ISHOF Chairman Bill Kent makes Aquatics International 2025 Power Issue
By Rebecca Robledo
As with so many things, the seeds for the every-child-a-swimmer movement were planted years before the fruits were borne. Decades, in fact. The basic idea — that teaching every child to swim would make the most effective way to prevent drownings — was first expressed in the 1980s. Between then and the late 2010s, though, this concept saw little to no follow-through in the pool and spa industry. In the last decade, these efforts have blown up and become a common mission among the aquatics and pool/spa industries, not only raising funds for swim lessons, but resulting in legislation to promote the water-safety message. Bill Kent was there during the more dormant stages. Then he became a major driver converting idea into reality. Through his service for the National Swimming Pool Foundation and, more recently, the International Swimming Hall of Fame, he played a key role in starting two of the largest learn-to-swim initiatives in the field. And the recent push by the pool/spa industry to lobby for legislation started with him. “Every organization needs a spiritual mission,” says the CEO of Team Horner, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “For the swimming pool industry, the right swimming pool mission is ‘every child a swimmer.’ For 20 years, he has worked to see that the idea takes that lofty position.
EARLY EXPOSURE
After Kent joined the pool/spa industry in the early 1970s, it didn’t take long for him to move up the ranks, not only in the company he came to own but among pool associations as well. In short order, he held high office in organizations such as the National Spa & Pool Institute (a precursor for today’s PHTA) and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
That’s how he learned about the “every child a swimmer” concept in the mid 1980s. It was with ISHOF, where he served on the board. There, he met Harold Martin, who had co-founded ISHOF and started its “EveryChild a Swimmer” program. “He kind of infected me with the idea that we should teach children to swim who can’t afford swim lessons,” Kent says. At the time, ISHOF’s program was very small and basically faded away after Martin’s passing. Decades later, another organization began a similar program, this time under Kent’s watch. The National Swimming Pool Foundation started Step Into Swim when Kent was chairman. The program funds lessons for those who otherwise can’t afford them. NSPF saw the idea gain traction, taking spots in the philanthropy portfolios of many industry companies and organizations and increasing the lesson count each year. (NSPF merged with the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals to form the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, which now runs Step Into Swim.) Later, Kent became the chairman of ISHOF — a title he continues to hold. He created another means for children to receive free swim lessons. “One of the first things I did was revive Every Child a Swimmer,” he says. In fact, he grew it into an operation that came to require a full-time executive director, Casey McGovern, along with two part-time staffers.
A LEGISLATIVE APPROACH
It became clear that embedding the “every child a swimmer”concept into the national fabric would take more than soliciting for donations. “To bring it to life, I needed to do something to create awareness,” Kent says. So he began a campaign to promote legislation that would generate awareness of water safety and the importance of learning to swim. The first bill passed in 2020 in Florida. It requires every school to provide water-safety information to parents of children entering elementary school. When it first sought a legislative solution, Every Child a Swimmer advocated for bills that would require all children to receive swim instruction by a certain age. The organization learned that wouldn’t work, because it would impose a financial burden on families, school districts or other government entities — a serious roadblock to passing legislation, especially in fiscally conservative states. After hearing a fellow drowning-prevention advocate muse that schools should provide water-safety information, Kent set about writing model language for the bill. On his own, he reached out to representatives.
“I was able to go face-to-face with several legislators, drove all over the state, had meetings and explained the goal.” So far, bills have passed in four states – Florida, Georgia, Arkansas and Washington. Soon, Kent and his team hope to see Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio added to that list, with the ultimate goal being all 50 states. The organization now promotes a second type of bill. Recently, New York began requiring hospitals to give parents of newborns the option of watching a water-safety video during their stay. Every Child a Swimmer did not initiate that bill, but Kent’s group now advocates for similar language in other states, in addition to its first bill. “This is a long-term marathon race,” Kent says. “But we’re becoming more and more successful. We now have people calling us wanting to get involved.”
March Featured Honoree: Anthony Nesty (SUR) and his Memorabilia
Each month ISHOF will feature an Honoree and some of their aquatic memorabilia, that they have so graciously either given or loaned to us. Since we are closed, and everything is in storage, we wanted to still be able to highlight some of the amazing artifacts that ISHOF has and to be able to share these items with you.
We continue in the new year, March 2025, with 1998 ISHOF Honoree Anthony Nesty, Honor Swimmer, Suriname. Anthony Nesty donated many fabulous things to ISHOF and we want to share some of them with you now. Also below is his ISHOF Honoree bio that was written the year he was inducted.
Right photo Framed Name Tag from the 1988 Seoul Olympics
Left photo Suriname Swimming 4×100 m Free Relay “2” Sept. 29 1991
2 1988 25 Golden Notes Commemorative of Anthony Nesty
Happy Birthday Steve Lundquist!!
Steve Lundquist (USA)
Honor Swimmer (1990)
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1984 gold (100m breaststroke; relay); U.S. NATIONALS: 14 (100yd, 200yd, 100m, 200m breaststroke; 200yd, 200m individual medley); NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS: 7 (100yd, 200yd breaststroke; 200yd individual medley); WORLD RECORDS: 9 (100m breaststroke; 200m individual medley; relays); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1979 gold (100m, 200m breaststroke; 1 relay); 1983 gold (100m, 200m breaststroke), bronze (200m individual medley; 1 relay); AMERICAN RECORD holder: (100yd, 200yd breaststroke); 1981, 1982 U.S. Swimmer of the Year; First swimmer in the world to break 2 minute barrier in the 200yd breaststroke.
“Lunk” the other swimmers called him except for the late Victor Davis who called him “the intimidator.” “It takes one to know one,” was Steve Lundquist’s reply. He was and is the golden boy of swimming, going right from the pool, medaling to modeling and a featured part on the afternoon “soap” “Search for Tomorrow”. He may have been a hot dog in the same sense as Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe. Steve was the first man in the world to break two minutes for the 200 yard breaststroke. “Lundquist can swim and win anything he wants to train for,” said Hall of Fame Honor Coach Walt Schlueter. He was almost as brilliant in the freestyle sprints and butterfly as he was in his breaststroke specialty. Steve was an honorary member of the 1980 Olympic Team. Unfortunately since the U.S. did not attend, Steve’s 100 meter breaststroke time, even though it was faster than the winning time, did not garnish him an Olympic gold. All totaled, he won two Olympic gold medals, set nine world records, won 14 U.S. Nationals, seven NCAA crowns and six gold medals in the Pan American Games. As an athlete in football, track, wrestling, water and snow skiing, tennis and especially swimming, he self-destructed on motorcycles and in dormitory wrestling matches, but that was only between races. In the pool he was always awesome. “Swimming World” magazine picked him as 1981 and 1982 World Swimmer of the Year. To all of this, Weissmuller and Crabbe might add, “Yes, old Steve is a pretty fair country swimmer.” The “country is Lake Spivey of Jonesboro, Georgia, USA where the Lunk was born in 1961.
Happy Birthday Kenneth Treadway!!
Kenneth Treadway (USA)
Honor Contributor (1983)
Having been born in Oklahoma during the 1930’s into a Cherokee Indian Sharecropper family may cause one to ask, “How in the world did this guy become an inductee into the International Swimming Hall of Fame?” Buck Dawson would have answered that question by telling you, “He’s just a good ol’ country boy who loves people and swimming”.
Ken Treadway has received almost every award our sport has to offer, from receiving the AAU “Neptune” award in 1972, then swimming’s highest honor, to being inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1983. Ken doesn’t need another award, in fact he recently donated some of the ones he did receive to ISHOF. But he does deserve to be remembered for all he has done for swimming. Because Ken and his wife Bettie don’t travel much anymore, Buck Dawson believed the Olympic Trials in Omaha, just a three hour drive from their home in Overland Park, Kansas, provided swimming with an opportunity to recognize and once again thank Ken for all he has done for swimming.
Over a span of 45 years Ken Treadway was a competitor, coach, official, chairman of state, national and Olympic Committees as well as an employee of the Phillips Petroleum Company. He founded the Phillips 66 Splash Club, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1950 and the team is still one of the most successful swimming organizations in history. He then went on to found the successful Phillips 66 Long Beach Aquatic Club with Coach Don Gambril.
He persuaded his company to sponsor an annual swim meet and in 1963 this led to Phillips’ hosting four national swimming championships. In 1972, Ken and Dr. John Bogert, another “Red Man,” developed a plan to become a National Sponsor of Swimming. The sponsorship started in 1973 and today ConocoPhillips’ sponsorship of USA Swimming is the longest continuous corporate sponsorship of any amateur sport in America.
It was Ken and the late Dr. Hal Henning who had the honor of representing the United States at the FINA meeting when the International Swimming Hall of Fame was approved by that international body of aquatics.
Coach Peter Daland can tell stories all night about his and Ken’s travels around the world in support of a program Ken started called “Coaching The Coaches”. Both of them were great international ambassadors for the country, for ISHOF, for the American Swimming Coaches Association, for AAU Swimming and their sponsor, ConocoPhillips. In fact one of their sojourns was requested by the U. S. Department of State!
Treadway’s ability to get right at the crux of a problem, and then lead parties to an effective diplomatic compromise, endeared him to the swimming world, created advancement for him at Phillips and led to his selection as a member of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team’s Staff in Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich.
Not the least of his accomplishments was finding a pathway for swimming and diving to operate in a high level business- like manner and to enhance their image without “passing the plate” at swim meets.
In 1983, he was inducted into the ISHOF as an Honoree Contributor, and now, we take time to remember and honor him again with ISHOF’s President’s Award.
Black History Month: During General Slocum Disaster, Harry George Was a Hero
Story by ISHOF Curator, Bruce Wigo
Black History Month: During General Slocum Disaster, Harry George Was a Hero
The General Slocum steamship disaster was the greatest single catastrophe in New York City’s history until Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. On June 15, 1904, the Gen. Slocum was taking a group of almost 1,400 passengers, mostly women and children, on a trip of New York City’s East River to a picnic on Long Island.
Photo Courtesy: Pittsburgh Courier
The ship caught fire shortly after leaving the dock. Most of the passengers tried to escape the fire by jumping into the water, and because they didn’t know how to swim, they drowned. Bodies of mothers, grandmothers, and girls washed up on the shorelines for days. One of the forgotten heroes, saving some of the passengers, was Harry N. George, an African American.
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George was credited with saving 23 lives through his courage and resolve and was presented the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was also awarded the Life-Saving Gold Medal of New York.
The lesson from the Slocum disaster wasn’t lost on the nation: “Learn to swim!” commanded an editorial in the New York Herald that was repeated throughout the country. “That should be the resolve of every intelligent woman who does not already know how, upon reading the pitiful story of how woman after woman drowned within just a few feet of shore.”
As a consequence of the Slocum disaster, the American Red Cross was moved to begin its water safety and lifesaving programs and swimming became an essential part of public education. Unfortunately, most African Americans were denied the same opportunities to learn to swim, as virtually all pools and beaches were closed to non-whites during the first half of the 20th Century, in spite of the heroics of Harry N. George. It would not be until the 1930s when the first African Americans were certified as Red Cross Water Safety instructors and Lifeguards.
Passages: Iris Cummings Critchell, Oldest Survivor of 1936 Olympics, Dies at 104
Photo Courtesy: Iris Cummings / San Francisco Examiner
by Matthew De George – Senior Writer
28 January 2025, 02:41pm
Passages: Iris Cummings Critchell, Oldest Survivor of 1936 Olympics, Dies at 104
Iris Cummings Critchell, a swimmer who was the last surviving athlete from the 1936 Olympics, died on Jan. 24. She was 104 years old.
Cummings Critchell’s death was confirmed by Harvey Mudd College, where she spent three decades as an instructor after a pioneering career in aviation.
She has long been the last surviving athlete to have competed in the 1936 Olympics, hosted by the Nazi regime in Germany. Cummings Critchell was living in Claremont, California, at the time of her death. She had turned 104 on December 21.
Cummings’ moment on the Olympic stage was brief. She finished fourth in her heat of the 200 breaststroke at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Her time of 3:21.9 ranked 18th overall, with two heats of seven swimmers each advancing to the semifinals.
No Americans made the final in a meet where the American women managed just three medals, all bronze, in four individual events and one relay.
Cummings was born and raised in Los Angeles, inspired to begin swimming after watching her hometown host the 1932 Olympics. She joined the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1934 and was a national champion by the next year.
She won the national title in the women’s 200 breaststroke at the 1936 national championships, though she had to raise her own funds to travel to Berlin.
With the prospect of a looming world war clouding the possibility of the 1940 Olympics (originally awarded to Tokyo) being held, Cummings retired from competitive swimming in late 1939.
Cummings had a fascinating career as a pilot, again piqued by an experience as a spectator, this time at a 1928 air show hosted by the U.S. Army Air Corps’ stunt flying team, the Musketeers. She was one of the first people accepted in 1939 to Civilian Pilot Training Program, instituted by the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) with USC as one of its chosen instructional institutions, flying out of Mines Field, which would become LAX. She received her private pilot’s license in 1941 as a senior at USC, from which she graduated with a degree in physical sciences and mathematics.
At a time when women could not serve in combat, Cummings first served as an instructor for the CAA at Brackett Field in La Verne, then joined the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron in 1942 as part of its second class for training in Houston. It was absorbed into the Women Airforce Service Program (WASP). She served in the 6th Ferrying Group, based out of Long Beach, California, until the unit’s deactivation at the end of 1944, flying 18 varieties of military aircraft. She met her husband, fellow pilot Howard Critchell, while both were in the service. They remained married for 70 years through his death in 2015.
Cummings continued in the aviation industry for decades. In 1957, she won the All Woman Transcontinental Air Race, one of 15 times that she competed in the race, finishing in the top 10 on five occasions. She began as an active member of the Ninety-Nines organization for female pilots in 1952.
After her military service, Cummings taught and developed curriculum for USC’s College of Aeronautics, teaching courses in primary aircraft operation and for commercial pilots and instructors. The USC Aviation Safety and Security Program was the first of its kind when launched in 1952. In 1962, she and Howard established the Bates Aeronautics Program at Harvey Mudd College. Cummings spent 28 years as the director of the program until 1990 and continued teaching after retiring to emerita status through 1996.
Cummings was elected to the National Flight Instructors Hall of Fame in 2000 and to the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame in 2007. She was designated an Federal Aviation Administration Wright Brothers “Master Pilot” after 50 years of instruction, including more than 20 as a designated pilot examiner for the FAA, in 2006. She was inducted to the California Aviation Hall of Fame at the Museum of Flying in 2015.
Iris Cummings Critchell is survived by a daughter, Sandie Clary; a son, Robin Critchell; three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for gifts in Cummings Critchell’s name to be made to Harvey Mudd College, Office of College Advancement, 301 Platt Blvd., Claremont, CA, 91711.
Throwback Thursday: The Early Training That Led Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman to Hall of Fame (Sample Sets)
16 January 2025, 12:09am
Throwback Thursday: The Early Training That Led Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman to Legendary Status (Sample Sets)
Together, Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman forged the most successful athlete-coach relationship in the history of the sport. Here is a look at some of the early workouts that led to Phelps’ stardom.
By Bob Bowman (with Michael J. Stott) – From 2003
I think it was pretty clear from the beginning that Michael Phelps was a special swimmer. When he joined us at North Baltimore Aquatic Club as a 7-year-old, he was a baseball/soccer/lacrosse athlete. His first year, he just did a 60-minute, once-a-week stroke clinic with our aquatics director, Cathy Lears.
His training and intensity escalated from there, to where, by the time he was 10 and setting NAG records, he was better than many of the older swimmers. Obviously, we had to do some rapid lane promotions.
To those who knew the Phelps aquatic heritage, his prowess was no surprise. His oldest sister, Hilary Phelps, was a national-level swimmer. His second sister, Whitney Phelps, was also a 200 flyer. She made the 1994 World Championship team that competed in Rome. (She still held the 11-12 NAG record in the 100 yard fly at the time this article was printed.) So, in many ways, swimming excellence has been a family trait.
And while it is also tempting to think of Michael only in terms of the fly and IM, a review of his record reveals a litany of national rankings in the free and back as well.
Supportive parents have aided his climb immensely. They had been through the drill with the older daughters. Then there’s Michael’s physique: at 6-4, he is mostly torso with a large chest and long arms. It’s a body great for swimming. He is very flexible throughout the shoulders, upper body and especially in the ankles.
Michael is much more disciplined than he was in his earlier days. He was, and is still, a pretty strong-willed kid. Back then, he didn’t understand he might have to do some things he didn’t want to do, like train, sit still, pay attention and not talk. He was very energetic as a young boy.
These days, he’s modified his behavior – either voluntarily or involuntarily.
“I think part of that modification started when I pulled him out of the pool and told him, ‘You’ve got a stroke that is going to set a world record some day, and you are going to do it in practice.’” – Bob Bowman
Keenly Competitive
Michael has an athletic mentality second to none. He is keenly competitive and that’s what drives him. In competition, he is incredibly focused and able to relax. The higher the level of competition, the better he is. That’s something you just don’t see very often.
What he needs to work on is the same thing he had to work on as a child: to strengthen the connection in his mind between what happens on a daily basis and how that affects what’s going to happen when he gets in the big meet.
He’s better now and better than 90 percent of the the population, but he still has those days – about once every six weeks – when he’s tired, and it’s a struggle for me to get him to do things and maintain the same intensity in workout that he gives in the big meets.
In 2002, he had an excellent summer, setting a world record in the 400 meter IM, taking four events at the Phillips 66 Summer Nationals, notching American records in the 200 IM and 100 fly and swimming the fastest fly leg ever in a 4 x 100 world record medley relay victory.
In addition to water work, we religiously incorporated a “Mike Barrowman medicine ball routine” into his dryland routine, and we did a three-week stay at altitude in Colorado Springs. He’s followed his long course success with the best fall and winter he’s ever had by far.
Typically, for the last three or four years, Michael has had very good summers. Then there have been down periods in the fall where we’ve had to work hard to crank him back up to a good mental mode.
That has not been the case this year. This fall and winter, Michael has worked hard on the backstroke. In fact, he’s gotten really good. Recently, he finished a 15 x 200 yard back set with a 1:45. Not too bad! And his breaststroke, while still not flashy, is greatly improved.
We continue to develop Michael as a complete swimmer. That means some emphasis on the distance freestyle. On Halloween, he whipped off a 5,000 free for time in a 46:34. That’s under a 9:20 per 1,000 average. I was impressed with that. In fact, it is probably the most impressive thing he’s done, and it might be one of the most impressive things he ever does.
That’s the kind of thing I’m not sure you can ever replicate, but it’s neat to give him some confidence, particularly since he has to swim against some of the super distance guys.
This is the third year we have approached the training cycle from a yearly perspective. It’s not our style at NBAC to talk about the results of success.
We are always interested in the process. Michael didn’t understand the scope of it until his breakout spring nationals performance in Seattle in 2000 when he went from a 2:04.68 to 1:59-flat and set a 15-16 NAG record in the 200 meter fly. After that, the secret was out.
Setting Goals
These days, Phelps sets goals for himself. Our eyes are on one medium and one long-range goal: World Championships in July in Barcelona and 2004 Olympic Trials and Games.
In Spain, he will swim a full program that mimics the Olympic schedule, except that, there the 400 IM, will be on the last day rather than the first. That’s a full plate: six days of prelims, semis and finals in the 100-200 fly, 200-400 IM, 800 free relay, 400 medley relay and, hopefully, a berth on the 4 x 100 free relay.
To get ready for that, we have concocted a training program that began with a fairly high-mileage fall, a 70-80,000 mixture of yards and meters per week.
There was also 30-45 minutes of dryland six days a week. September through December, we focused on structural adaptation.
Photo Courtesy: Swimming Technique Magazine
With that, we are looking to stimulate major physiological growth that will make him go faster. At this stage, we don’t emphasize fine-tuning. Instead, we have spent a lot of time on endurance work, improving technical issues and gaining strength–putting money in the bank.
We’ll continue that regimen through spring nationals. From April through May, we’ll focus on functional adaptation, working on coordination plus speed and racing-specific elements for the World Championships. With all his success, it is easy to overlook that Michael Phelps is only a 17-year-old, especially given that he is in his second year as a professional and drives a Cadillac Escalade.
But, he’s earned it, and he’s in the process of maturing and securing his financial future. This spring, he’ll graduate from Towson High School. In the fall, he’ll be attending classes at Loyola College in Baltimore and continue to train with us at North Baltimore.
Check the accompanying charts for some typical early-mid. and late-season workouts Michael Phelps has done during the 2001-2002 short and long course seasons.
Photo Courtesy: Swimming Technique Magazine
Note from the Publisher: When this article was published in 2003, Bob Bowman was the senior coach at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club in Maryland. Bowman is now the head coach at the University of Texas. Michael Phelps is retired as the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, winning 28 Olympic medals.
IOC Will Provide Gary Hall Jr. with Replacement Medals for Those Lost in L.A. Wildfires
by Swimming World Editorial Staff
13 January 2025, 06:55am
IOC Will Provide Gary Hall Jr. with Replacement Medals for Those Lost in L.A. Wildfires
As Gary Hall Jr. ran through his home last week before evacuating the Pacific Palisades residence due to the Los Angeles wildfires that have devastated Southern California, the three-time Olympian focused on grabbing a handful of items. He picked up his dog, the insulin to treat his diabetes, a painting of his grandfather and a religious artifact given to him by his daughter.
Left behind were the 10 Olympic medals won by Hall between the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Games.
“I was getting pelted by embers on that first run,” Hall told the Los Angeles Times. “So I grabbed my dog and some dog food and that was it. Could I have stayed 30 seconds longer and maybe got the medals? I wasn’t willing to take that risk.”
One of the greatest swimmers and a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Hall Jr. will always have the memories of his Olympic accomplishments. And in the future, Hall Jr. will also have replicas of the 10 medals he earned while representing the United States on the biggest stage in his sport.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach took to social media over the weekend and noted that the IOC will provide Hall Jr. with copies of the medals he won in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens. Among the medals will be golds to reflect the back-to-back titles he claimed in the 50-meter freestyle in 2000 and 2004.
Donations to support Hall Jr. can be made at the link below, while donations to the thousands affected by the wildfires can be made to the American Red Cross.
Historic Set: An Appreciation and Breakdown Of the Legendary 100 x 100s Of Olympic Champion And ISHOF Honoree Mike Bruner (Splits Included)
22 December 2024, 02:15am
A Look and Breakdown Of the Legendary 100 x 100s Set Of Mike Bruner
A tradition at some clubs during winter training is for athletes to complete a 100 x 100 workout. The set is an Ironman/Ironwoman accomplishment. So, as some swimmers prepare to tackle this grinding set, we visit the archive for a look at Olympian Mike Bruner and his conquest of the workout.
About eight months before he set a world record in the 200-meter butterfly (1:59.23) and won a second gold medal in the 800 freestyle relay at the 1976 Olympics, Mike Bruner completed an aquatic first – swimming 10,000 yards in under 100 minutes.
It was in the halcyon mid-1970 days of mega-yardage workouts embraced by the likes of American coaches Mark Schubert, Sherm Chavoor and Dick Shoulberg, along with Australia’s Laurie Lawrence.
Early in the 1970s, Marin Aquatic Club’s Rick DeMont, coached by Don Swartz, had been holding splits on 100 yards under a minute on long swims. In a plan to boost the growing profile of his De Anza Swim Club and inspire his swimmers, head coach Bill Rose cooked up a challenge to Bruner that nobody had ever done – average under one minute for an entire 10,000 yards…with a caveat: Should he fail to average under 1:00 per hundred, he would have to stop the set at that point.
With game on, a reported 700 people lined the pool deck to cheer him on. Cronus Watch Co. was also on hand to provide the official timing for the Guinness Book of World Records attempt.
Bruner, a future Hall of Famer, hit the water at about 4 p.m. on Nov. 21, 1975, and emerged successfully after an elapsed 1:39:18.59.
Mission accomplished!
Rose, scheduled to speak at the Western States Coaches’ Clinic and never one to miss a marketing opportunity, rushed to catch a plane to L.A. That evening he related, that as a part of the team’s annual Swim-a-thon, one of his swimmers had done “extra.” He then read off Bruner’s 1,000 splits starting with a 9:47.89 and ending with 9:40.31. (See Rose’s complete log at the end of the story).
Over the years, Rose has frequently coaxed his swimmers to undertake extraordinary challenges. Within months of taking over the Mission Viejo Nadadores in 1992, he inaugurated an annual 50 x 500 on 6:30, an event in which 14-year-old Bart Kizierowski prepared for with a dozen donuts and three quarts of chocolate milk. In February 2004, Nadadores National Team members Larsen Jensen, Justin Mortimer and other swimmers charged through 20 x 1500 meters on 18 minutes.
“According to the world, that 20 x 1500 is the daily thing we do,” says Rose. “Nothing could be further from the truth, but if people want to think of us that way, go right ahead.”
Mike Bruner’s plunge into the unknown (see below) shows the running time and 100 split for each 100 yards swum (with the 1,000-yard splits listed in boldface). Bruner’s average split per 100 was between 59.58 and 59.59 seconds.
Photo Courtesy:
Dressel Family Growing as Caeleb, Meghan Announce They are Expecting Second Child
Photo Courtesy: Meghan Dressel via Instagram
by Dan D’Addona — Swimming World Managing Editor
27 November 2024, 01:01pm
Dressel Family Growing as Caeleb, Meghan Announce They are Expecting Second Child
The Dressel family is growing by one.
Caeleb Dressel and his wife Meghan Dressel announced they are expecting their second child.
“OOPS! We did it again. We are overjoyed to share our family is growing again
Baby Dressel #2 coming in June! 2 under 2 here we go,” Meghan Dressel posted on social media.
The couple welcomed their first child into the world earlier this year. August Wilder Dressel was born, Feb. 17, 2024.
The couple was married in 2021 on Valentine’s Day weekend in Florida.
Dressel won three individual Olympic gold medals in Tokyo, then took nearly a year away from the pool before qualifying for the Paris Olympics in the 100 butterfly, 50 freestyle and a relay swimmer in the 100 free. He won two gold medals and one silver medal on relays for the U.S. in Paris.
In three Olympic games, he has earned a total of nine gold medals and a silver medal. He is a 21-time world champion and set numerous records at the NCAA level where he won 10 national titles for the University of Florida.
Dressel is hoping to swim the 50 free in Los Angeles in 2028 as the Olympic coda to his career.
“It has always been one of my dreams to compete on American soil at a championship meet. So, yes, my eyes are on 2028,” he told the AP. “I don’t think it’s going to be a full-event lineup. I think maybe just the 50 free, put a little bit more muscle on, don’t have to be in as good a shape. So maybe look forward to just doing the splash-and-dash. That might be a good time for me.”