Gold Medallion
The International Swimming Hall of Fame Gold Medallion Award
is presented each year to a former competitive swimmer for his or her national or international significant achievements in the field of science, entertainment, art, business, education, or government. There are no restrictions other than the recipient must be an outstanding adult whose life has served as an inspiration for youth.
Alex Blavatnik (USSR/USA)
2024
Businessman, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Film and Music, Producer, Swimmer
Born in Chirchik, Uzbekistan (formerly part of the Soviet Union), Alex Blavatnik was raised in Yaroslavl, a picturesque and historic Russian city north of Moscow. This is where Alex Blavatnik learned to swim at the age of six, and with the encouragement of his father, Valentin, followed his older brother, Len, on a swimming team. Alex had really wanted to be a soccer player like his father, but Valentin discouraged it, believing swimming was better suited for his sons.
In 1979, the Blavatniks joined the wave of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union to the United States, settling in New York City’s ethnically Jewish Washington Heights district. Starting from scratch in a new country, with few possessions and no savings, presented daunting challenges. Despite their intellectual prowess, Valentin with a PhD in chemistry and mother Larisa, an electrical engineer, were forced to accept jobs far below their skill level due to language barriers, credentialing issues, and discrimination. In addition to the economic hardships, adapting to American culture, values, and social norms was also a challenging process.
With the support of their local community, the Blavatniks ensured Alex received a top-notch education at Yeshiva Prep and was able to continue swimming under coaches Lenny and Don Galluzzi at the Gotham Aquatic Club. In 1980, Valentin was hired by the Mead Company of Dayton, Ohio as a “senior scientist” and the Blavatniks relocated to Centerville, Ohio, where Alex continued his education and swimming at Centerville HS and with the Kettering YMCA under coach Toby Bodecker.
In 1981, Alex qualified for the National YMCA Swimming and Diving Championships at the International Swimming Hall of Fame Pool, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At this meet, after “shaving down for the first time,” Alex dropped nearly 5 seconds off his best time in the 100 yard breaststroke. This performance earned him a partial Division 1 swimming scholarship to Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio.
Intending a career in management consulting, Alex graduated with a degree in Systems Analysis, in 1986. But after a few years, he decided the field wasn’t for him. So, in 1993, Alex returned to New York City and enrolled in the MBA program at Columbia University. After receiving his MBA, Alex joined Access Industries, a privately held investment firm founded by his brother Len. Access Industries was one of the first to recognize the financial opportunities that were coming with the privatization of former state-owned enterprises in the Soviet Union, under the perestroika and glasnost policies of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Initially Access Industries focused on investments in the former Soviet Union. But as the political situation changed over the years, so did the focus of the company. Today Access Industries is a multi-billion-dollar, global investment firm with a diverse portfolio spanning media and entertainment, technology, energy, chemicals, and real estate, both
commercial and residential. In addition to being the current Vice Chairman of Access Industries, Alex is Senior Advisor to the Blavatnik Family Foundation, Director of the Blavatnik Archive, and sits on the boards of several educational and charitable institutions.
Alex Blavatnik is well known for his philanthropic interests, which include swimming, having served on the Boards of the USA Swimming Foundation and International Swimming Hall of Fame. When asked, why he was so interested in supporting swimming, tells the story of the first time he qualified for the YMCA Nationals, in Fort Lauderdale. His family was still struggling financially and didn’t have the money to pay for the trip. When informed of this, his coach, Toby Bodecker, said not to worry, the club had the money to send him. It was only years later that he learned his expenses were paid 50-50 by his coach and another parent. This gesture and swimming, he says, changed his life in many ways. First, participation in the sport helped him adapt to American life. It helped him create structure in his life, introduced him to great people, including peers who were all focused on the same objectives of working hard in the pool and in the classroom. He takes pride in the fact that his Miami swim team had the highest collective GPA of any sport at the school. Finally, when his father Valentin passed away in 1982, at the age of 52, Alex believed it unlikely that he would have been able to afford college without the scholarship he earned.
Swimming remains a big part of Alex’s life. He has competed in every Masters swimming age group since leaving college, at several World and Pan American and Maccabiah Masters Championships. Among his most memorable experiences is swimming on medley relays with Hall of Famers Lenny Krayzelburg and Jason Lezak and future Hall of Famer Anthony Ervin at the Maccabiah Games as well as US and Israeli Olympians Garrett Weber-Gale, Yoav Bruck and Anastasia Gorbenko in 2017 and 2022.
Alex Blavatnik’s story is a testament to resilience, hard work, and the power of swimming to transform lives. As the 2024 Gold Medallion Recipient, his story and legacy will inspire future generations to pursue their passions and make a difference.
Alex Blavatnik, 2024 Gold Medallion Recipient, USA
Dr. Joseph MacInnis
2019
He was born in the bayfront city of Barrie, Ontario, Canada, in 1937, and had a love of the water from an early age.
Water is much more than a drink to Dr. Joe MacInnis. It is a passion that was heightened by a visit to Fort Lauderdale for the Annual Christmas Swim Forum in 1954. It was here where Canada’s intercollegiate breaststroke champion and the captain of the University of Toronto’s swim team, made his first dive.
When he dropped into the water over Fort Lauderdale’s second reef, it was a life-changing experience. The things he saw and heard…everything from the Queen Angel fish to the sound of silence was beautiful. He knew that whatever he did after that, it had to be in concert with the ocean.
After his swimming career ended in 1958, he continued at UT as a medical student, always with the idea of combining medicine with the sea. He wasn’t sure how, but as men were beginning to explore the undersea world, he believed they were going to need a good physician.
Rather than working in hospitals during the summer, MacInnis dove in local waters and took off for Florida and the Bahamas whenever he could. By 1960, he had become an expert skin and SCUBA diver and saw his first article on the subject published.
It was after earning his M.D., during his internship, that he encountered a tunnel construction worker suffering from decompression sickness. It was then that MacInnis decided to pursue diving medicine in his post-graduate years at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1964, he was chosen to be the life support physician for phase two of the Man in Sea project sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Smithsonian Institution. In 1965, he directed over 75 experimental dives for Ocean Systems, Inc., then the world’s largest commercial diving company, and in 1967 became a consultant to the US Navy’s Sealab project. MacInnis was certified by the US Navy, in 1968 as a Man-In-Sea Aquanaut for its Sealab III program.
MacInnis constructed Sublimnos, Canada’s first subsurface research laboratory in 1969. It was the only freshwater underwater lab, the only under-ice station and it was the only “free “submerged habitat in the world. It was inspiration to Pierre Trudeau, who himself was a diver and a year later Trudeau asked MacInnis to help write Canada’s first national ocean policy. Supported by the Canadian Government, he began a series of ten research expeditions to study techniques for working under the Arctic Ocean. Later that year, Dr. MacInnis founded the James Allister MacInnis Foundation for underwater research education in Canada.
He led a team that constructed the first manned underwater station, “Sub Igloo,” in the Arctic Ocean in 1972, years later, he took His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales on a dive under the polar ice cap.
MacInnis was the first person to explore the freezing waters under the North Pole and by the mid-1970’s, had been on more than 100 expeditions and major dives around the world. In 1976, he became a member of the Order of Canada, his nation’s highest honor, for his pioneering research on undersea science and engineering projects.
While diving in 1975, Dr. MacInnis discovered a fragment of the world’s northernmost-known shipwreck, the HMS Breadalbane. It was a British merchant ship that sank over 100 years prior under the ice of the Northwest Passage and in 1978, he headed a five-man crew for the first expedition to find the whole wreck of the ship.
After a long search, the ship was discovered in 1980 using side-scan sonar in the waters south of Beechy Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. A year later, MacInnis’ group returned for a more detailed look, but this time they were accompanied by the Canadian Coast Guard, the National Geographic Society and other institutions. A remotely piloted submersible was lowered 100 meters into the lethally cold water, and the first color photographs were taken with still and video cameras.
A highlight of MacInnis’ career was in 1985 when he was an adviser to the team that discovered the wreck of the RMS Titanic. In 1987, aboard the French submersible Nautile, he made his first nine-hour dive to the Titanic at 4,000 m. south of Newfoundland.
In 1991, he was the co-leader of a $5 million expedition to film Titanic on the giant-screen IMAX format, He made a second nine-hour dive that included spending time on Titanic’s bridge deck. It was his expedition that inspired Canadian filmmaker James Cameron’s Academy Award winning film, which hit the big screens in 1997.
As fate would have it, Cameron made his first contact with MacInnis after seeing Sublimnos in front of the Royal Ontario Museum. He wrote MacInnis asking for the blue prints for Sublimnos. MacInnis wrote him back and encouraged the 14-year-old Cameron to embrace his love of diving and undersea exploration. They’ve been friends ever since.
MacInnis has assisted Cameron on numerous expeditions since the Titanic film. In 2003, MacInnis accompanied Cameron on the Disney-IMAX expedition to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which resulted in the 3-D film, Aliens of the Deep.
In 2005, MacInnis teamed with Cameron for the Discovery Channel expedition which broadcast live images of the last remaining unseen rooms of the Titanic. The expedition involved the world’s largest research ship, 130 people, two, $2 million subs and five mini-robots.
In 2012, he was expedition physician and journalist for Cameron and National Geographic for the seven-mile deep solo science dive into the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, the deepest natural trench in the world.
Dr. MacInnis has spent 6,000 hours working inside the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. He has authored nine books about undersea science and engineering projects and the leadership needed to make them succeed. They have been published by Random House, Penguin and National Geographic.
Dr. MacInnis currently examines and writes about leadership and team genius in lethal environments.
Laurie Lawrence
2017
From being around the Townsville Pool his father ran, and being sparked into swimming by the legendary Hall of Famer Jon Henricks, Laurie Lawrence became a swimming legend and a maker of champions, capable of lifting the spirits of those around him to soaring heights.
His swimmers set over seventeen world records, and he coached Australian teams to three Commonwealth Games and three Olympic Games. For these efforts, Laurie was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Coach in 1996.
Beyond his career in coaching he is many other things: an extroverted entrepreneur, a patriot, poet, singer, humorist, best-selling author, dedicated family man and the most sought after motivational speaker in Australia.
By all accounts his greatest accomplishment has been in the promotion of swimming and preventing the tragedy of drowning through his internationally acclaimed water safety programs.
As in the US, the Labor, Liberal and National parties in Australia are often at odds with each other, and it is rare indeed when someone can unite the parties to support a single cause as a non-partisan issue. With the help of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Laurie was able to do that for his “Kids Alive” and “Living with Water” drowning prevention programs. These programs provide the parents of every newborn child in their country with an educational packet of information about the importance of being water safe and learning to swim.
The programs include a “Kids Alive” website, bolstered by community service advertising and the “Kids Alive Water Safety Show”, the biggest touring free show in Australia. Not only has the show visited metropolitan areas, but rural towns and even remote communities — to the entertainment and education of hundreds of thousands of Australian children.
In addition to operating a chain of successful swim schools, Laurie also partnered with Data Solutions to pioneer the design and build out of the world’s first cloud-based LMS (Learning Management System) that delivers unparalleled online training for swim instructors through his “World-Wide Swim School.”
Laurie attributes his early exposure to swimming and sports for providing him with the lessons and tools that have rewarded him with success as a coach, a multi-faceted entrepreneur and his happiness in life. “Things of value,” he says, “don’t come by luck, they’re won by pain, persistence and sacrifices, and success is the celebration of your preparation.”
Tod Spieker
2016
He began swimming competitively at the age of eight, at the Palo Alto Swim Club in California. It was not until four years later, at the age of 12, swimming for coaches Al and Della Sehorn, that he won his first race. Swimming for Bob Gaughran at Menlo Atherton High School, he became an All-American swimmer. He also swam for Nort Thornton at Foothill Aquatic Club. Both Gaughran and Thornton remember Tod as, “the hardest working kid on the team.” He went on to attend UCLA on a swimming scholarship and became an NCAA All-American backstroker. His coach, Bob Horn, remembers him as “dedicated and tough.”
It was in these formative years that Richard “Tod” Spieker learned, as a swimmer, that hard work and consistency paid off – and it was a lesson that has led him to excel not only in swimming, but in business and in life.
Tod started planning for his post athletic career before he graduated from UCLA. His major was geography and while a senior, still taking classes at UCLA, he signed up for extra courses in real estate at nearby Santa Monica College. His interest in real estate had been fueled years earlier when he would tag along with his mom to open houses. While she was curious about what other houses in the neighborhood were like, Tod became interested in why a home was selling and what it was selling for.
Tod graduated from UCLA with his degree in 1971, earned his real-estate broker’s license the following year and began his first full-time job as a land scout, searching for suitable locations for a big apartment developer. It was where he first learned the guts of the apartment business: building costs, financing, locations and rent-to-value ratios.
Then came the crash of 1974 and he was laid off. Tod landed on his feet working as a broker for Coldwell Banker, selling apartments in Silicon Valley and the East Bay. It was from this experience that he learned what investors were thinking about, what they looking for and what their needs were. By 1981, Tod had almost ten years of experience under his belt and was ready to strike out on his own. He formed Spieker Companies and he bought his first apartment building, a 34 unit rental property in Campbell, California. Today the Palo Alto based, wholly owned and privately held company is an investment and property management engine that has an inventory of almost 4,000 rental units, mostly in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, with over 200 employees.
It was while working for Coldwell Banker that Tod discovered Masters Swimming. Entering his first adult age group meet in 1977, he burned his way through the FINA Masters world record books for the next quarter of a century and swam his way into the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame in 2005.
Although he has since stopped competing, he still begins each morning with a swim before heading to the office. He attributes his years in swimming for providing him the lessons and tools that have made him successful in real estate, as a father, husband and now a grandfather. It has also endowed him with the desire to give back. Over the years he has actively and generously supported a variety of aquatic projects and organizations, including the Spieker Aquatic Center on the campus of UCLA, USA Masters Swimming and the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He also serves on a number of Boards, including the Ziman Center for Real Estate and the UCLA Foundation.
Anne Warner Cribbs
2015
When she was five years of age, this little girl learned to swim so fast and well that her 17 year-old instructor, Jim Gaughran, told her and her parents that she was going to be a great swimmer one day. When she was eight years old, Anne Warner’s parents signed her up for the Santa Clara Swim Club, where she became something of a child prodigy. Swimming for legendary coach and Hall of Famer George Haines, she won a gold medal in the 200 meter breaststroke at the 1959 Pan American Games in Chicago, at fourteen years old. A year later, at the Rome Olympics, she was part of USA’s medley relay swimming in prelims. While the men’s Olympic team went off on a celebratory European tour, the women were sent home. Without having a high school team or college scholarship opportunities in the pre-title IX era, and having other interests, she retired from competitive swimming at the ripe old age of 15.
By the time she was 24, and with the youngest of her two children from her first marriage in kindergarten, she was motivated to go back to school. Anne graduated with the President’s Medal at Foothill College, but the final step to getting her undergraduate degree was delayed by a second marriage to Ian Cribbs, which created a combined family of seven children. The two had another daughter before she enrolled at Stanford in 1976, and she was pregnant with their eighth when she graduated in 1979. In 1985, after years of coaching & teaching swimming in the Bay Area, Anne went to work for the City of Palo Alto in the Community Services Department.
In 1991, she formed Cavalli & Cribbs, an advertising and public relations firm that came to specialize in marketing and event management, which successfully marketed the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the Bay Area. She had always yearned to do something more for female athletes. Perhaps it was the abrupt end of her own swimming career, or that eight of her nine children are girls. That chance came in 1995, when she helped write women’s sporting history as a co-founder of the American Basketball League (ABL), the first women’s professional basketball league in the United States. It was so that after college, female basketball players could play basketball – an American game, on American soil, in the traditional basketball season. During its existence, the ABL set the standard for what women’s professional sports could and should become, creating a permanent legacy and forever changing the paradigm.
In 1999, she was selected to be the CEO of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, or BASOC, and became the first female to lead a major US Olympic Bid Committee: San Francisco 2012. While the bid ultimately lost to New York, it had an unprecedented 90% approval rating from the public. She continues today as the President/CEO of BASOC, which over the past twenty years has hosted or helped to organize many events, including the 2006 FINA World Masters Championships. She produced the 40th Anniversary of Ping Pong Diplomacy with American & Chinese table tennis Olympians, was chair of the 2009 Summer National Senior Games, and Director of 2011 USA Swimming National and Junior National Championships at Stanford.
Olympian, mother, wife, business woman, proponent of the Olympic sports and opportunities for female athletes, and role model!
Robert Dudley
2014
It became evident to coach Don Watson, soon after the Dudley family moved to Hinsdale from Hattiesburg, Mississippi and joined his swimming team in Hinsdale, Illinois – that Bob Dudley was a special individual with special talents and qualities that would lead him to become the head of British Petroleum today.
Bob made a commitment to Watson’s demanding year round training schedule and was a member of four state high school championship teams. He also took on the additional duties with the Hinsdale Guard, an organization of 40 plus students who supported school and community swimming programs and volunteered his time and service to teach school children swimming.
“Looking back to his years at Hinsdale high School” says Watson, “I think of Bob as being always Cool, Calm, Disciplined, Confident, Friendly, and Fair…. Family, Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility, Loyalty, Faith and Commitment are words that defined his character and personality – and still do.”
While a shoulder injury kept him from swimming in college and pursuing his dream of attending the US Naval Academy, he chose a different course that led him where he is today.
After earning a degree in chemical engineering, Bob Dudley went to work in the oil industry for Amoco, which was later acquired by British Petroleum. From 2003-2008 he was president and chief executive of a joint venture between BP and a group of Russian billionaires. Although the joint venture increased oil output by a third, the rocky relationship reached a point where he faced “sustained harassment” that led him to feel life-threatened, and left the country. In 2009, he was selected to be a managing director of BP, with oversight of the company’s activities in the Americas and Asia. One morning in April of 2010, while on business in India, he turned on the TV to catch up on news, only to find footage of the Deepwater Horizon inferno. Within hours he was on a plane headed for Houston from halfway across the world, charged with leading crisis resolution and restoration efforts for the gulf of Mexico and the beaches that he swam and played in growing up in Mississippi. In October, as BP shares were halved and talk swirled about it seeking bankruptcy protection, Bob Dudley was elevated to CEO and tabbed with saving the ship. And he has done so, steering BP to what Forbes Magazine calls one of the great corporate survival stories in business history.
Not only has he saved the ship, he created a new safety division that made BP the top industry leading Safety and Environmental Performer of 2013 and is one of the most admired corporate CEO’s in the world today.
Peter Ueberroth
2013
It is perhaps no coincidence that Peter V. Ueberroth was born on September 2, 1937, the same date that the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre Baron de Coubertin passed away – for many credit Peter with saving the Olympic movement from the financial calamities of the 1970’s and the boycotts of the 1980’s.
Peter was born in Evanston, Illinois, but grew up in Sunnyvale, California, where he excelled in high school as an athlete, participating in football, baseball and swimming. Although he had never seen a game of water polo before attending college, he was recruited by Ed Rudloff to play at San Jose State University. He quickly fell in love with the game, became a star player and caught the spark of the Olympic Games when he participated in the 1956 Water Polo Olympic Trials.
After graduating with a business degree in 1959, he moved to Hawaii and at the age of 22, became a shareholder and Vice President of Trans International Airline. In 1963, he founded his first company, the First Travel Corporation, which by 1978 had 1,500 employees in 200 offices worldwide and was the second largest travel company in North America.
In 1979, when the Los Angeles Committee for the Olympic Games was looking for a person to take charge of the Games, a “head-hunting” firm suggested Peter Ueberroth. At first he declined, but pressed a second time changed his mind and the rest is history.
Under Ueberroth’s leadership and management, the first privately financed Olympic Games became the genesis for the current International and US Olympic sponsorship programs and recorded a surplus of nearly $240 million dollars. The unprecedented profits were used by Peter to endow the U.S. Olympic Committee, the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and each of the national governing bodies. For the operational, political and financial success of the Games, he was named 1984 Man of the Year by Time Magazine.
For the next five years he served as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. When he began this assignment, 22 of the League’s teams were losing money. At the end of his term, all of the baseball teams were profitable.
With a proven track record of taking on a crisis and turning it into success, Peter was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley and Governor Pete Wilson to lead the Rebuild LA Project in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 2004, the Olympic movement called him back, to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee. Beset by financial mismanagement, poor international relations, ethics scandals and revolving door leadership, Peter restored financial accountability, credibility and respect to the USOC during his four-year term.
In addition to these examples of crisis management success stories, Peter currently leads successful ventures through his company the Contrarian Group which included the purchase of the Pebble Beach Company, bringing it back to U.S. ownership.
Peter and his wife, Ginny, have four children and eight grandchildren. They live in Laguna Beach.
Milton Gray Campbell
2012
Milt Campbell not only once claimed the title of being the world’s greatest athlete, but this Olympian’s story as an All-American swimmer may be one of the world’s most unknown and inspirational success stories in all of sport.
In 1953, as an eighteen year old, Milt was named by Sport Magazine as the best high school athlete in the world and it’s hard to imagine any high schooler on the planet who has ever had a superior claim to that title. As a junior, not only had Campbell won the silver medal in the decathlon at the 1952 Olympic Games, but he had also finished fifth in the open high hurdles at the U.S. Trials. He scored 180 points for his high school football team in one season and subbing once for a sick heavyweight wrestler, he took only a minute and a half to pin the boy who would go on to become state champion. On top of that, he was an All-America swimmer. After high school, Campbell went on to star in both football and track at Indiana University and capped his amateur career by winning the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia.
Don’t tell Milt Campbell he can’t do something, because he’s been proving them wrong his entire life. Take for example his freshman year of high school when he wandered into the pool at Plainfield High in New Jersey. The team had never had a “colored boy” try out, he was told by a team member, “because your people come from Africa and never learned because of the crocodiles, never learned to swim.” He took that as a challenge and joined the team. The swim coach, Vic Lisk, encouraged Milt, but Milt’s father said he shouldn’t trust white men. Well, not only did Milt trust Lisk but he became an All-American swimmer in his years at Plainfield and established a bond with his coach that lasted a lifetime.
In 1956, all the media predicted that Rafer Johnson would win the decathlon in Melbourne instead of Milt Campbell, but when the two met at the Olympic Games it was Milt who was crowned as the world’s greatest athlete.
His simple but important secret for success in athletics and life, he says, is that “It’s not what you say to me that matters. It’s what I say to me.”
Although he was the greatest athlete of his generation, Milton Campbell is a forgotten hero who deserves to be recognized not only as a former competitive swimmer who achieved greatness out of the pool, but because it is important for the children of the world and the sport of swimming that his experience and inspirational story receives the attention it deserves.
Milt Campbell is retired now and writing his memoirs.
H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco
2011
His Serene Highness, Prince Albert, Alexandre, Louis, Pierre – Sovereign Prince of Monaco- Marquis of Baux, was born on the 14th March 1958.
His Highness is the son of Prince Rainier the III, Louis Henri-Maxence-Bertrand – and Princess Grace – the daughter of John B. Kelly, Sr., of Philadelphia.
When Prince Albert took over the reins of the Mediterranean principality of Monaco, upon the death of his father Prince Rainier, on April 6, 2005, he brought a wealth of training, dedication and long years of experience in international and governmental affairs to the role.
Albert first studied at Monaco’s Lycee Albert First, graduating with distinction in 1976. He went on to Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he studied political science, economics, psychology, philosophy and English literature. He speaks four languages, is a licensed helicopter pilot and is a reserve Lieutenant Commander in the Navy.
While his accomplishments in the academic sphere are impressive, the Prince’s accomplishments and interest in the world of athletics are truly remarkable. He was the Lycee’s best middle-distance runner and a champion swimmer. At Amherst he trained in javelin, and also played on the Monaco soccer team for four years. A black-belt in judo, he has participated in five Olympic Games as a member of Monaco’s national bobsleigh team. A member of the International Olympic Committee since 1985, He is also President of both the Monegasque Olympic Committee and Monegasque Swimming Federation –sponsors of one of the world’s most famous swimming meets – held annually in Monte Carlo – the Mare Nostrum.
His interest in athletics, particularly swimming – and the legacy of his Kelly side of the family – is his connection to the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
His maternal grandfather, John B. Kelly, Sr., was a legendary Olympic rowing champion, businessman, philanthropist and civic leader. His uncle, John B. Kelly, Jr. – Grace’s brother – followed in his father’s footsteps on all accounts. He won the legendary Diamond Sculls Rowing Regatta at Henley, the A.A.U.’s Sullivan Award as America’s best amateur athlete in 1947 and participated in four Olympic Games. It was “Kel’s” romance and marriage to Olympic swimmer, Mary Freeman, that led the Kelly family to become patrons of American swimming and the John B. Kelly Olympic Pool, in Philadelphia. Built in 1954, Kelly Pool hosted U.S. National Swimming and Diving Championships for over two decades and many were won by Vesper Boat Club Swimming Team –coached by Mary Freeman Kelly, the first American woman coach to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Before being elected President of the United States Olympic Committee in 1985, John B. Kelly, Jr. served as President of the International Swimming Hall of Fame from 1981 to 1984.
Since 1993, Prince Albert has led the Monegasque delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
He is Chairman of the Mediterranean Science Commission.
He has visited the North Pole by dog sled from the Russian base of Barneo, 120 kilometres away and in January of 2009, he undertook a three-week scientific journey in the Antarctic.
He has established the Prince Albert the second of Monaco Foundation dedicated to protecting the environment.
He has made important contributions in the fields of Human rights, child protection laws, privacy rights, freedom of expression and gender equity and has proved to be particularly concerned with the Principality’s economic development in a spirit of ethics and transparency and is committed to a policy of developing facilities and conducting major public work projects.
His Serene Highness Prince Albert’s interests and life’s work span the broad spectrum of world affairs and he has received many international awards, including: The Teddy Roosevelt Medal awarded by the United States Congress / The Roger Revelle prize from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography / The Awards of Honorary Membership in Geographical Societies of Russia and Italy.
Zlatko Matesa
2010
Dr. Guy Harvey
2010
William R. Timken, Jr.
2009
Esther Williams
2007
No other person is asked or talked about more at the International Swimming Hall of Fame than Esther Williams, the most celebrated swimming, stage and screen star Hollywood has ever seen. She was a competitive swimmer who used her swimming talent to become one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses.
Born in Los Angeles, she grew up swimming in playground pools and surfing at local beaches. In 1939, swimming for the Los Angeles Athletic Club, she became the U.S. National Champion in the 100m freestyle as well as a member of three LAAC National Championship relay teams – the medley relays swimming breaststroke, and the freestyle relay. As a favorite for the 1940 U.S. Olympic Team, World War II intervened, canceling the Games and her hopes for gold and fame.
Esther decided to go pro and switched from breaking records in the pool to breaking records at the box office. With her stunning good looks and tall, muscular frame, she was a standout! Legendary showman Billy Rose hired her to star opposite Johnny Weissmuller in his “San Francisco Aquacade”, a Broadway musical of swimmers, divers, singing and special effects. MGM executives soon offered her a screen test paired with Clark Gable. She signed her first contract and debuted with Mickey Rooney in “Andy Hardy’s Double Life”. Audience response was phenomenal and her movie career soared into high gear.
“Bathing Beauty” with Red Skelton was Hollywood’s first swimming movie. A special deep pool was built on the MGM lot complete with lifts, hidden air hoses and special camera cranes for overhead shots. “No one had ever done a swimming movie before” she exclaimed, “so we just made it up as we went along.” Busby Berkley was responsible for the water scenes – the fountains, flames and smoke, and lots of pretty girls. “Bathing Beauty” was second only to “Gone with the Wind” as the most successful film of 1944.
In “Million Dollar Mermaid”, Esther played Annette Kellerman who in 1907 was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing a shocking one-piece swimsuit that revealed her arms and legs. It was the first film to cost over $1 million dollars. “Dangerous When Wet”, “Pagan Love Song” and “Easy to Love” were others of her 26 career films. Her movies inspired many youngsters to take up water ballet and popularized synchronized swimming.
Following her stellar movie career, she put her name on the Esther Williams Above Ground Swimming Pool. Her Esther Williams swim suit collection, sold in department stores, was designed for the more mature woman. For more than 18 years, she was America’s sweetheart. In 1953, the foreign press voted her the most popular actress in 50 countries.
Adolph Kiefer
2007
As a child he hated getting water up his nose; so, he swam on his back. His father, a German born candy-maker died when he was only 12, but encouraged his son to be the “best swimmer in the world”. Working furiously tomake this a reality, he swamin any pool he could. On Sunday’s, he would hop onto trucks, jump streetcars, anything to get to the only available pool at the Jewish Community Center. He firmly believes that the reason he became a world champion is simple, he swam more than anyone else.
At the 1933 World’s Fair, he worked as a lifeguard in the Baby Ruth pool, which hosted exhibitions by swimming champions. Kiefer pestered one recognizable figure in attendance Tex Robertson, captain of the University ofMichigan swim team, until Tex finally agreed to coach him. That Thanksgiving, Adolph Kiefer hitchhiked to Michigan where Robertson coached him. Another coach, Matt Mann inquired, “Who’s that kid in the pool?” Robertson replied, “Kiefer, I’m helping him.” Taking out his watch, Mann said, “Let’s see that kid swim a hundred”. Kiefer swam it. Mann looked at his watch and said — “I don’t believe this … do it again!” Kiefer did. Dumbfounded Mann replied, “You just broke the world record — twice!”
Adolph Kiefer became the first man to break the 100 yds backstroke under one minute. One year later at just 18, at the 1936 Olympics he broke the world record three times! Throughout his era, he was the proud holder of every official world backstroke record for men. None of his backstroke records were broken until 1950, four years after he retired from competition. In more than 2000 races, he lost only twice.While there may be some speculation as to whether Adolph Kiefer actually invented the modern backstroke, no one can deny he perfected it.
Kiefer became an international phenomenon. MadisonAvenue cashed in on hismarketing appeal, Hollywood offered him the golden screen promising him”lover” roles. Married, Kiefer abandoned such notions returning home to his wife and children.
Aman with such passion, it is no surprise thatAdolph Kiefer gives back to his beloved sport whenever possible. As a lieutenant inWorldWar II, he conducted a global survey of shipwrecks, documenting the enormous and unnecessary toll of GI deaths resulting from inadequate swimming instruction. 25% of the white sailors were non-swimmers, compared to 90% of blacks. He told his commanding officer more lives were being lost due to drowning than bullets! Consequently, he was elevated to officer in charge of swimming for the entire Navy. As a result, over 33,000 navy swimming instructors learned how to stay alive in the water, ultimately saving countless lives.
In 1946, he established Adolph Kiefer & Co. — a sporting goods store that retailed and manufactured “everything but the water”. His first marketable product was the “Kiefer” suit. The silk shortage from WWII caused Kiefer to consider using nylon fabric for suits as the full body competitive suit requirement had just been lifted. Adolph offered a viable option to the wool suits still worn by many beach-goers. The “Kiefer” suits were great for swimmers, improved everyone’s time, no matter how risqué for the era.
SinceWorldWar II, Kiefer has remained a prominent figure in the swimming world serving as a liaison between the aquatic industry and competitive swimming. His company provides official aquatic supplies in every capacity, including numerous Olympics. Adolph donates much of his time and efforts helping youngsters learn to swim — even supplying pools in many impoverished neighborhoods. His ambitious schedule of lecturing, philanthropy and coaching has done much to make America a “swimmingly safe nation” fashionably appareled.
Today,Adolph Kiefer continues to run his business with his beloved wife Joyce. Swimming has never forsaken him; he still seeks out a pool for his daily swim.
Jim Press
2006
Born on the California coast, he developed a love for the water at an early age. His family moved to Kansas when he was seven to work for his uncle’s car dealership. He began swimming competitively at the age of nine, creating a love affair with the water that has remained with him throughout every phase of his life.
In his high school, he was a member of the swim team. He continued swimming at Kansas State College where he obtained a degree in marketing. Soon after, Ford Motor Company hired him. Three years later he followed his boss to Toyota. He enjoyed working for what was then, a smaller car company because he would have the opportunity to work different jobs. He envisioned himself running a dealership in his future.
Few would have predicted that some thirty years later, Jim Press would become the President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) USA or that Toyota would gain over 11% of the market share in North America. Fortune Magazine refers to Jim as “Toyota’s Secret Weapon” stating that he “arguably has as much influence over the course of the American auto industry as anyone else alive.”
Since 1970, Jim has worked a wide variety of positions in advertising, service, marketing, product planning, market representa-tion and distribution departments. Jim gets inside the minds of the American car buyer, distills what he’s learned and interprets the results for the product planners and engineers in Japan. He has over all responsibility for sales, marketing and distribution for Toyota, Scion and Lexus products in the United States. He is the first American President of TMS. ISHOF’s 1994 Gold Medallion recipient, Jim Moran, has built JM Lexus of the Southeast and JM Family Enterprises, Inc. into the largest Lexus distributorship in the United States. Press has been instrumental in Toyota’s successful entry into the Hybrid market with the Prius and new entry-level Scion, redesigned the Sienna minivan and is currently carefully assessing the transition to fuel cell technology.
Despite his success, Press maintains an unusual demeanor for an automobile executive. He is described as soft-spoken, thoughtful, extremely intelligent and humble. He has diplomatically proven himself as one who understands the business of cars and American psyche enabling him to predict trends, providing an important voice of reason and leadership on the board of directors. Toyota’s honorary chairman, Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, describes Press as an instrumental, “force of change”.
Press was the first international automotive executive elected to chair the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry’s top trade group. He has received the “Distinguished Service Citation Award” from the Automotive Hall of Fame and has been named an industry “All-Star” leader by both Automotive News and Automobile Magazine.
At 5:30 every morning, Press can be found swimming laps. He arrives a this office soon after and doesn’t head home until 9 p.m. The weekends are often spent competing in triathlons and long-distance ocean races. Jim belongs to both the Los Angeles and Peninsula Masters swim teams. He and his wife Linda reside in Rolling Hills, CA and have four children.
While it is rumored that gasoline runs through his veins, perhaps it is the fuel that drives his passion for swimming. Whatever the reason, cars and swimming are sure to remain intertwined in the fabric of his life.
E. Clay Shaw, Jr.
2005
E. Clay Shaw, Jr. is a leader. He is a 13-term U.S. Congressman from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties. His re-election over and over again is a reflection of his accepted leadership style, commitment to his ideals and values and distinguished political career to get the job done. As a youngster, Shaw helped develop these qualities through participation in sport, as a competitive swimmer.
Born April 19, 1939, Clay was raised in Miami at a time when Dade County was still mostly rural. His father practiced as Dade County’s first trained urologist, and the Shaw family owned and operated a tree nursery in Dania. Originally purchased in the 1930’s, the nursery is still in existence today.rams and volunteered his time and service to teach school children swimming. As a young student at Horace Mann Junior High, Clay took an early interest in school athletics. Initially playing football and baseball, his passion for swimming arose from unexpected circumstances. After suffering a knee injury, Clay fell in love with swimming.
He energetically trained and became captain of his Miami Edison High School swim team. He led the Miami Edison team against rival schools in Broward County, including Fort Lauderdale High, where he swam at the famed saltwater Casino Pool on Fort Lauderdale Beach. The Casino was the predecessor of the Hall of Fame Pool where his children would swim growing up in Fort Lauderdale. Clay would later go on to compete in the AAU Junior Olympics. Recreationally, he was a lifeguard at La Gorce Country Club on Miami Beach.
During his high school years, Clay met Emilie Costar and after five years of dating, was married in 1960 while both were students at Stetson University in Deland.
In 1961, Clay graduated from Stetson University with a degree from the School of Business. His next step was the University of Alabama where he successfully completed a Master’s Degree and earned his CPA degree. Then it was back to Stetson for a law degree, after which he moved his family to Fort Lauderdale and entered the practice of law.
His service to the City of Fort Lauderdale began in 1968, when he became Fort Lauderdale’s Assistant City Attorney. He and Emilie were busy raising their four children: Mimi, Jennifer, Doc and J.C.. Later that same year, he was named Chief City Prosecutor and went on to serve as Associate Municipal Judge from 1969 to 1971.
After reading Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative, Clay’s interest in politics rapidly grew. In 1971, he was elected to the Fort Lauderdale City Commission, serving as Vice Mayor form 1973 to 1975, and later as Mayor for three terms between 1975 and 1980. Shortly thereafter, “Mayor” Shaw became “Congressman” Shaw, following his successful campaign to represent Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. He and the family bought a second home in Washington, D.C..
He first served on the Judiciary Committee, concentrating on anti-narcotics legislation with measures to provide for a national drug enforcement office. In 1988, he won assignment to the influential Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and since that time has chaired the Human Resources Subcommittee, the Social Security Subcommittee and most recently the Subcommittee on Trade.
Shaw’s list of accomplishments during 25 years in Congress is long and impressive. He has worked tirelessly to strengthen and improve the Social Security system. He helped lead repeal of a provision that penalized people who continued to work after age 65. He authored the groundbreaking Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, commonly known as the Welfare Reform Act and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. In 2002, the House passed a Shaw-sponsored bill to boost social security benefits to widows and older divorced women. He is known around Washington and the entire country as the leading voice on social security reform.
He is also co-author of the Port and Maritime Security Act, which increased funding for the Coast Guard and other Homeland Security measures at the nation’s seaports.
Even after 25 years on Capitol Hill working on both national and international issues, Congressman Shaw’s gaze has not drifted from the South Florida community. Congressman Shaw is the co-author the $8.4 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan designed to preserve, protect and restore Florida’s most precious natural treasure, the greater Everglades ecosystem. Other endeavors of which the Congressman is particularly proud include: rezoning Fort Lauderdale to accommodate the city’s rapid population growth; multiple beach re-nourishment projects promoted through his House Coastal Caucus to ensure a federal role in beach re-nourishment; and securing critical federal funding for the Tri-County Commuter Rail, Fort Lauderdale Airport renovation, and the establishment of effective security measures at Port Everglades. His subcommittee on trade has promoted expanded trade to Latin America. He understands and supports President Bush’s commitment to tax reform and how it affects the family.
In Fort Lauderdale, he chaired the 1986 Blue Ribbon Citizens Committee which oversaw the General Obligation Bond Issue approved by local voters providing funding for the revitalization of Fort Lauderdale Beach, the International Swimming Hall of Fame and Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex and the creation of Riverwalk in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Congressman Shaw and his wife Emilie, continue to call Fort Lauderdale their home. They have raised four children and 15 grandchildren. For a quarter of a century, he has displayed the same passion for achievement in Congress that he displayed so many years ago in the swimming pool.
Cirque du Soleil "O"
2004
In only five and a half years, Cirque du Soleil “O” has become the most successful forum of live entertainment in the world performing in, on and above the water. Created as a continuous visual montage, “O” combines the best of circus arts, acrobatics, synchronized swimming, high diving and more to create a ground-breaking experience in a magnificent theatre reminiscent of a European opera house.
It all began when Cirque du Soleil was formed in 1984 by a troupe of street performers called the “Club des talons hauts” (the high-heels club), headed by Guy Laliberté, a 23-year-old fire breather. From 1982 to 1984, the group organized the “Fête Foraine” entertainers’ festival in Baie-Saint-Paul, a small town near Quebec City in Canada. It was the first festival to bring together street performers from around the world. These young performers captured the attention of audiences and media alike. In 1984, the group received a one million dollar grant from the Quebec government to create a show in celebration of the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada…Cirque du Soleil was born! In 1987, Cirque du Soleil took its show to the Los Angeles Festival and was met with a thunderous ovation, opening the show to the international community.
Cirque du Soleil was based on a totally new concept: a striking, dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment, featuring wild, outrageous costumes, staged under magical lighting and set to original music. Since 1984, Cirque has grown from one show in Quebec to five touring shows in North America, Europe and Asia and four resident shows in the United States in 2004.
Cirque du Soleil’s touring shows include Varekai (North American tour), Dralion (European tour), Quidam (Asia-Pacific tour), Alegra (North American tour), and Saltimbanco (European tour). Resident shows include Mystère at Treasure Island in Las Vegas, La Nouba at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Zumanity, Another Side of Cirque du Soleil at New York-New York in Las Vegas, and “O” at Bellagio in Las Vegas.
In 20 years, over 40 million spectators have seen a Cirque du Soleil show. In 1984, 73 people worked for the company. Today, Cirque du Soleil has expanded to 2,700 employees worldwide, including more than 600 artists, representing over 40 nationalities speaking 25 different languages.
Cirque du Soleil created an entirely original form of live entertainment with “O”, which premiered in 1998 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. “O”, phonetically speaking, is the French word for water (spelled “eau”). With an international cast of 85 artists, the show is performed in, on and above the water. Directed by Franco Dragone, the show is inspired by the concept of infinity and the elegance of its pure form. This venture into aquatic theatre has been seen by nearly four million spectators and has earned the acclaim of journalists from around the world.
Julian "Tex" Robertson
2003
For 80 of his 93 years, he has been a swimmer, coach, administrator, promoter and leader. He is a self-motivator whose message is contagious. He became an All-American swimmer, University of Texas swimming coach and developer of Camp Longhorn, one of the USA’s most successful children’s competitive swimming and sports camps.
Julian William “Tex” Robertson was born in 1909 in Sweetwater, Texas to Frank and Nancy Robertson, wholesale grain distributors to West Texas farmers and ranchers.e to teach school children swimming. At age nine, the family moved to Austin where young Julian enjoyed watching the training sessions of the university competitive swimmers in the basement pool of the local YMCA. Both the university and swimming would make an impression on the young boy. One year later, the family decided to move back to Sweetwater where Julian learned to swim in a flooded creek near his home. There were no swimming pools in Sweetwater, so he practiced his swimming in a horse trough.
In 1922, at age 13, he entered and won the local Sante Fe Lake Swim, winning a sack of Gold Medal flour from Glass Grocery. Soon he had a reputation as the fastest swimmer in Sweetwater. He won mile races in Galveston and even won triathlons of equal parts running, riding a horse and swimming.
At age 15, he graduated from Sweetwater High School and decided to join his older brothers in Los Angeles where work was more plentiful. It was in California that his nickname “Tex” was devised and where his swimming was improved at the local YMCA. Hall of Fame Coach Fred Cady, at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, invited Tex to compete on his team, and Tex went on to win various ocean swims and even the YMCA National Championships. Johnny Weissmuller even gave Tex a few pointers when ever in Los Angeles.
Tex attended various junior colleges in the Los Angeles area, mainly because he wanted to continue competing and improving his swimming. He was a summertime lifeguard in Santa Monica and a swimming instructor and counselor at boys’ camp on Catalina Island. He started playing water polo, becoming team captain and the forward of his team that was selected to represent the United States in the 1932 Olympic Games. But because he was unable to attend the qualifying game in Cincinnati where the team was selected, he was left to serve as a replacement. The U.S. Team won the bronze medal at the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932.
Robertson was offered an opportunity to enroll and train with Coaches Matt Mann at the University of Michigan and Bob Kiphuth at Yale University. He chose Michigan. At six feet tall, 180 pounds, Tex emerged as a Michigan swimming champion, setting 220y collegiate records and capturing the Big 10 Conference Championship 440y freestyle. He ended up breaking Johnny Weissmuller’s 440y freestyle record. In 1934 and 1935, his Michigan teams captured the national championships and Tex was named All American both years. He was a NCAA champion in 1935 as a member of the 4 x 100y freestyle relay.
While in Ann Arbor, Tex earned money coaching high school swimming and working various children’s camps. Tex was so impressed with his coach Matt Mann’s children’s swim and sports camp in Canada, he announced to Matt, “When I’m finished at Michigan, I’m going back to Texas to coach swimming and I’m going to have a camp just like your Camp Chikopi. I’ll call it Camp Longhorn.” He was impressed with the opportunity Chikopi provided the children and wanted to duplicate it in his home state of Texas.
After the 1936 school year, Tex returned to Austin and became the first fulltime coach at Texas, but had to work for no pay. He earned money both as a lifeguard and by acquiring Coca-Cola’s first franchise for their new vending machines, which became an overnight sensation. The money he earned filling the coke vending machines allowed him to support his Texas swimming team. As a coach, he picked up the nickname, “Little Matt Mann,” and in his first year won the conference championship and finished 5th in the nation. He coached swimmers to great success including 1936 Olympians Adolph Kiefer, backstroke gold medallist, and Ralph Flanagan, freestyle silver medallist. He brought Olympic diver Skippy Browning to Texas. In 1948, he was appointed to the NCAA Rules Committee. During four weeks in the summers he also continued to run Camp Wolverine back in Michigan, a kids’ summer camp at which he worked while a Michigan student.
Then, in 1939, after an exhausting search for the right location, Tex and his bride, Pat, started Camp Longhorn on 38 acres of land on Inks Lake in West Texas. His lifelong dream had become reality. Only one paid camper enrolled, but that number jumped to 17 the following year. Camp enrollment and size continued to grow every year. The camp was interrupted for a few years in the 1940s when the events of World War II put a hold on things. Tex joined the Navy in 1941 and was stationed in San Diego as director of three swimming pools with the primary responsibility of teaching survival swimming skills to new recruits. In 1943, he was transferred to Fort Pierce, Florida where he trained sailors in underwater demolition tactics. These sailors eventually became know as “frogmen” and were a forerunner to the Navy Seals. He also coached the Navy Swim Team to the National Navy Championships.
Following the War, Camp Longhorn reopened and Tex continued coaching the University of Texas swimming teams, where in his 13 years he coached his teams to 13 Southwest Conference Championships, finishing high in national rankings. He retired from coaching in 1950 to spend fulltime on Camp Longhorn. His words, “attaway-to-go,” can be heard all over camp to acknowledge, praise and inspire his campers. In 1975, Tex opened Camp Longhorn at Indian Springs, the next lake over from Inks Lake. Over 75,000 children have attended Camp Longhorn Inks Lake and Camp Longhorn Indian Springs, including President George W. Bush. Tex, his wife Pat and five children, John, Bill, Robby, Sally and Nan, and their families continue to run the camps today, now in the 63rd year.
Tex Robertson is known for his cheerfulness, positive attitude and willingness to share his firsthand experiences. At age 93 he continues to swim almost every day. He has competed and excelled in the Masters program.
Richard Pound
2002
Member, International Olympic Committee/ Chairman, World anti-Doping Agency/ Chairman, Olympic Games Study Commission
When Dick Pound first dunked into the shallow end of the local Ocean Falls, British Columbia swimming pool, little did he know that he was launching a career in sport that would take him to the highest levels of Olympic competition as well as to the pinnacle of service excellence in National and International Olympic Committee matters.
By the time Dick was 10 years old, he had long since graduated to the deep end of the pool, winning back-to-back Pacific Northwest 9-10 year old Age Group Championships in 1951 and 1952. Trained by Hall of Fame coach George Gate, Dick was Canadian Junior Boys (age 15-16) 100 yard freestyle champion in 1958, and the very next year, competed on Canada’s national team at the Pan American Games in Chicago. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Dick was Canada’s only swimmer to make two finals, the freestyle relay and the 100 meter freestyle where John Devitt and Lance Larson touched head-to-head in a controversial finish. Dick was scarcely a second behind, finishing in sixth place. He continues to be distinguished as the last Canadian Olympic swimmer to final in the 100 meter freestyle event.
Following the Rome Olympics, Dick swam for another two years, competing at the 1961 U.S. Indoor Nationals at Yale and the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia where he won the gold in the 100 yard freestyle (setting a Commonwealth Games record), silver medals as a member of the Canadian 440 and 880 yard freestyle relays, and a bronze medal in the 440 yard medley relay. Dick was the first Canadian in history to swim under 49 seconds for 100 yards and 56 seconds for 100 meters. Not only was Dick Canada’s top freestyle sprinter from 1959 to 1962, he was also an outstanding intercollegiate squash racquets player, ranking nationally in both
singles and doubles.
Dick received bachelor degrees in Commerce and Civil Law from Montreal’s McGill University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from Sir George Williams University. He is a member of the Canadian Bar Association, the Tax Foundation and the International Association of Practicing Lawyers. A creative and thorough scholar, he has edited and authored numerous publications
on tax and legal issues, published a biography of a noted Quebec judge, and, in 1994, the prestigious Boston firm, Little, Brown and Company published his Five Rings Over Korea: The Secret Negotiations Behind the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, a landmark work on the geo-political ramifications of the Modern Olympic Movement.
But it was Dick’s deep emotional respect for the Olympic Movement and the ethical values it represents that continued to fire his interest in sports. In 1965, he became Director of the Quebec Section of the Canadian Amateur Swimming Association. The following year he became Secretary-General of the Canadian Olympic Association, rising to the Presidency in 1977. In 1978, he was elected to the International Olympic Committee. Currently he is the senior Canadian IOC member, having served that august international body for a period of almost a quarter century. During his 24 years on the IOC, Dick has served terms totaling 17 years on the Executive Board, 8 years as Vice-President, 18 years as Chairman of the Television Negotiations
Committee, and performed important duties associated with IOC Commissions on marketing, anti-doping, environmental issues, judicial matters and athletes’ rights, among others. Dick’s new Olympic challenge is the post he now holds as Director of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the international body responsible for fighting the war against the use of drugs in sport.
Dick has provided the leadership and communication skills that have helped the IOC meet every challenge head-on for the past quarter century. He has devoted his life as an Olympic athlete, national federation official, President of Canada’s Olympic Committee and executive of the International Olympic Committee. As executive of America’s organization of NOCs, a dynamic
and respected leader of the IOC, an effective and professional lawyer and committed family man, he has helped to create better conditions for the youth of the next generation. Dick Pound does what is right for the good of the athlete and sport.
Pound resides in the Olympic city of Montreal, where he is a partner in the offices of Stikeman Elliott, one of Canada’s largest and most prestigious law firms with offices on three continents. He currently serves his alma mater, McGill University, as chancellor, having recently retired from the position, Chairman of McGill University Board of Regents.
Superior athlete, gifted lawyer, talented administrator, respected scholar and public service participant par excellence, Dick Pound has proven himself, literally, to be a “man for all seasons.” Honor to his name.
During his IOC tenure and as a member of many commissions and working groups, his initiatives and hard work paved the way for enormous strides made within the Olympic Movement. He has participated in more executive meetings than anyone in the history of the Olympic Movement other than former President Samaranch.
*Edited in part from the writings of Robert K. Barney, Ph.D., International Centre for Olympic Studies.
Sandra Baldwin
2001
On December 3, 2000, Sandra (Sandy) Baldwin was elected to a four-year term as President and Chairman of the Board of the United States Olympic Committee – the first woman ever to be elected to this position in the 106-year history of the USOC. Following in the footsteps of ISHOF presidents Jack Kelly and Bill Simon in this prestigious office, she brings warmth, understanding, accountability and direction to amateur athletics in the United States. Sandy Baldwin is recognized as the leader of amateur sports in the USA and oversees a quadrennial budget of $426 million.
It all began in 1965 when Sandy’s son Clay, at the age of six, began swimming in their hometown of Mesa, Arizona. Initially, she was a timer at Clay’s swim meets but her enthusiasm flourished and she began to help create a stronger swimming program for the children in that city. The Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964 had just created great excitement for the swimmers and the 1968 Olympic Games were just beyond Arizona’s backyard in Mexico City.
Baldwin served as chairman of Arizona Swimming and soon became president of the Arizona Chapter of the AAU. With the passage of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 whereby governance of the U.S. Olympic Sports was passed from the AAU to the USOC, she became active in the USOC. She served as treasurer (1978-1982), executive vice president (1982-1984) and president (1984-1986) of USA Swimming, where she was the first female head of a national governing body that was not a female-only sport. Sandy also served as president of USA Shooting (1994-1995).
At the USOC, she has been on the Board of Directors since 1985 and has served four-year terms as treasurer, budget committee chairman and vice president. From 1993-1996, Sandy also chaired the Budget Committee. Other committees include National Governing Body Council, Audit, Finance and Junior Olympics. She was named Chef de Mission to lead America’s athletes and the U.S. delegation to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games as well as the 1995 Pan American Games in Argentina. She was a member of the Board of Directors for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) in 1996 and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. She has also served on numerous USOC standing and special committees, including the Members Services Committee, NGB Council (1989-1992), Development Committee (1985-1988) and the Foundation Grant Committee (1985-1986).
Sandy’s articulate writing and speech comes naturally to this 1962 graduate of the University of Colorado with a degree in English and a 1967 doctorate in American literature from Arizona State University. She taught English at ASU for 11 years before beginning a career in real estate in 1982 and currently is employed by Phoenix’s Prudential Arizona Realty.
Sandy’s honors have included the 1988 U.S.A. Swimming Athletes Appreciation Award and the 1990 U.S.A. Swimming Award.
Gregory J. Bonann
2000
“Baywatch Hawai’i”s Creator and Executive Producer, Greg Bonann, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Despite a number of physical challenges, Bonann was determined at a young age to become an expertswimmer. He soon excelled at the sport and went on to break many records for the swim team at Pacific Palisades High School. As soon as he was old enough, he focused his efforts on qualifying to join the elite team of men and women that make up the Los Angeles County Lifeguards. Bonann’s dream came true in 1970, and he’s been a dedicated lifeguard for over thirty years.
After high school, Bonann never strayed far from home, graduating from Cal. State Long Beach with a B.A. degree in Journalism in 1974 followed by an MBA from UCLA in 1976. From there, Bonann combined his business education with his gift of storytelling and began pursuing a career as a filmmaker.
His first major effort producing and directing award-winning documentaries for PBS took him to Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Alaska and other locations all around the world. His love of sports, especially Olympic competition, eventually led him back to America in the winter of 1980 to produce and direct the official film for the U.S. Olympic Committee in Lake Placid. “FIRE AND ICE” went on to win eight prestigious awards including the coveted Cine Golden Eagle. More importantly, the honors gave him the impetus to produce and direct the official films for the 1984 Winter and Summer Olympic Games in Sarajevo and Los Angeles (FROZEN IN TIME and ELEMENTS OF GOLD) and the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary (CITY OF GOLD). Bonann won countless honors for his work and would have continued to follow the Olympic Games for the rest of his life if it weren’t for the show business break of a lifetime.
In 1988, Bonann created a music video featuring his lifeguard buddies doing what they do best on a hot beach day to the beat of Don Henley’s hit “Boys of Summer.” This “montage” served as the blueprint for what would become “Baywatch” on NBC a year later.
It was during a routine scout to the beach that first season of “Baywatch” when a young boy ran up to Bonann pleading that his brother was drowning 200 yards offshore. Bonann quickly jumped into action and swam with the rip current to where the boy was last seen. He had to make three dives to find the unconscious boy who had been submerged at the murky bottom for over five minutes. Performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while treading water, Bonann was able to save the boy’s life and was awarded the prestigious Medal of Valor for his heroic effort.
Now in his eleventh year as executive producer, Bonann was instrumental in relocating “Baywatch’’ to Hawai’i”s beautiful shores last year, where it plans to stay for many seasons to come. Bonann has personally directed over 70 episodes of “Baywatch” in the last ten years, including most of the action and rescue scenes, as well as 400 of his signature music montages.
The series today remains one of the single-most watched shows in the world, seen on a weekly basis by an estimated 1 billion people internationally. It airs in 140 countries on six continents and in 33 languages. It has also been a staple in rerun syndication as a weekday strip, and, in its eleventh year, is currently the longest running show on television. It remains a flagship show for many stations, still boasting a 95% domestic market-penetration level.
The overwhelming international response to “Baywatch” inspired Greg to use this platform for a good cause. In 1992, Greg Bonann and Tai Collins founded “Camp Baywatch,” a “Baywatch theme-related summer camp” that would give homeless and at-risk youth a chance to experience the beach, fresh-air, and an opportunity to learn how to swim and be safe at beaches and pools. For many of the children, whose lives have been filled with hardships, danger and struggle, Camp Baywatch represents the dawning of hope for a better life.
The vision of educating and inspiring children has expanded recently into Greg Bonann’s latest project – an international Learn to Swim program, dedicated to drawing awareness to the dire need of teaching our children how to be safe in and around the water. The goal of this program is to take drowning off the top of the Center for Disease Control’s list of killers of children. Camp Baywatch Hawaii will bring this educational program across the country to schools, recreation centers, YMCA’s and American Red Cross Centers. “Baywatch,” “Baywatch Hawai’i,” and Camp Baywatch are all the vision and now the reality of Greg Bonann, and will certainly leave a lasting legacy for years to come.
James Whelan
1999
Jim Whelan’s interest in swimming was kindled as a youngster by the Around the Island Swim, when the world’s best marathon swimmers would race the 22 miles around Atlantic City’s Island. As a teenager, he became a member of his high school swim team, and joined the Atlantic City Beach Patrol. As a member of the Atlantic City Beach Patrol and after his swim around Absecon Island he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the professional marathon race in Atlantic City. He later went on to Temple University, where he earned All-American honors, graduated in 1970 cum laude. He taught in Philadelphia and coached swimming at Temple, 1974-77.
In 1977, Whelan began teaching and coaching in the Atlantic City school system. In 1978, Whelan helped revive the Island Swim, which had been stopped in 1964, by swimming the Island solo. The following year, the race returned and it has been an annual event ever since.grams and volunteered his time and service to teach school children swimming.
In addition to providing the political clout that greatly assisted the promotion and support of the professional swim, Mayor Whelan fully supports masters and age group swims, such as the Miss America Pageant Swim in the Atlantic City. On another level, he has rowed a lifeguard escort boat the 23 miles around the Island while acting as the escort/coach for several swimmers. Two of his most noteworthy efforts include escorting Claudio Plit, the great Argentina Marathon swimmer several times and coaching Samantha Chabotar, a very promising young local swimmer to a first place as an amateur over some of the best professional swimmers in the world. His knowledge of the currents and tides have proved invaluable to many swimmers escorted.
Politically, Whelan was elected to the Atlantic City Council by a wide margin in 1982 and won re-election in 1986. Four years later, he was elected Mayor with 63 percent of the vote and took office on July 1, l990.
The Mayor’s terms have been marked by substantial progress in providing basic services to the residents of the casino resort. Mayor Whelan instituted a community policing program, embarked upon a multimillion dollar beautification of the city’s parks, playgrounds and major entranceways, and launched an aggressive demolition program that tore down hundreds of abandoned buildings.
In addition to his official duties, Mayor Whelan is Chairman of the Board of Atlantic City YouthBuild, a job training and education program for troubled young people, and a member of the boards of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the Atlantic City Special Improvement District. The Mayor also is a member of the New Jersey Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission.
As Mayor, Whelan continues to support swimming, competing in local open water swims; this past year, the City hired its first aquatics director, Sid Cassidy, to begin an inner-city competitive swim program.
Mayor Whelan is married to Kathy Brooks a former teacher with the Pleasantville, New Jersey, school system.
Rogers B. "Tiger" Holmes
1998
The International Swimming Hall of Fame is proud to declare Rogers B. “Tiger” Holmes as the 1998 Gold Medallion recipient. Tiger’s commitment to the sport of swimming for all ages, is one of sincerity.
Tiger, father of five children with eight grand children, was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. As a youngster, he was competitive swimmer who, during his college years at the University of Florida, competed on the swimming team. In 1942, he was the Southeast Conference 50 yard freestyle champion and served as the team captain.
His college career was interrupted by World War II and Tiger served as an active duty pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps (1943-1948) and again in the U.S. Air Force from 1952-1953, after the war. He retired as Lt. Colonel in the Florida Air National Guard and U.S. Air Force National Guard.
Tiger returned to the University of Florida following the war and graduated in the Class of 1948. He was president of his graduating class, member of the Florida Blue Key, University Hall of Fame, University Athletic Hall of Fame and president of the Letterman Club and Gator Boosters.
In 1954, with one truck and he as the driver, Tiger founded the Holmes Lumber Company, one of the most successful lumber and hardware companies in the Southeast United States. It has grown to include 5 locations employing 450 people.
In 1982, Tiger returned to swimming, this time as therapy following open heart surgery. He then became involved with and joined the Masters Swimming Program which was growing by leaps and bounds both nationally and internationally. Since his involvement, he has won 14 National Masters titles and is the Masters World Champion 50 meter butterfly in 1990, 1992 and 1994. In 1988, he sponsored the Holmes Lumber Jax Masters Team. One hundred and seventy swimmers made the trip that year to the Masters World Championships in Brisbane, Australia. One of the purposes of this venture was to spotlight the City of Jacksonville, Florida, and its woeful need for a 50 meter swim facility. The venture also allowed many swimmers to make a wonderful trip that they otherwise would not have been able to make to participate in a world Masters championship.
After returning from Australia, the team devoted itself to teaching Jacksonville’s underprivileged children to swim. In three years, over 12,000 kids were given the opportunity to learn to swim under this team sponsored “Every Child A Swimmer” program.
Tiger has been a board member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame since 1991, serving as Chairman of the Board from 1996 to 1998. The American College Coaches awarded him the Charles McCaffree Award in 1989 for outstanding contributions to swimming. In 1996, he was awarded the first Jacksonville Area Sports Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a member of the Jacksonville Sports Hall of Fame and active in civic affairs. He is a past Chairman of the Duval County Republican Executive Committee.
Tiger Holmes is more than just a businessman and athlete. His southern style and mannerisms, his home-spun yarns and stories wrapped around his southern drawl and his genuine concern for others, make him a unique individual. Tiger has a way to make others feel comfortable around him and his big, broad smile brings a feeling of warmth and sincerity. He is an inspiration to all and credits others with his success. In fact, he says his Masters-swimming daughter, Mary Holmes Roebuck, makes swimming so enjoyable that Dad just has to participate.
Paul W. Bucha
1997
Perhaps it was his involvement in sport, particularly swimming, which gave Paul W. Bucha the “people skills” he possessed to become as successful as he was and is in in his careers in the military and private enterprise.
Born August 1, 1943, the son of Colonel Paul and Mary Bucha, Paul, commonly called Buddy, and his three sisters lived in Germany, Japan and numerous United States cities. In 1961, he graduated form Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, Missouri, entering West Point with the Class of 1965.
At the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Buddy was a two-time All-American swimmer during his three years of varsity competition. At that time, freshmen were not permitted to swim in varsity competition. But as a freshman, Buddy was a member of the West Point 400 yard freestyle relay team that set the NCAA freshman record of 3:20.6 in 1962. He served as captain of the swim team for two years.
He was the number two ranking cadet militarily and graduated in the top 3% of his class, number eighteen in a class of 596 students. In recognition of his all-around excellence, Paul Bucha received the Association of Graduates Award for Excellence in All Areas of Cadet Endeavor. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry. Immediately upon graduation from West Point, he attended the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, receiving his Master of Business Administration in 1967. Having completed his Airborne and Ranger training during the summer break between years at Stanford, he reported to the 101st Airborne Division and became part of “Eagle Thrust” which transferred the Division to Vietnam. Paul Bucha’s unit, D Company, which had been assembled from the headquarters staff and available personnel from the stockades of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, distinguished itself under Paul’s leadership, receiving assignments as a special combat unit from the Delta to the Highlands. While in Vietnam, Paul Bucha received numerous decorations for valor, including the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm and the Nation’s highest award, The Congressional Medal of Honor.
Shortly after his return, Bucha was appointed Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. He also served as Officer Representative and Assistant Coach of the Cadet Swimming Team under coach Jack Ryan. In 1970, he was selected as one of the US Jaycees Ten Outstanding Young Men in America.
Upon resigning from the Army in 1972, Bucha joined the investment banking firm of DuPont, Glore Forgan as Director of Branch Administration and Assistant to the President. This began a seven year association with Texas entrepreneur and US presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. In order to assist with the merger of two of the nation’s largest brokerage firms owned by Perot, Paul joined Electronic Data Systems Corporation and shortly thereafter, assumed the newly created position of Director of International Operations.
In six years with EDS, he developed and managed all international business from his headquarters – first in Teheran, Iran and then in Paris, France. When Paul left EDS in 1979 to form is own international finance, real estate and marketing firm, he was responsible for business operations in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, West Germany, France, Norway, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan and Nigeria.
Since 1979, Paul has developed the Paul W. Bucha and Company, Incorporated (PWBCO) into a diverse privately owned company. PWBCO was one of the founders of Port Liberte, a $1.2 billion real estate development along the waterfront of New York Harbor, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Port Liberte demonstrated that development and the protection of the environment can be combined to provide charming and comfortable living within a secure and protected environment. PWBCO was also involved in such diverse real estate projects as Sugarloaf USA, a golf/ski resort in the western mountains of Maine, and Half Moon Bay, a residential community along the shores of the Hudson River in Croton, New York. In addition to the real estate projects, PWBCO was the founder of the MID Mutual Fund, an investment fund for non-resident, non-US citizens. PWBCO is currently involved in the international and domestic marketing of a variety of products and services in both the high technology and industrial markets.
Besides his own firm, Paul is a Director of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corporation, the parent of one of the nation’s largest integrated steel manufacturing concerns. He is Director of M Group Resorts, owner/operator of Jalousie Plantation, the highly acclaimed resort on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. He is a Trustee of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; Director of Veteran’s Bedside Network; and a Director of the Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher Foundation. In addition, Paul Bucha is active in a variety of veteran organizations including the American Legion, the United States Army Ranger Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
Paul Bucha is a recognized lecturer on ethics in business and government, having lectured at Harvard, Princeton, Haverford, United States Military Academy, United States Air Force Academy, the Merchant Marine Academy and the United States Coast Guard Academy.
His professional affiliations include: West Point Society of New York; Asian Institute of Jersey City State College; Ends of the Earth; and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Paul Bucha is the father of Jason, Heather, Lindsay and Rebecca Bucha of Waccabac, New York and was recently married to Cynthia.
Paul Bucha’s All-American swimming status rolled over to his All-American character status. His competitive spirit as a swimmer carried throughout his life in the military and in private business. His honesty and integrity are exceptional, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame is proud to welcome him as the 1997 Gold Medallion Recipient.
Joao Havelange
1996
The International Swimming Hall of Fame is proud to honor an international member of the sports community who has devoted his life to the success of sport throughout the world.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1916, Joao Havelange was destined to spend his life participating in and servicing for sport. By the age of fifteen in 1931, he was the Junior Futbol Champion. But that was not enough, and he worked on his swimming to become the Brazilian and South American Swimming Champion, traveling to Berlin, Germany with Hall of Famer Maria Lenk to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games.
He loved swimming and at the age of 36, being a keen sportsman and competitor, he represented Brazil on its Olympic Water Polo team of 1952, which played in Helsinki. He received the 1951 Pan American Games silver medal. At the 1956 Olympic Games, Mr. Havelange was the Chef de Mission of the Brazilian Olympic Team, competing in Melbourne, Australia.
After retiring from competitive sports, Joao Havelange dedicated his life to sports administration, occupying various important positions at national and international levels. He served as president or director of thirteen swimming, water polo, soccer and sports organizations.
Between 1958 and 1974, he was president of the Brazilian Sports Confederation, responsible for taking care of 23 different sports disciplines, including thirteen Olympic sports. In 1955, as a founding member, he entered the Brazilian Olympic Committee, becoming a lifetime member in 1963. In 1963, he was selected the Brazilian representative for the International Olympic Committee with lifetime membership.
His involvement did not stop here. In 1974, in Frankfurt, Germany, Mr. Havelange was elected president of the world’s largest sports federation: Federation International de Futbol Association – FIFA. This organization administers the sport of soccer throughout the world. Because of his accomplishments and respect by the world’s soccer leaders, Mr. Havelange was elected to this position again in Buenos Aires 1978, Madrid 1982, Mexico 1986, Rome 1990, and New York 1994.
In 1994, under his presidency, FIFA promoted the World Cup of soccer to be played in the U.S.A.. Because of this commitment, the New York Chamber of Commerce selected Mr. Havelange as “Man of the Year,” and the City of Dallas voted him their “Honorary Citizen.”
Joao Havelange uses his world sports leadership not only to promote sports, but also to help smaller and underdeveloped countries to start and grow in sports, contributing to better understanding. His personal emphasis on promoting sports and using it as a tool to help countries as well as individuals, has led to his nomination as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
His readiness to help less fortunate and needy countries earned him many honors. He has been decorated in over eighteen countries throughout the world. He has received over 34 foreign decorations in Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Cameroon, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Italy, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, Morocco, Portugal and the United States, 33 honorary citizenships, 150 sports titles and honoraries, and over 129 diplomas and honors from the many organizations throughout the world who recognize his contributions to sport and to youth.
Today, the International Swimming Hall of Fame recognizes his many contributions, and because of his humble beginnings in our disciplines of swimming and water polo, we welcome Mr. Joao Havelange as the International Swimming Hall of Fame Gold Medallion Recipient.
Buddy Epsen
1995
Not many people give up pre-med for tap dancing or get a job in a Broadway musical the first day they arrive in New York City. But Buddy Ebsen’s career became one of the most successful and colorful in the entertainment industry. “His mentors were his vaudevillian parents, his inspiration was his sister and dancing partner, Vilma, and among his fans are you and I,” says his old friend Bob Hope.
Today’s swimmers probably know Buddy Ebsen best as the Beverly Hillbillies’ Jed Clampett or TV’s detective Barnaby Jones, but few know Buddy to be a former competitive swimmer.
Born in Belleville, Illinois in 1908, Buddy, the middle child with four sisters, learned to swim almost as soon as he learned to walk. His father dammed up a group of springs in the backyard, forming a pond which was soon called the Ebsen Natatorium, and he taught the inhabitants of St. Clair County how to swim. Buddy was the locker boy and later an apprentice lifeguard. Ebsen’s Natatorium grew in the tradition of his German Heritage, becoming a popular high-class, daytime pleasure resort for picnicking and swimming. At only six years old, Buddy hunted bullfrogs and sailed the pond on his discarded oak diving board.
By the age of eleven, his family decided to move to Florida to help his mother’s aggravated sickness. Settling first in Palm Beach, Buddy’s versatile dad decided to move the family to Orlando where his teaching of dance would be year-round, not just seasonal. Buddy was an average student at Orlando High School, swimming on the swim team for four years and becoming a Florida State champion. He also played football his senior year.
It was these swimming and athletic days which helped set the stage for his athletic acting future. After a year at the University of Florida pursuing pre-med and another at Rollins College, Buddy Ebsen set sail on a career which became a fairy tale Broadway and Hollywood story. He performed with names such as Ruby Keeler and Eddie Cantor (Whoopie, Banjo On My Knee, 1937), Sid Silvers (Born To Dance, 1937), sister Vilma, Eleanor Powell and Judy Garland (Broadway Melody, 1936 & ’38), Shirley Temple (Captain January, 1937) and Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961).
Then it was on to Walt Disney and television. Davy Crockett was a Disney movie hit with Fess Parker playing Davy and Buddy as sidekick Georgie Russell (1954).
Perhaps it was the Crockett adventures that cast Buddy for his most famous role as TV’s Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies. At 6 feet 6 inches tall, Buddy was a perfect hillbilly transplant. Who can forget the laughs with Granny, Ellie May and Jethro, who in real life was the son of world heavy weight boxing champion Max Baer?
And then there was Barnaby Jones, the milk drinking, calm and cool private investigator who, with Lee Merriweather and Mark Shera, defied all the skeptics and ran for eight seasons on prime time television.
All toll, Buddy Ebsen starred in 31 films and stage shows, 12 made-for-television movies, 5 regular television shows, and 36 television appearances. His autobiography, The Other Side of Oz, is a very candid and colorful description of this special man and his life. It talks about his harrowing experiences as the original mechanical Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, where he spent eight weeks recuperating from the aluminum makeup dust that had covered his lungs during the initial filming, costing him the part in the movie.
The fact that Buddy never quit may be a carry over from his supportive family and his formative years as a swimmer and competitor. Every day was a new ball game to him and he best describes it this way, “Of all the elements that comprise a human being, the most important, the most essential, the one that will vanquish all obstacles is – spirit.”
Jim Moran
1994
Jim Moran was born in Chicago in 1918, the son of Irish and German immigrants. Jim lost his father at an early age and began pumping gas at a neighborhood gas station to help support his mother and sister.
In 1939, Jim was able to purchase his own station for $360.00. After a number of years of working at a gas station, 16 hours a day, seven days a week, he opened a used car lot. This led to a small Hudson automobile dealership which he built to become the largest Hudson store in the Nation. In 1966, Jim established Courtesy Ford and through his marketing and promotion innovations, it grew to become the largest Ford dealership in the world.
In the early years of television, Jim Moran was the first dealer to ever advertise new and used cars on television. At one time, he sponsored three live shows a week, handling the host duties and all live commercials himself. Throughout the Midwest viewers tuned in and bought cars from “Jim Moran, the Courtesy Man.”
But Jim Moran also gave a great deal back to the people of his community. For many years he donated countless hours to organize and host fund-raising telethons for charities such as the City of Hope, the American Cancer Society, and the Heart Fund.
It was during this time that swimming became a part of Jim’s life. When he was 41 years old, two of his close friends died of heart attacks while playing handball, one of Jim’s favorite activities. His wife feared that handball was too stressful and encouraged him to quit playing. He began swimming instead and has continued to swim regularly ever since.
As Jim’s interest in swimming grew, he sponsored the Jim Moran Lake Michigan Swim for seven years in Chicago. It not only promoted long distance and marathon swimming, but generated a tremendous amount of publicity for his automobile dealership. Long distance swimmers, including the legendary Abou Heif of Egypt, came from all over the world to swim for prizes that ranged up to $25,000.00. The race was front page news, and local television and radio stations provided hourly updates on the swimmers’ progress.
The 1960’s brought a move to South Florida, where Jim opened a Pontiac dealership in Hollywood. Once again, this soon became the largest Pontiac dealership in the nation. In 1968, Jim Moran accepted an offer to represent the Toyota Motor Company in five southeast states and formed Southeast Toyota Distributors. Today, it is the largest, private automobile distributor in the world and is one of 19 auto related companies comprising JM Family Enterprises.
Jim Moran’s company was recently ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 34th largest privately owned company in the United States. He works daily at his duties as chairman of the board, and JM Family Enterprises remains very active in community organizations, helping those in need throughout the Southeast.
Jim Moran still enjoys the relaxing exercise of his daily swims. While swimming laps he finds time to be creative and think of things that can be done to improve business. Swimming continues to be an important part of his life.
Paul Tsongas
1993
In the nine years he served in Washington, Paul Tsongas established a reputation as a bright, hard-working, and well-respected lawmaker.
Tsongas’ political career began in 1968 at the age of 27. Upon his return home from service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, he challenged the political establishment and won election to the Lowell City Council. Four years later, he was elected Middlesex County Commissioner and fulfilled his promise to rid county government of corruption.ce to teach school children swimming.
In 1974, he became the first Democrat in this century to win election to serve the Massachusetts Fifth District in Congress. As U.S. Senator from 1979 to 1985, Tsongas served on the Foreign Relations Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Small Business Committee. Following his two terms in Congress, Tsongas forged a record that established him as one of America’s most effective leaders.
Colleagues and supporters were shocked in 1984 when Tsongas announced he would not seek re-election, but would return home with his family after being diagnosed with cancer.
After receiving a bone marrow transplant in 1986 to battle his lymphoma, (a proceedure he now compares with what must be done to the U.S. economy) he returned to the swimming pool after a 27-year hiatus to repair lung damage caused by his cancer treatment.
A former Dartmouth swimmer, class of’62, Tsongas swam the 200-7ard breaststroke and scored in two meets during his collegiate career by placing second in wins over Columbia and Springfield College. At this time, only two swimmers could be entered in each event and, as the third best man in his event, Tsongas often was on the reserve list. Tsongas joined the team as a mediocre swimmer and by his senior year he had earned his varsity letter. That year Dartmouth finished the season 5-5.
College roommates remember Tsongas as a somewhat introverted student who liked to discuss intellectual subjects. A notable exception was swimming. Under the tutelage of Coach Karl Michaels, Tsongas’ swimming experience–struggling freshman to varsity letterman–is a transition that characterized him, especially in his political endeavors, for years to come. Swimming provided Tsongas with the self-esteem he had been lacking. “By the time he graduated, it was clear that he had a lot of determination and ability,” said his freshman roommate Stephen Quya.
Ron Keenhold, assistant coach, said of Tsongas, “He was a determined, serious person. Academics definitely came first for him. He knew he wasn’t going to be a star in the pool, but he swam to round out his college experience”.
In announcing his presidential candidacy in March 1991, Tsongas renewed his quest to not only change the country, but to change the Democratic Party. Embracing pro-growth positions and a liberal social agenda, Paul Tsongas outlined a detailed plan to rebuild America’s economy. This program which is outlined in his book, A Call To Economic Arms: Forging A New American Mandate, emphasizes the need to make the hard choices today so that America will continue to be a great country tomorrow.
Whereas most presidential candidates are often seen taking their early morning jogs, Tsongas prefers a dip in the Pool. Better yet, Tsongas swam the butterfly on a nationally broadcast campaign commercial in a sleek, black Speedo racing suit to prove his health and fitness to the nation.
As part of his continued therapy and campaign statement, Tsongas joined the Andover Masters YMCA swim team and competed in several competitions which resulted in a world record for his 200-meter, co-ed freestyle relay.
Paul Tsongas is honored not only for his accomplishments in government, but for serving as an example to all that the true meaning of sports is not finishing first, but giving it your best shot.
Andrew Young
1992
While a competitive swimmer, Andrew Young churned the water as a sprint freestyler. Later in his life, he churned the minds of those around him and instilled the hopes and desires of people around the world to strive for a better world community. As pastor, congressman, ambassador, mayor and businessman, he is a man of high standards and achievements.
Andrew swam at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in the early 1950’s at a time when blacks were excluded from most swimming pools in the country. In fact, there were very few swimming pools at all and Andrew saw the need to develop and build additional pools, particularly in the inner cities. When he became mayor of Atlanta, twenty years later, he appropriated 1.25 million dollars in an effort to make swimming available to inner city residents.
Following his graduation from Howard University and Hartford Theological Seminary, Young pastored small Congregational Churches in Alabama and Georgia. Later he moved to New York City to become associate director of the Department of Youth Work for the National Council of Churches. In 1961, he returned to Atlanta to serve as a top aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, ultimately becoming Executive Vice President.
Representing the Fifth Congressional District of Georgia, Young was elected to three terms in the United States Congress House of Representatives. When Jimmy Carter became President of the United States in 1976, Andrew Young resigned his seat to become United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a position he served throughout the Carter administration.
Returning to Atlanta in 1981, he was elected mayor and re-elected for a second term in 1985. During his administration, over one half million jobs were created, and the metropolitan region attracted more than $70 billion on private investment and construction.
Following his terms as mayor, Young served as Executive Consultant for Law Companies Group, Incorporated, one of the most respected engineering and environmental consulting companies in the world.
In the summer of 1990, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1996 Summer Games to Atlanta, USA. Andrew Young played an instrumental role in securing the Games for the city. Currently, he serves as co-chairman of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, the committee responsible for organizing the Games.
Young is a member of various boards and has received many awards during his career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award, and France’s Legion d’Honneur, as well as more than thirty-five honorary degrees from universities such as Notre Dame, Yale, Morehouse and Emory.
It may have been the character-building qualities of sport and swimming that were instilled in Andrew Young, for he surfaced as a beacon from the water and spread his goodwill and administrative talents throughout the world for more than thirty-five years of public service.
Donna de Varona
1991
In 1964, Donna deVarona won two gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics. During her swimming career, she held 18 world records and 33 national records in all strokes and was named the most outstanding female athlete in the world by Associated Press and United Press International. Featured as the cover girl for magazines such as Life, Time, The Saturday Evening Post and twice for Sports Illustrated, Donna is recognized as the Queen of Swimming of her era.vice to teach school children swimming.
Her contribution to the sports world didn’t end with her retirement as an athlete. In fact, it was her swimming career and candid personality that opened the doors of success for her in the business world, and paved the way for her outstanding contributions to the sports. Her career in broadcasting journalism is astounding. At age 17, she became the first woman to cover sports on network television for “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.” From there, she covered the 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1984 Olympic Games, for ABC Sports as well as co-anchoring the late-night wrap-up at the Los Angeles Olympics. Donna joined ABC’s Eyewitness News in New York and then NBC Sports and the Today Show. She is currently Vice President of ABC Sports.
Donna’s talents stretch to the field of sports administration, too. In 1977, she became a special consultant to the U.S. Senate and major contributor to the passage of Title IX Legislation calling for equal sports opportunities for women. As founding member and President of the Women’s Sports foundation, Donna lobbied for equal rights for women athletes. She has served on special commissions for Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, as well as various International Olympic committees and congresses.
Donna is married to John Pinto and has two children, John David and Joanna Katherine Elizabeth, named after Donna’s sister Joanna Kearns of the successful television comedy, “Growing Pains”.
Donna is honored not only for her achievements in sports, and business, but for the friendships she has maintained throughout the swimming and broadcasting community.
Dr. James E. Counsilman
1990
The International Swimming Hall of Fame proudly honors Dr. James E. Counsilman, the seventh recipient of the Gold Medallion Award, Unlike the previous six recipients, who were honored for their achievements and contributions to society after swimming, James Counsilman has never left the sport. While writing, lecturing and filmmaking throughout his lifelong swimming career, he has spread the art and science of swimming around the world, as no other man has done.nd service to teach school children swimming.
In swimming, Dr. Counsilman has done it all. First he was a YMCA kid who gained early recognition in the pool, then he was National Champion and Captain of a National Championship team at Ohio State. He went through the various stages of coaching apprenticeship while gaining his Masters and Doctorate at Illinois and Iowa Universities. Splitting his time equally between pool and the classroom lab, his coaching results were brilliant and cumulative, culminating as a two-time winning Olympic coach. Ultimately it was through the contributions he made in his book, The Science of Swimming, that he reached his greatest and most lasting influence.
More than any other man, “Doc” has been and still is the most acclaimed coach of this half century. He never hesitated to communicate and translate his knowledge. His most deserved recognition should be for being the coach of coaches throughout the swimming world.
Dr. Counsilman, using himself as a test case, established worldwide adult fitness standards by swimming the English Channel at age 58 in 1979. To accomplish this great traditional measure of strength and endurance, he changed his lifestyle and physical conditioning completely, at an end of a career, during which his prime age swimmers set 52 world records and won 21 Olympic gold medals.
For his communication as a writer, film maker, scientist, educator and yes of course, as the supreme swim coach, we honor our founding President Dr. James “Doc” Counsilman with our highest recognition, the Gold Medallion Award.
Fred M. Kirby II
1989
As a father, Fred Kirby never missed one of his four children’s’ swim meets. What this says about this titan of American industry is more than any singular tribute can say. Business success comes to many, athletic success comes to special achievers, but true success as a human being comes to those who make a very special commitment to their loved ones and the world around them.
A heritage of industrial pioneers in the Kirby family tree left Fred a legacy of knowledge and understanding of the business world. Fred’s chairmanship of the Alleghany corporation has nurtured this company’s growth into one of the largest holding companies in the United States. Alleghany is the largest single stockholder in American Express, owns Chicago Title Insurance Company, the world’s largest title insurance operation and other title and casualty insurers including a large stake in St. Paul Companies.ervice to teach school children swimming.
The Gold Medallion Award is not the first such recognition for Fred Kirby. The Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary All American Award for 1965 recognized Fred Kirby’s athletic achievements as a regular on Lafayette’s last undefeated football team. Fred graduated from Lafayette College as president of his class in 1942, earning varsity letters in swimming, as well as football and wrestling. He served as a World War II naval officer in amphibious operations receiving his graduate degree from Harvard Business School after the war.
Other awards include the NCAA Citation fro 1965, Pennsylvania Society Gold Medalist, St. Joseph’s University Honorary Doctorate of Laws and Lafayette College Honorary Doctorate of Laws.
Fred’s active role in the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame as vice chairman and his service as a Director and Trustee of the International Swimming Hall of Fame continues his active participation in the sports he loves best. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Affirmative Insurance Company, American Express, Chicago Title and Trust Company, Cyclops Industries, Inc. Insura Property and Casualty Insurance Company, The Pittston Company, Shelby Insurance Company, the F.W. Woolworth Company and various charitable organizations.
Fred Kirby is honored not only for his swimming accomplishments and his achievements in the world of business, but for his success as a mentor father to Alice, Fred, Dillard and Jefferson and four grandchildren – the children of a lifelong love affair with his wife Walker.
Ronald Reagan
1988
It was swimming that filled the summers of Ronald Reagan’s boyhood years. As a kid, he would lead a group of boys down to the swimming hole, just north of town. His trip to the local swimming hole soon graduated to the treacherous Hannepin Canal and his crawl stroke became unbeatable. From age 14, Reagan worked as the Lowell Park lifeguard from 1926-1932 receiving 18 dollars a week and all of the nickel root beer and ten cent hamburgers he could eat. During the morning hours, he would teach swimming lessons to children when he had time.time and service to teach school children swimming.
Parents from miles around brought their children to learn how to swim from Dutch Reagan, who is credited with rescuing 77 lives from the water during his seven summers at the park. He found that lifeguarding provided one of the best vantage points in the world to learn about human nature. “There was the life that shaped my body and mind for years to come,” said Reagan.
Upon graduation from high school, Reagan attended Eureka College in southern Illinois, where he received an athletic scholarship as a member of the swimming and football teams. His freshman year, he never lost a swimming race and soon took on the duties as the college swim coach while competing until his graduation in 1932.
Ronald Reagan’s career encompasses many facets. He was a sports radio announcer and broadcaster, he starred in over 53 Hollywood films from 1937 to 1964, 81 television productions from 1950 to 1966, and served on the Screen Actors Guild from 1937 to 1960 and as it’s president for seven terms.
Reagan was 55 when he first ran for public office, an age when most men are considering retirement. His two-term governorship of the State of California was the final of his many stepping stones to his two-term Presidency of the United States. His warmth and understanding for mankind is only slightly overshadowed by his warmth and understanding for sports–his first great love.
His sense of humor will always be a part of his legacy. He is remembered for this home-town moment while attending the dedication of Dixon’s first swimming pool with Adolph Kiefer. “You must be a bunch of sissies,” he exclaimed good-naturedly. “The river was good enough for the rest of us.” He then surprised everyone by stripping to his bathing trunks and swimming several laps.
Willard Garvey
1987
The motto of Garvey Enterprises is “Find a need and fill it”. C.E.O. Willard Garvey has always found a need to swim, and he has filled this need every working day in a life and lifestyle that makes every other swimmer proud that he also is, or was, a swimmer.
Garvey started the renowned Wichita Swim Club while still in high school. This is the Club that produced the 1960 double Gold Medal Olympian, Jeff Farrell. The Club’s coach for many years was Bob Timmins, who like Garvey and Farrell, went on to use what he had learned in swimming in another field. He was track coach for Jim Ryan and the University of Kansas.ams and volunteered his time and service to teach school children swimming.
Both Garvey and Farrell followed swimming to Matt Mann’s Camp Chikopi — an environmental atmosphere where swimming championships are a by-product to broader social values. Garvey then picked Michigan for his education for the same reasons, and was an outstanding freestyler on the NCAA Championship Swimming Teams between 1936 and 1941. In World War II, he helped to promote and competed in the Inter-Allied Swimming Meets while serving as a Staff Officer in Eisenhower’s Allied Airborne Army. He says at age 66, he is no longer interested in sprinting, but old friend Farrell, doubts that Garvey will ever slow down or stop competing in anything. “Just swim a few laps in a pool beside him,” Farrell says.
Willard Garvey believes “ideas are cheap–implementing them is what really counts.” He learned this from his human dynamo parents who started the Garvey Empire, when they passed the ball onto him. He has never stopped running with it–from Eagle Scout to the Potsdam Conference, to his “World Homes”–a 1960’s project that made him the U.S.A.’s largest home builder throughout the World. All the while, he was rebuilding downtown Wichita at home. He has the largest grain elevator in the world, with a capacity of 44 million bushels. “The Pharaoh only had a 20 million bushel capacity,” Garvey recalls, “when Egypt was the granary of the world.”
In Nevada, Garvey operates a two million acre cattle ranch where he retreats to work on his ‘thousand year plan’ among other things. “After all,” he says, “1000 years ago Switzerland was a lot like Nevada is now!!”
In addition to the grain and beef to feed millions of people, Garvey owns the railroad rolling stock to move this food. Through his Petroleum Inc., he has a working interest in 1,550 gas and oil wells and 13 gas plants. He also was an owner of the Mutual Broadcasting Network, with 800 affiliates.
Garvey is dedicated to privatization of everything clear down to making it possible for people in the Third World to own their own homes. He prints bumper stickers saying — T.L.A.R.T.A. –“The Lunatics Are Ruling The Asylum”, and compares himself in jest to a beaver talking to a fox at the base of Nevada’s Hoover Dam. “I didn’t actually build it,” the beaver says, “but it was based on a principle of mine.”
To honor Willard Garvey is to honor a no-nonsense, high energy, strictly moral, entrepreneurial spirit who is typical of his prairie environment, and of some of the best in the American character as well. He is a swimmer who still swims, a businessman who still competes, and a patriot who still believes.
Capt. David McCampbell
1986
The 1986 International Swimming Hall of Fame Gold Medallion Award Recipient is Captain David McCampbell USN. He was 1931 South Atlantic AAU and 1932 Eastern Intercollegiate Diving Champion, and an outstanding athlete at Staunton (where he swam on the team with Barry Goldwater), Georgia Tech and the U.S. Naval Academy. As with the previous Gold Medallion winners–Goldwater, Art Linkletter, and Bill Simon, it isn’t so much what they did as swimmers and divers but what they did later.ach school children swimming.
David McCampbell was the U.S. Navy’s WWII Ace, shooting down 34 enemy planes in air-to-air combat. His record of nine hostile aircraft is the most ever shot down in one day. The day was October 24 and McCampbell and one other American plane turned back a force of 80 Japanese carrier-based aircraft. For this and previous actions, McCampbell was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The following day he was assigned as target coordinator for a third fleet force of three task groups, attacking the Northern Japanese Fleet sinking four aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser, and one destroyer. For these actions, McCampbell was awarded the Navy Cross. It was the first and only time any individual had been awarded a Medal of Honor and a Navy Cross on successive days.
He is the top ranked, living American WWII Ace. He is the only holder of the Medal of Honor to command an aircraft carrier and one of only two Naval pilots to be awarded the CMH for air-to-air combat. His air-group fighter planes, 36 Grumman Hellcats, destroyed 68.5 enemy planes in the “Marianna’s Turkey Shoot” June 19, 1944, an all time record for one action. The citation of the Medal of Honor personally awarded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House on October 1, 1945 partially reads as follows:
“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty, as Commander . . . led his fighter planes against a force of 80 Japanese carrier-based aircraft bearing down on our fleet on 19 June 1944 — (Battle of the Philippine Sea) . . . personally destroyed seven of the hostile planes during this single engagement in which the out-numbering attack force was utterly routed and virtually annihilated.” Further on “During the Battles of Leyte Gulf on October 24, Commander McCampbell, assisted by but one plane, intercepted and daringly attacked a formation of 60 hostile land-based aircraft approaching our forces . . . shot down nine Japanese planes . . . forced the remainder to abandon the attack before a single aircraft could reach the fleet.”
William E. Simon
1985
William E. Simon has traveled full circle form a swimmer to the world of finance, politics, sports administrator and for the moment, back to his beginnings in swimming.
We know him as “Mr. Success” at everything in business and finance, energy czar during the oil crisis, Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Ford and Nixon, inspiring lecturer and best selling author. Most recently he has been the Chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee during its unprecedented term of athletic, artistic and financial success.
Bill Simon obviously is remembered by others for more important things than his swimming, but like so many of swimming’s “over-the-hill gang,” he is proud of his sports heritage and enjoys his colleagues amazement that he once was “one hell of an athlete!”
Now into horses (he is part owner of the Pompano Harness Track), he once was a Sea Girt lifeguard on the Jersey shore. He was also star prep school swimmer at the Blair Academy — the perennial New Jersey State Champions and an Eastern Interscholastic contender. He was co-captain of the 25th Division Swimming Team and competed successfully in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle races and relays in the All Japan Meet in 1947. When he came back from the Pacific, veteran Simon graduated from Lafayette College (too busy to swim).
He jumped into the deep end of the financial world in 1952. From then on, it was non-stop. All we can add is “Welcome back to the pool, Bill Simon” as we honor his past swimming achievements with our highest recognition, the International Swimming Hall o f Fame’s Gold Medallion Award.
Art Linkletter
1984
Life after 70, for Linkletter, is 80 or 90 public appearances and 250,000 air miles a year. The relaxed but never retiring Linkletter handles his various careers with such ease that he appears not to be working at all. The enthusiasm he showed 60 years ago as a “mud skipper” still shows when he is swimming, skiing and surfing with his wife, children and grandchildren.
He is best remembered for his 25 television years on “House Party”, for radio’s “People Are Funny”, and for his best-selling book, Kids Say the Darndest Things. Of course, the reason they say the “darndest things” is because Art Linkletter is egging them on. Although he has championed many serious causes and he certainly knows how to “act his age”, he has never lost the wide-eyed approach of youth. “No one can keep from aging, “he says, “but there is no need to grow old.” With child-like curiosity for life every day, this relaxed dynamo has shown young swimmers how to approach the intensity of life. His success formula while doing exactly what he wants to do breeds confidence in other.
Linkletter never dwells on his failure to be an Olympic swimmer (he made the Olympic trials in 1932 but did not compete due to a bout with poison oak), but rather revels in the enjoyment he derived from swimming. He was the Southern California small college backstroke champion and record holder at San Diego State College. Linkletter, a 1:07 hundred yard backstroker, was also on San Diego’s Free Style Relay and swam in the Escondido rough water ocean swims. He was a YMCA camp swim counselor and a lifeguard at Delmar, Lajolla and Mission Bay.
Barry Goldwater
1983
Even as we honor our Honorees, the Hall of Fame is honored with the appearance of Barry Goldwater, a veteran swimmer who has made a name for himself in politics. The senator from Arizona, often called “The Conscience of the Congress”, is one of the most respected and influential figures in American public life. As the GOP presidential candidate in 1964, he faced a landslide by LBJ which might have discouraged a lesser man. But Barry Goldwater rebounded to run again for the Senate where he is regarded as a moral anchor.s and volunteered his time and service to teach school children swimming.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona territory, January 1, 1909, he was educated in Phoenix and at Staunton Military Academy. It was at Staunton where he developed as a swimmer and was on a world record relay team. Goldwater has been an ardent swimmer ever since. He is a World War II veteran and is now a retired Major General in the U.S.A.F. Reserve, having logged more than 10,000 hours of flying time in 96 different types of aircraft.
He was elected to this first term in the Senate in 1952, re-elected in 1958, resigning in 1964 to run for President, and ultimately re-elected in 1968 and again in 1974 and 1980. Goldwater’s senatorial memberships include Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Armed Services Preparedness Investigating Sub-committee, National Stockpile and Naval Petroleum Reserves Subcommittee.
Senator Goldwater is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling
The Conscience of a Conservative.