Happy Birthday Melvin Stewart!!
Country: USA
Honoree Type: Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 1992 OLYMPICS: gold (200m butterfly), gold (4x100m medley relay), bronze (4x200m freestyle relay); 1988 OLYMPIC GAMES: 5th (200m butterfly); ONE WORLD RECORD: 200m butterfly; 1991 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (200m butterfly); 14 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 7-200m butterfly, 6-200m butterfly, 1-100y butterfly; TWO NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 200m butterfly.
Melvin Stewart was known as the greatest 200m butterfly swimmer of his era. Not only did this 14-time National champion win the 200m event at the 1991 Perth World Championships, defeating legendary Hall of Famers Michael Gross of Germany and Tamas Darnyi of Hungary, he became the gold medallist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in Olympic record time, 1:56.26. Stewart won a second gold as a preliminary heat member of the 4x100m medley relay and a bronze on the 4x200m freestyle relay. In his first Olympic Games at Seoul in 1988, he placed fifth in the 200m butterfly. Stewart held the world record at 1:55.69 from 1991 to 1995 when it was broken by Denis Pankratov of Russia.
It all began for Stewart in 1974. Under the direction of Coach Frankie Bell at the Johnston Memorial YMCA pool in Charlotte, North Carolina, he won National YMCA titles. Bell taught him stroke technique and built his love for the sport, motivating the already inspired youngster with a banana split every time he won. By age 10, he was ranked among the top 10 in the nation in his age group in 16 events. “Little Melvin,” as he was called, grew up on the grounds of Heritage USA, the PTL Ministries Theme Park and religious retreat where his father was recreation director of Jim and Tammy Bakker’s Heritage Church and Athletic Director of his school, Heritage Academy.
Mel became a butterfly side-breather, preferring this unconventional breathing technique to the more traditional head up breathing common to most butterfly swimmers. At 6’1”, 180 lbs., he was a natural. He had flexibility, quick hands and feet, great turning ability and tremendous kicking power. His arms reached from lane rope to lane rope.
In need of some academic tutoring, his mentor, George Baxter, enrolled Stewart at Mercersburg Academy, a small boarding school known for its academics and competitive swimming teams. In his three years there, Mel became an honor student and a leader.
He followed his Mercersburg coach John Trembley to the University of Tennessee and swam on to international stardom one year later, winning the 200m butterfly at the Goodwill Games of 1986. He repeated with Goodwill Game wins in 1990 and 1994 in Moscow, and at the Pan Pacific Championships of 1987, 1989 and 1991. While at Tennessee, he won two NCAA titles in the 200y butterfly.
Stewart holds the record in United States Swimming for winning the most national championships (14) in one event (200 butterfly), more than any other male swimmer in USA history.
After failing to qualify for the 1996 Olympic Team, Mel began to pursue his second dream of acting. He appeared in plays, movies and television shows. He served as an ABC Sports field reporter, hosted ESPN’s “American Outback” and appeared in “Pentathlon,” starring Dolph Lundgren. Stewart was also a hotel lifeguard in “Baywatch.” He is a partner, producer and writer for Symbiotic Entertainment.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Happy Birthday to 2024 Honoree Dana Vollmer!!
Country: USA
Honoree Type: Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (100m butterfly, 4×100mmedley, 4 x 200m freestyle relay); 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (4 × 100mmedley relay), silver (4 x 100m freestyle relay), bronze (100m butterfly); 2004OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (4 × 200m freestyle relay); 2011 LONG COURSEWORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (100m butterfly, 4 × 100m medley) silver (4 x100m freestyle relay); 2007: gold (4 × 200m freestyle relay), silver (4 x 100mfreestyle relay, 4 × 100m medley relay); 2013: gold (4 × 100m medley relay),bronze (100m butterfly); 2009: silver (4 × 200m freestyle relay), bronze (200mfreestyle); 2004 SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (4 × 100mfreestyle relay, 4 x 200m freestyle relay), bronze (100m butterfly); 2010: silver (4× 100m freestyle relay, 4 x 100m medley relay), bronze (100m butterfly);
The scene was the 2000 United States Olympic Trials and a 12-year-old girl walkedthe deck of the venerable Indiana University Natatorium with the biggest names ofthe sport. At the time, Dana Vollmer was a young phenom, gathering valuableexperience for the future, and a career that would go down as sensational.
A multi-event talent in freestyle and butterfly, Vollmer’s big breakthrough arrived in2004, when she qualified to represent the United States at the 2004 OlympicGames in Athens. In the home of the Olympics, Vollmer helped the United Statescapture the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle relay, a world record making thevictory that much sweeter.
After representing the U.S. in additional international competition over the next fewyears, Vollmer failed to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It was atough blow for Vollmer, but it hardly deterred her career. She immediately bouncedback and embarked on the most-successful stint of her career.
At the 2009 World Championships in Rome, Vollmer was the bronze medalist in the200 freestyle and contributed to the United States’ silver medal 800 freestyle relay.By the next World Championships in 2011 in Shanghai, Vollmer was the worldchampion in the 100 butterfly and a key cog on multiple American relays.
The stage was set for Vollmer to excel at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Eight years after making her Olympic debut, Vollmer was a triple gold medalist inLondon, as she helped the U.S. to titles in the 400 freestyle relay and 400 medleyrelay. Her shining moment arrived in the 100 butterfly, where Vollmer struck goldwith a world-record time of 55.98. The effort made her the first woman to breakthe 56-second barrier in the event.
“Coming back from 2008, I didn’t know if I was going to swim,” Vollmer said at thetime. “I had worked for so many years to reach that one goal, but along the way I had a shoulder injury, a back injury, and I was having to deal with fatigue and somuch pressure that I just wasn’t having fun with it at all…The past eight years,there were good times and there were bad times. I feel like it all finally paid off.”Vollmer followed her Olympic crown with a bronze medal at the 2013 WorldChamps and made her third Olympic appearance at the 2016 Games. In Rio deJaneiro, Vollmer once again delivered on the big stage, securing the bronze medal.She added a gold medal in the 400 medley relay and a silver medal in the 400freestyle relay.
Vollmer retired in 2019 as a seven-time Olympic medalist, 10-time medalist at theWorld Championships and with 35 medals earned in international competition. Yetwith all those accolades, the one title she’s most proud of is she the only “Mother”in the sport of swimming to win an Olympic gold medal.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Happy Birthday Sue Gossick!!
Country: USA
Honoree Type: Diver
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1964 4th place (springboard); 1968 gold (springboard); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1967 gold (springboard); AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 5 (springboard); 1966, 1968 WORLD DIVER (springboard); 1967 Los Angeles Times “Woman of the Year”; Women’s Southern Pacific Association Springboard Diver of the Year: 1964-1968.
By the time Sue Gossick came along as a member of the 1964 and 1968 Olympic teams, Southern California diving had gone into a partial eclipse. She and her coach Lyle Draves proved it was a short eclipse. She was a medalist in 21 of 24 national springboard diving championships she entered beginning in 1962. Sue Gossick was coached early on by her father Dr. Gustav Gossick.
Placing fourth in the 1964 Games at Tokyo, Gossick won the 1966 pre-Olympics against the world’s best at Mexico City but almost didn’t make the team when she hit her hand on the board during the U.S. Olympic trials in 1968. Despite a back injury, which had kept her out of the pool for five weeks, she made it to the 1968 trials and finals and took the gold — thanks to treatments from the team doctor of the Los Angeles Rams.
At age nine, Miss Gossick was singled out by the U.S. Olympic Development Committee in 1957 as a “future Olympic champion” and 11 years later she made believers of them and their brash projection. In between, she won the U.S. Nationals five times, a gold medal in the 1967 Pan American Games and was the Southern Pacific AAU’s Springboard Diver of the Year four times. She won world diving first place ratings in 1966 and 1968. After she won the gold at the Mexico City Olympics at age 20, she was honored as the youngest ever “Woman of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Happy Birthday Jason Lezak!!
Country: USA
Honoree Type: Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (4×100m medley), silver (4×100m freestyle); 2004 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (4×100m medley), bronze (4×100m freestyle); 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES: gold (4×100m freestyle, 4×100m medley), bronze (100m freestyle); 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (4×100m freestyle); 2003 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (LC): gold (4×100m medley), silver (4×100m freestyle); 2005 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (LC): gold (4×100m freestyle, 4×100m medley); 2007 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (LC): gold medal (4×100m freestyle); 2011 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (LC): bronze (4×100m freestyle); 2002 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (SC): gold (4×100m freestyle, 4×100m medley); 2004 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (SC): gold (100m freestyle, 4×100m freestyle, 4×100m medley); 2006 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (SC): silver (4×100m medley), bronze (4×100m freestyle);
From the beginning, Jason Lezak showed great promise in the pool, but he constantly butted heads with his coach, Dave Salo, over his commitment to training. Recruited to swim at UC Santa Barbara, Jason’s problems with authority continued until coach Gregg Wilson finally dismissed him from the team. This was the wake-up call he needed. He loved to swim and compete, and after promising to improve his training habits, he rejoined the team. In his Senior year, he was named Big West Conference Swimmer of the Year,
At the 2000 Olympic Trials, Jason finished fourth in the 100m freestyle. While he failed to qualify individually, his result was good enough to make the 4x100m freestyle relay team, an event Team USA had never lost in the Olympic Games. In Sydney, the Australians pulled off the unexpected upset in their home pool and the USA settled for the silver.
Over the next four years, Jason was the top sprinter in the world, and at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials in Long Beach, he qualified for the Olympic Games in both the 50m and 100m freestyle.
In Athens, the US freestyle relay team was trying to win back the title it had lost in Sydney four years earlier. Instead, they finished third behind South Africa and the Netherlands. The next day Jason did not swim as well as expected and failed to reach the semi-finals. Individually Jason finished fifth in the 50. Success came when he swam the freestyle leg behind Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, and Ian Crocker to win the medley relay gold medal, in world record time.
In 2006, Dave Salo left Irvine to take the coaching job at USC, leaving Jason without a coach. He began coaching himself and proved by qualifying for his third Olympic Games that he had the discipline to train daily without a team or trainer at his side.
When he finished second in the 100m freestyle at the Olympic Trials in Omaha, he was 32 years old, the oldest male swimmer to make the team and was selected by his teammates as a captain.
At the 2008 Games in Beijing, his first event was the 4x100m freestyle relay. The USA hadn’t won this race since 1996 and this time the USA was not the favorite. That distinction belonged to the team from France, with 100m world record holder, Alain Bernard as its anchorman. Swimming last, and starting nearly a fully body length behind, Jason chased down Bernard in the final 20 yards to win the gold medal by eight-one-hundredths of a second. Jason’s split time of 46.06, is still the fastest 100m split in history.
The next day, Jason won bronze in the 100m freestyle for the first individual Olympic medal of his career. On the final day of competition, he anchored the USA’s world record setting medley relay that gave Michael Phelps his historic eighth gold medal.
Continuing to swim on his own after Beijing, Jason passed up the opportunity to compete in the World Championships to participate in the Maccabiah Games in Israel, where he won four gold medals and celebrated his heritage as a Jewish athlete.
In 2012, at the age of 36, Jason qualified for his fourth Olympic team by finishing sixth at the Olympic Trials in the 100 free. In London, he swam in the preliminaries and helped earn a spot in the final for the silver medal winning U.S. team. In doing so, he became the first male swimmer in Olympic history to win four medals in the same event, in the 4×100m freestyle relay, in four consecutive Olympic games.
Jason ended his Olympic career with a total of eight medals, four gold, two silver and two bronze. Today, Jason is a proud husband and father of three and a popular motivational speaker who is successfully balancing his family life with business opportunities.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Happy Birthday Frank Gorman!!
Country: USA
Honoree Type: Pioneer Diver
FOR THE RECORD: 1964 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (3m springboard); HARVARD UNIVERSITY: never lost a dual meet diving competition; NCAA ALL-AMERICAN DIVER: 1m, 3m springboard from 1957-1960.
Before 1973, there were no World Championships, World Diving Cups or Grand Prix Diving series. For divers there was only one chance to test their skills in the international arena every four years and that was at the Olympic Games.
In 1952, Francis Xavier Gorman became the youngest boy to win the New York City Public School Athletic League Diving Championships. When he won the title for the fourth time in a row, he caught the eye of Harvard University’s coach, Harold Ulen. At Harvard, Gorman became an immediate success. He was an All-American on both the 1-meter and 3-meter springboards in each of his four years, from 1957 through 1960 and amazingly, never lost a dual meet competition. In 1960, he was the Eastern Intercollegiate Champion on both boards.
After graduating, he set his sights on the Olympics, but failed to make the team. Extremely disappointed, Frank entered the Navy, where he was eventually assigned to the physical education department at the US Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland.
For three years, Frank agonized over not making the 1960 Olympic team and he vowed if he ever got another chance, he would make the most of it. He contacted his friend and fellow competitor, Tom Gompf, who recommended they train together with coach Dick Smith, who at the time, was one of the world’s greatest diving coaches.
At the 1964 US Olympic Diving Trials, Gorman qualified for the Tokyo games on the 3-meter springboard with a record breaking point total. Of the 12 available slots on the US Men’s and Women’s Diving Team, Coach Dick Smith’s divers claimed six of them – with Frank Gorman and Tom Gompf taking two of the spots.
In Tokyo, Frank Gorman gave one of his finest performances. With the highest scores of the competition on each of his first eight dives, Frank was firmly on track for the gold medal, but on his second to last dive he missed badly. Although he recovered to receive the highest scores of the competition on his last dive, he still finished two points behind teammate Ken Sitzberger – but 14 points ahead of teammate, Larry Andreasen to claim the silver. For anyone at the event, there was little doubt that except for one dive Frank Gorman had turned in one of the truly outstanding performances of the 1964 Olympic Games.
After Gorman’s career as an athlete ended, he continued to stay involved in diving and giving back to the sport he loved so much.
Own some signed memorabilia by one of the greatest breaststrokers of all time and SMU alum, Steve Lundquist! ISHOF Honoree Silent Auction – Bid Now!
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SMU basket of collegiate swimming & diving gear and memorabilia autographed by Olympic Gold Medalist, Steve Lundquist and SMU alum, including: autographed SMU pennant, Deckpass from 3/1994 swimming & diving competition, XL SMU sweatshirt, XL SMU Long sleeve t-shirt, L SMU long sleeve t-shirt, and XL SMU swimming & diving t-shirt.
Donated by SMU swimming & diving
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Own a signed book by one of the greatest female swimmers of all time- Katie Ledecky! – ISHOF Honoree Silent Auction – Bid Now!
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Katie Ledecky has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. She is a four-time Olympian, a nine-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and a world record-holder in individual swimming events. At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, she became the most decorated US female Olympian of all time. Time and again, the question is posed to her family, her coaches, and to her—what makes her a champion? Now, for the first time, she shares what it takes to compete at an elite level.
Autographed and donated by Katie Ledecky
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Own a piece of Swimming Relay History – ISHOF Honoree Silent Auction – Bid Now!
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The Last Gold Framed Limited Edition Poster 16 x 20
This is one of the very few posters that were created for the documentary and given to the relay members of “The Last Gold”, signed by the three-remaining members (Shirley Babashoff, Jill Sterkel and Wendy Boglioli) of the 1976 USA Olympic Gold Medal Relay Team. The documentary was selected for the LA Film Festival in 2016. The movie was played in select theaters throughout the country before the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Kim Peyton passed away in 1987. This poster also hangs in the US Olympic Hall of Fame. As you know this was the only gold medal won by our USA Olympic Women’s swimming team in 1976. It happened on the last night of Olympic swimming and final event.
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Own some of ISHOF’s Fantastic Merchandise ISHOF Honoree Silent Auction – Bid Now!
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ISHOF BASKET
1.Speedo backpack Teamster 2.0 $84.952.Speedo kickboard $29.953.ISHOF Hooded Windbreaker/ L $48.954.ISHOF HOODIE/L $34.955.ISHOF Diving T-Shirt/ L $24.956.ISHOF Baseball Cap $24.957.ISHOF diving tower trophy $19.958.ISHOF Mug $7.959.ISHOF koozie $3.9510.ISHOF swimming cap $4.9511.ISHOF cookie cutters $10.0012.Book: Discover Swimming by Robert Strauss $10.00
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Own a piece of 2008 Olympic History – ISHOF Honoree Silent Auction – Bid Now!
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Touch .01 – autographed
Own A Piece of Swimming History
One of sports history’s iconic images by legendary Sports Illustrated photographer Heinz Kluetmeier, “The Touch .01”, captures the incredible finish of the men’s 100m butterfly race at the 2008 Olympic Games. This is a limited edition and numbered museum quality print personally signed by both Michael Phelps and Milorad Cavic.
17″x22″
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