the Olympics, with just two gold medals won in the pool. After Sydney, Australia was a solid No. 2
behind the United States, with 18 total medals – five gold, nine silver and
four bronze. Klim had a role in two of
those gold medals and two of the silver medals, his biggest feat what he
managed leading off Australia’s triumphant 4 x 100m freestyle relay.
Prior to Sydney, the United States owned that relay, having
never lost the event in Olympic history. As the Games prepared to open, the American
swimmers thought the title theirs to keep, with veteran Gary Hall Jr. stating
the U.S. would “smash the Australians like guitars.” When the beep went off for the
much-anticipated duel, Klim propelled the Aussies into the lead, his leadoff
split of 48.18 setting a world record for the 100 freestyle.
The relay came down to the anchors: Ian Thorpe vs. Hall. Although Hall led most of the way, Thorpe
pulled ahead in the last 15 meters and enabled Australia to break the United
States’ unbeaten Olympic streak in the event.
The Aussie team, in response to Hall’s comments, celebrated their win by
playing air guitars for the hometown crowd.
Klim walked away from Sydney with four medals, two gold and two
silver, and three world records.
Klim retired in 2007 but announced a comeback in 2011, toying
with the idea of trying to make the 2012 Olympic Team. Although impressively reaching the semifinals
of both the 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly, Klim again announced his
retirement after the Australian Trials.
ISHOF Construction Update August 13, 2020
Concrete Placement Dive Well
Hope everyone is doing well, attached is the updated look ahead for early morning concrete which we are projecting for the week of 9.4.2020. This will be a 10 hour concrete pour as we are placing the dive pool walls in one continuous pour. We will aim to start at 3am to miss the afternoon lightning and rain storms that come with working in late August/Early September. There is also a photo attached from the 8.4.2020 dive pool floor concrete pour.
We are still tracking to mobilize the steel sheet pile contractor on 8.17.2020 to begin removing the steel sheet pile from the Competition Pool now that the concrete is cured and pool piping installed. We are projecting to be noisy again from 8.17.2020 through 10.2.2020. There will be periods of just logistical moving of sheets which will not include the vibratory hammer but for the most part the 8.17-10.2.2020 time frame will be noisy from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. The over all goal is to have the steel sheet piles removed and off site before FLIBS starts to mobilize in early October 2020.
Kevin Curry
Project Superintendent
Hensel Phelps
Happy Birthday ANDREW “BOY” CHARLTON
ANDREW M. “BOY” CHARLTON (AUS)
1972 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1924 gold (1500m freestyle), silver (800m freestyle relay), bronze (400m freestyle); 1928 silver (400m, 1500m freestyle); 1932 (participant); WORLD RECORDS: 5
“Me Tarzan, you Boy”, said Johnny Weissmuller in introducing his old Olympic swim rival, Australian Andrew Charlton, in ceremonies at the International Swimming Hall of Fame. “Boy” Charlton, and Johnny swam together in two Olympics, 1924 and 1928. Charlton, at 16, was literally the boy of the 1924 games and a Gold Medal Boy at that!
Boy Charlton held 5 world records, the greatest of which had to be his Paris Olympic victory over the Swedish great Arne Borg, a shock to all Europe, not to mention Borg himself, who signed his picture taken with King Gustav, “From Arne Borg, the King of Swimmers.” The 16 year-old Charlton took 34.8 seconds off Borg’s world record for the distance.
If Charlton’s 1924 Olympic gold medal ended the 1st long Australian era of swim dominance, it certainly did not end a Charlton era as he went on to win 5 medals and make the finals in 3 Olympics through 1932.
Charlton won the 1924 Paris Olympic 1500 meter freestyle in 20 minutes and six seconds. Known as the “Manly Flying Fish” for his hometown of Manly, Australia, Charlton was self-taught and largely untrained, but tireless. He, more than all other swimmers combined, put Australia back on the Olympic swim map after World War I. While he easily won the 1924 Olympic 1500 meter race, Charlton faced a harder task in the Olympic 400 meter event with the finalists including American Johnny Weissmuller and Borg. Those two, Weissmuller and Borg, went straight into the lead and at the half-way mark were still together with Charlton 12 yards back. The Australian then started a dramatic finishing burst that brought the crowd to its feet. With 50 yards to go he made up eight yards.
With 10 yards to go it seemed that Charlton might make it but the finish was just too close and Weissmuller touched a few feet ahead of Borg with the Australian another three feet back.
Before the Games finished, Charlton anchored the Australian 800 freestyle relay in another thrilling come from behind race adding a silver medal to his gold and bronze in the individual races. Again he finished second to Weissmuller.
After Paris, Charlton headed home to finish his agriculture degree and a career in farming. Out on the farm, there was little opportunity for swim training and he literally disappeared from the scene between Olympic Games.
Charlton represented Australia again at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam but the lack of continuous competition was beginning to show. Arne Borg beat Charlton into second place in the 1500 meter and Zorrilla of Argentina did the same in the 400 meter.
Shortly after his return from Amsterdam with two silver medals, Andrew Charlton contracted rheumatic fever which kept him a semi-invalid for nearly a year and meant virtual retirement from swimming. But when the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles came around, a completely recovered Charlton decided on a comeback and again beat the best in Australia. However, in Los Angeles a series of heavy colds plagued Charlton and doctors warned of a possible recurrence of rheumatic fever. Consequently, he swam much below form and failed to medal in either of his best races, the 400 and 1500 meter freestyle.
That was Andrew Charlton’s swan song. He went back to the farm. This time to stay.
Happy Birthday HARRY GALLAGHER !!!!
HARRY GALLAGHER (AUS)
1984 Honor Coach
FOR THE RECORD: Australian & Canadian Coach; Olympic Games: 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968 (9 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze); BRITISH COMMONWEALTH GAMES: 12 gold, 6 siler, 3 bronze); AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 201; WORLD RECORD holders: 52; Author of Harry Gallagher On Swimming and How to Sprint the Crawl.
Harry Gallagher was to Dawn Fraser what Bill Bachrach in a different time was to Johnny Weissmuller. Both Harry and “Bach” had many other Olympic swimmers, but based alone on their handling of what may have been the two most tempestuous top male and female swimmers of all time, these two coaches deserve their place in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
And then there are Harry’s other credentials–three of Australia’s most successful Olympic teams, working with exercise physiologists as early as 1953, his two successful swimming books and his always hopeful but unpublished mystery novel, his painting and his eight years as an age-group coach in Canada.
On the lighter side, he pushed a hospital bed 320 miles from Adelaide to Port Pirie in an fundraising effort for the heart Fund. “I’ve always been pushed for money!” says Harry.
Harry has coached swimming more than 30 years, turning out such Hall of Famers as the “fastest afloat” Jon Henricks and Dawn Fraser, and Olympic performers Brad Cooper, Lyn McClements, Steve Holland and Graham White. His swimmers won nine Olympic Sprint titles. Harry’s motto is “teach them before you train them.”
As Sir Edgar Tanner phrased it in the forward to the book Harry Gallagher on Swimming, “The ‘Fox’ of Fox-under-the-Hill, Donvale, Australia, fashions his pupils in a graceful style that brings speed, beauty of action, and develops determination and the will to win.”
Happy Birthday RAY BUSSARD !!!
RAY BUSSARD (USA)
1999 Honor Coach
FOR THE RECORD: 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES: Assistant Swimming Coach; 1983 PACIFIC GAMES: Coach; 1979 PAN AMERICAN GAMES: Coach; Coach of Two Olympic Gold Medalists; Coach of Three World Record Holders; Coach of World Championship Gold Medalist; Coach of 6 NCAA National Champions; Coach of NCAA National Championship Team (University of Tennessee); Clinic speaker at 4 ASCA World Clinics, 60% of State High School Clinics, 3 Countries.
Ray Bussard did more for the sport of swimming than developing champions. His role went beyond preparing National and Olympic Champions. He sensationalized the sport, built spirit and made believers of his athletes. Lucky for swimming, because he would have been good coaching any sport.
He learned to swim at age six in a creek bed outside his home in rural Virginia, but his early interests were in field sports. By college age at Bridgewater College, he was National AAU All-Around Champion in track and field, and All-State football player and an all-tourney selection in basketball. Among his teammates was Bob Richards, Olympic Pole Vault Champion in 1952 and 1956. After graduation, he coached these sports in Virginia and Tennessee high schools, establishing state champions.
It was only during the summers, that Ray became involved in teaching swimming for the Red Cross, conducting life saving programs and managing swimming pools. He started the Chattanooga Swim League in 1960 and six years later moved to Knoxville as Head Coach of the newly established swimming and diving team at the University of Tennessee. He took his principles for success from his high school multi-sport coaching days and applied them to his swimmers. For another 22 years, he guided the team to national prominence and its swimmers to international stardom. Ray Bussard was a winner who hated to lose.
On the university level, Bussard established a career winning percentage of .926, compiling a 252-30 dual meet record. He became known as swimming’s gimmick man by building team spirit among the athletes and excitement among the spectators when he introduced zany antics to the program. At away meets, his teams poured orange colored water (Tennessee colors) into the opponent’s pool, oranges were passed out to spectators, and they were given orange leis around the neck. The Timette Organization of college girls was formed to time at swim meets. The coonskin hat, made famous by Davy Crockett at the Alamo, was worn (first at a meet with SMU in Texas in 1971) to solidify the effort. When America was going through a rebellious period of time, Bussard insisted upon a dress code, proper behavior, a hair code with no mustache and a travel code that stressed proper dress and procedures. He was loud, and he was tough. And his swimmers respected him for it. Bussard’s biggest contribution to swimming was in sprinting. He defined it as “quickness control”. He applied the physics of his “rebounding – ball sports” to the pool developing the fast “Tennessee Turn” and “Tennessee Start”, and making his swimmers unbeatable in short course races.
Ray coached swimmers to 6 world records, 3 Olympic gold medals, 19 American records and 44 NCAA gold medals. His swimmers, Dave Edgar never lost a college sprint race (including three years against Mark Spitz), Matt Vogel won 2 gold medals at the 1976 Olympics, and Andy Coan won 2 golds at the 1975 World Championships among other national champions and international competitors include John Trembley and Lee Engstrand. Fourteen of his swimmers won NCAA gold medals. His 1978 Tennessee team won the NCAA National Championship. He was National Coach of the Year (1972, 1978), Assistant Coach of the 1978 USA-USSR Dual Meet, 1979 Pan American Games, 1984 Olympic Games and 1983 Pan Pacific Games Coach. He has received the National Collegiate and Scholastic Swimming Trophy and, with Ruth, originated the Baton of Victory Award to honor all the men’s and women’s coaches who have won NCAA Championships. He has conducted clinics in over 60% of the United States. Over two dozen of his swimmers have continued in swimming as coaches including current Tennessee Coach John Trembley.
His southern drawl, loud jackets, zany antics and fast swimmers will go down in the history books.
Happy Birthday JAN HENNE !!!
JAN HENNE (USA)
1979 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1968 gold (100m freestyle; 400m freestyle relay), silver (200m freestyle), bronze (200m individual medley); U.S. NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: 9; NATIONAL COLLEGIATE CHAMPIONSHIPS: 4 AMERICAN RECORDS: 8.
In July, 1968, Jan Henne and her coach, George Haines, decided she was to become a freestyler and 3 months later she medaled in 4 events at the Mexico City Olympics. Primarily a breaststroker and water polo player, Henne was an AAU All-American in 1965, 1966, and 1967 with American Records in the 100, 100 and 250 yard breaststroke. A breaststroke finalist in the Nationals starting in 1963 and in the 1964 Olympic Trials, Jan shifted to Santa Clara in the fall of 1967 and was a sensation in the 1968 Indoor Nationals with 4 gold medals in the 100 yard breaststroke and the 3 American Record relays, plus third in the 200 yard breaststroke and 200 yard individual medley. She won 4 events for Arizona State in the 1970 National Collegiates. Her coaches were John Williams at Palo Alto, George Haines at Santa Clara, and Mona Plummer at Arizona State.
Happy Birthday YOSHI OYAKAWA !!!
YOSHI OYAKAWA (USA)
1973 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1952 gold (100m backstroke); NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS: 7 gold; NATIONAL AAU CHAMPIONSHIPS: 9 gold; BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 6; WORLD RECORDS: (100yd, 100m backstroke).
Hawaiian Yoshi Oyakawa won 23 major titles in his remarkable career as the last of the great straight-armed backstrokers. He won the 1952 Olympic backstroke crown at Helsinki in 1:05.4 finally breaking Adolph Kiefer’s Olympic record of 1:05.9 set in 1936. Oyakawa won 6 Big Ten, 7 NCAA and 9 NAAU gold medals during his distinguished career under coaches Sparky Kawamoto, Hilo, Hawaii, and Mike Peppe (Ohio State).
Oyakawa started competitive swimming late (15), turned over on his back at 16, and was on his way to the Olympics at 18. Yoshi went to his second Olympics (1956 Melbourne) as an Air Force Second Lieutenant, finishing 8th after breaking his 1952 Olympic record in the prelims. Neither time was as good as his 1:04.7 to win the U.S. Olympic trials in Detroit.
After 2 years active duty this great backstroker and his Ohio State Sweetheart Mariko Yamane settled in Cincinnati where they have raised four daughters and a son and enough good swimmers at Oak Hills High School for Yoshi Oyakawa to be named Ohio High School Coach of the year for 1972.
Others have bettered Oyakawa’s 100 yd. and 100m world records but none since Oyakawa have done it going straight. The newer bent arm techniques have left his records intact, as the fastest ever straight-armed backstroker.
Oyakawa marked the ending of at least one other era, the domination of world swimming by the Hawaiian Islands. Their last Olympic champions were Oyakawa and Ford Konno in 1952. Not since the six Hawaiians (including Oyakawa) swam in the 1956 Games, has one of the islanders made a U.S. Olympic team.
Yoshi Oyakawa (USA)
2017 Honor Masters Swimmer
INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS (SWIMMER): World Points-634, Pre 1986 Points- 11, Total Points-645; Since 1974, he has competed in 9 age groups (40-44 through 80-84). 27 FINA MASTERS WORLD RECORDS.
Yoshinobu Oyakawa, born on the Kona side of the big island of Hawai’i, was a swimming stand-out at Hilo High School. He continued his career of swimming though his college years at the Ohio State University under the great Hall of Fame Coach, Mike Peppe. While Oyakawa was attending Ohio State, he made his first Olympic team at the age of 19. He represented the United States of America, when he travelled to Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Yoshi did not disappoint. He won the gold medal in the 100m backstroke.
In 1956, Oyakawa again made the Olympic team, where, along with Ford Konno, he was elected co-captain of the US team. At that time, he was also a 2nd Lt. in the United States Air Force.
Yoshi is considered to be the last of the great “straight-arm-pull” backstrokers, and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Swimmer in 1973. Now, 44 years later, Yoshi is again being recognized by ISHOF, but this time, for his career in Masters swimming.
Swimming has always been a big part of Oyakawa’s life. Growing up in Hawaii, Yoshi says, the ocean, the rivers and the pool at the Naval Air Station made swimming an everyday occurrence for him. So, when Ransom Arthur started Masters Swimming in the 1970’s, Yoshi says he was first in line!
Even though Oyakawa started swimming Masters in the early 1970’s, he didn’t seriously pursue it until 1985. He has been in the Top Ten for a total of 28 times. He has set a total of 27 FINA Masters world records, 13 long course and 14 short course meters, all of them in the backstroke. He has competed in three FINA Masters World Championships, winning eight gold, two silver and one bronze medal in the backstroke and freestyle events.
Yoshi says that Buster Crabbe once told him many years ago that swimming was the BEST SPORT and the people involved became your BEST FRIENDS! HOW TRUE, Yoshi says!!
