Every Child A Swimmer ~ February 2025 Update
Every Child a Swimmer: Highlights and Momentum for 2025As we move into 2025, the Every Child a Swimmer (ECAS) program is excited to share our recent successes, current initiatives, and legislative efforts as we continue striving to prevent childhood drowning and create a generation of safer, more confident swimmers.
2024: A Year of Growth and ProgressThis past year, ECAS reached new milestones that brought us closer to our vision of making water safety accessible to all children:
Awarded over $600,000 in learn-to-swim scholarships, providing lifesaving swim lessons to more than 2,100 children across the country. Strengthened our network to include 308 quality swim school partners nationwide, ensuringscholarship recipients receive the best instruction. Expanded school-based programs, impacting over 1,650 students through partnerships thatincorporate water safety education into the school day.
Thanks to your partnership and dedication, we’ve been able to make a lasting difference in the lives of children and their families.
What’s Ahead for 2025 ~
As we dive into 2025, your support will be more important than ever. Together, we can ensure that more children gain the lifesaving skills of swimming and that water safety becomes a national priority.
Thank you for being an essential part of our mission and for sharing in our vision of a safer future for all children. Together, we are creating powerful waves of change—transforming lives through every child taught, every lesson shared, and every law passed. Your support fuels our progress and inspires our determination.
Here’s to an extraordinary year ahead, filled with even greater impact and lifesaving accomplishments!
ISHOF’s 1992 Contributor Thomas Blake Inducted as part of National Inventors Hall of Fame, Class of 2025 ~
Tom Blake was a fascinating guy and that’s putting it mildly. He has been described as an adventurer, surfer, lifeguard, writer, traveler, photographer, stuntman and inventor, which may not sound like much, but think about this, he was born in 1904 in rural Wisconsin! At the age of 18, he left his home in the mid west and headed to California, via freight train. Once he arrive in the land of sunshine and palm trees, he developed a love for the water ~ swimming and surfing. He became friends with several ISHOF Honorees, first, swimming for the great Fred Cady, Coach of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and soon, he was swimming alongside some of the best, including Johnny Weissmuller. He was an incredible athlete and excelled at every thing he tried.
Blake would eventually head to Hawaii in 1924, where he would meet and build a lifelong relationship with Duke Kahanamoku, who would later become known as the “Father of Surfing”. It was with the Duke that Blake’s relationship with surfing began. He eventually returned to California a few years later, and it was then he began creating his own surfboards, modeled after the ancient ones he had seen in Hawaii while surfing with the Duke. But that was only the beginning of Blake’s life and “inventing”. He would go on to become a stuntman in Hollywood with Clarke Gable, invent more things, mostly having to do with “water”, surfing, swimming, the first underwater camera, helping the Coast Guard, attempting world records with the Duke, lifesaving, swimming in open water swimming championships…. the guy did it all!
Read more about Blake in the two biographies below.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame is inducting Thomas E. Blake (March 8, 1902 – May 5, 1994) as part of the Class of 2025. We congratulate him on his many achievements!
Read his 2025 National Inventors Hall of Fame bio here: https://www.invent.org/inductees/tom-blake
Read Thomas Blake’s 1992 ISHOF bio here: https://ishof.org/honoree/honoreetom-blake/
City of Oakland to Celebrate Buster Crabbe Day, February 7, 2025
Buster Crabbe and Apollo 11 Astronaut Dave Scott
ISHOF was excited to learn that the City of Oakland (California) is honoring their native son, Buster Crabbe with an exhibit in their Library’s History Center and will feature the 1965 ISHOF Honoree with a special BUSTER CRABBE DAY, as proclaimed by the City’s mayor.
Clarence “Buster” Crabbe was inducted in ISHOF’s inaugural Class of Honorees in 1965 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was joined by fellow Honorees and friends, Johnny Weissmuller and Duke Kahanamoku. Below, he is pictured at his induction in December of 1966 at the Hall of Fame Pool. You can read his ISHOF Honoree bio below.
Clarence “Buster” Crabbe (USA) 1965 Honor Swimmer
FOR THE RECORD: OLYMPIC GAMES: 1928 bronze (1500m freestyle), 4th (400m freestyle); 1932 gold (400m freestyle), 5th (1500m freestyle); WORLD RECORDS: 16; NATIONAL RECORDS: 35; World’s Fair Aquacade star; Buster Crabbe’s Aquaparade; Actor starring in Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Tarzan and Captain Gallant.
As “Flash Gordon” and as “Buck Rogers”, actor Buster Crabbe conquered space before there were any astronauts. He also conquered the Sahara Desert as “Capt. Gallant” and the jungle as “Tarzan”. But Crabbe’s real life heroics as an Olympic swimmer are no less spectacular than his record on film and TV.
Buster Crabbe was born Clarence Linden Crabbe in Oakland, California. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to the Hawaiian Islands, where his father became overseer at a pineapple plantation. Buster learned to swim at the age of five. At Puna Hou High School in Honolulu, he was a 16-letter man. He won a letter every year in football, basketball, track and swimming.
He returned to the mainland to attend the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and while a first year law student there, he won a place on the U.S. Olympic swimming team. He won the 400 meter title. His swimming accomplishments include 16 world and 35 national swimming records.
His Olympic swimming prowess catapulted Crabbe into the movies. First signed by Paramount Pictures, he appeared in nearly 170 pictures for top Hollywood producers and was every kind of a hero from space idol “Buck Rogers” to legionnaire “Captain Gallant”. He was the seventh in a long line of “Tarzan”s. Number 13 currently is swimming through the cinematic jungle. Ironically Crabbe’s only role as a heavy was opposite his old pal Johnny Weissmuller in a stinker called “Swampfire” which ended in a great water battle. Who won? “Buster let me have a few good ones”, says Johnny. “The script called for me to win, but the water was 54 degrees so we both turned blue.”
Not long ago, stories appeared in the American press about how the Russians had just discovered a new film here — “Tarzan”, performed by Crabbe. The pictures were in their first run in the Soviet Union. Before his Captain Gallant television series, Crabbe toured the U.S. and Europe for 5 years with his Buster Crabbe’s Aquaparade. He starred in the World’s Fair Aquacade in New York before World War II. His present interests include the Buster Crabbe Swim Pools and a summer camp for boys, Camp Meenahga — meaning “blueberry”, near Saranac Lake, New York.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Page from the City of Oakland catalog created for “Buster Crabbe Day”
Throwback Thursday: The Early Training That Led Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman to Hall of Fame (Sample Sets)
16 January 2025, 12:09am
Throwback Thursday: The Early Training That Led Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman to Legendary Status (Sample Sets)
Together, Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman forged the most successful athlete-coach relationship in the history of the sport. Here is a look at some of the early workouts that led to Phelps’ stardom.
By Bob Bowman (with Michael J. Stott) – From 2003
I think it was pretty clear from the beginning that Michael Phelps was a special swimmer. When he joined us at North Baltimore Aquatic Club as a 7-year-old, he was a baseball/soccer/lacrosse athlete. His first year, he just did a 60-minute, once-a-week stroke clinic with our aquatics director, Cathy Lears.
His training and intensity escalated from there, to where, by the time he was 10 and setting NAG records, he was better than many of the older swimmers. Obviously, we had to do some rapid lane promotions.
To those who knew the Phelps aquatic heritage, his prowess was no surprise. His oldest sister, Hilary Phelps, was a national-level swimmer. His second sister, Whitney Phelps, was also a 200 flyer. She made the 1994 World Championship team that competed in Rome. (She still held the 11-12 NAG record in the 100 yard fly at the time this article was printed.) So, in many ways, swimming excellence has been a family trait.
And while it is also tempting to think of Michael only in terms of the fly and IM, a review of his record reveals a litany of national rankings in the free and back as well.
Supportive parents have aided his climb immensely. They had been through the drill with the older daughters. Then there’s Michael’s physique: at 6-4, he is mostly torso with a large chest and long arms. It’s a body great for swimming. He is very flexible throughout the shoulders, upper body and especially in the ankles.
Michael is much more disciplined than he was in his earlier days. He was, and is still, a pretty strong-willed kid. Back then, he didn’t understand he might have to do some things he didn’t want to do, like train, sit still, pay attention and not talk. He was very energetic as a young boy.
These days, he’s modified his behavior – either voluntarily or involuntarily.
“I think part of that modification started when I pulled him out of the pool and told him, ‘You’ve got a stroke that is going to set a world record some day, and you are going to do it in practice.’” – Bob Bowman
Keenly Competitive
Michael has an athletic mentality second to none. He is keenly competitive and that’s what drives him. In competition, he is incredibly focused and able to relax. The higher the level of competition, the better he is. That’s something you just don’t see very often.
What he needs to work on is the same thing he had to work on as a child: to strengthen the connection in his mind between what happens on a daily basis and how that affects what’s going to happen when he gets in the big meet.
He’s better now and better than 90 percent of the the population, but he still has those days – about once every six weeks – when he’s tired, and it’s a struggle for me to get him to do things and maintain the same intensity in workout that he gives in the big meets.
In 2002, he had an excellent summer, setting a world record in the 400 meter IM, taking four events at the Phillips 66 Summer Nationals, notching American records in the 200 IM and 100 fly and swimming the fastest fly leg ever in a 4 x 100 world record medley relay victory.
In addition to water work, we religiously incorporated a “Mike Barrowman medicine ball routine” into his dryland routine, and we did a three-week stay at altitude in Colorado Springs. He’s followed his long course success with the best fall and winter he’s ever had by far.
Typically, for the last three or four years, Michael has had very good summers. Then there have been down periods in the fall where we’ve had to work hard to crank him back up to a good mental mode.
That has not been the case this year. This fall and winter, Michael has worked hard on the backstroke. In fact, he’s gotten really good. Recently, he finished a 15 x 200 yard back set with a 1:45. Not too bad! And his breaststroke, while still not flashy, is greatly improved.
We continue to develop Michael as a complete swimmer. That means some emphasis on the distance freestyle. On Halloween, he whipped off a 5,000 free for time in a 46:34. That’s under a 9:20 per 1,000 average. I was impressed with that. In fact, it is probably the most impressive thing he’s done, and it might be one of the most impressive things he ever does.
That’s the kind of thing I’m not sure you can ever replicate, but it’s neat to give him some confidence, particularly since he has to swim against some of the super distance guys.
This is the third year we have approached the training cycle from a yearly perspective. It’s not our style at NBAC to talk about the results of success.
We are always interested in the process. Michael didn’t understand the scope of it until his breakout spring nationals performance in Seattle in 2000 when he went from a 2:04.68 to 1:59-flat and set a 15-16 NAG record in the 200 meter fly. After that, the secret was out.
Setting Goals
These days, Phelps sets goals for himself. Our eyes are on one medium and one long-range goal: World Championships in July in Barcelona and 2004 Olympic Trials and Games.
In Spain, he will swim a full program that mimics the Olympic schedule, except that, there the 400 IM, will be on the last day rather than the first. That’s a full plate: six days of prelims, semis and finals in the 100-200 fly, 200-400 IM, 800 free relay, 400 medley relay and, hopefully, a berth on the 4 x 100 free relay.
To get ready for that, we have concocted a training program that began with a fairly high-mileage fall, a 70-80,000 mixture of yards and meters per week.
There was also 30-45 minutes of dryland six days a week. September through December, we focused on structural adaptation.
Photo Courtesy: Swimming Technique Magazine
With that, we are looking to stimulate major physiological growth that will make him go faster. At this stage, we don’t emphasize fine-tuning. Instead, we have spent a lot of time on endurance work, improving technical issues and gaining strength–putting money in the bank.
We’ll continue that regimen through spring nationals. From April through May, we’ll focus on functional adaptation, working on coordination plus speed and racing-specific elements for the World Championships. With all his success, it is easy to overlook that Michael Phelps is only a 17-year-old, especially given that he is in his second year as a professional and drives a Cadillac Escalade.
But, he’s earned it, and he’s in the process of maturing and securing his financial future. This spring, he’ll graduate from Towson High School. In the fall, he’ll be attending classes at Loyola College in Baltimore and continue to train with us at North Baltimore.
Check the accompanying charts for some typical early-mid. and late-season workouts Michael Phelps has done during the 2001-2002 short and long course seasons.
Photo Courtesy: Swimming Technique Magazine
Note from the Publisher: When this article was published in 2003, Bob Bowman was the senior coach at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club in Maryland. Bowman is now the head coach at the University of Texas. Michael Phelps is retired as the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, winning 28 Olympic medals.
February Featured Honoree: ARNE BORG (SWE) and his Memorabilia
Arne Borg and Johnny Weissmuller
Each month ISHOF will feature an Honoree and some of their aquatic memorabilia, that they have so graciously either given or loaned to us. Since we are closed, and everything is in storage, we wanted to still be able to highlight some of the amazing artifacts that ISHOF has and to be able to share these items with you.
We continue in the new year, February 2025, with 1966 ISHOF Honoree ARNE BORG, Honor Swimmer, SWEDEN. Arne Borg donated many fabulous things to ISHOF and we want to share some of them with you now. Also below is his ISHOF Honoree bio that was written the year he was inducted, 1966, so it’s a bit outdated. Borg came to his induction in Fort Lauderdale in 1966 to be inducted. He is pictured here with fellow Honoree and Hollywood star, Esther Williams. Borg lived to the age of 87 years old.
Screenshot
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Three gold medals from Borg’s collection from different events during the 1920’s.
Another medal for The Borg Collection
Patch from Borg’s Club Team
To read his honoree bio:
First-class redesign of Fort Lauderdale’s Swimming Hall of Fame on way. Expect some noise and dust first.
The dive tower, one of the tallest in the world, has become a landmark at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center. Plans are now underway to build a new Ocean Rescue headquarters behind the dive tower along with two International Swimming Hall of Fame buildings. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Article from Sunday, January 18, 2025 Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
By Susannah Bryan | sbryan@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel
UPDATED: January 18, 2025 at 7:04 AM EST
FORT LAUDERDALE — The Aquatic Center’s sky-high dive tower, a breathtaking 101 feet high at its peak, is taller than anything else on the waterfront peninsula home to the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
For now, anyway.
That will change with an upcoming makeover expected to transform the currently closed Swimming Hall of Fame into a landmark destination expected to draw scores of families, locals and tourists.
The project is expected to break ground in late January and open as soon as 2028.
When it’s done, two modern buildings more than 100 feet tall will sit like bookends on either side of the Aquatic Center and its head-turning dive tower at 501 Seabreeze Blvd.
“It’s going to elevate the beach as a destination even more than it already is,” Vice Mayor Steve Glassman told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It’s going to be another transformative project on the barrier island and give us amenities we never really had before. It’s really first class.”
The east building will serve as a gateway to the Aquatic Center and feature a streetside cafe and leasable commercial space. The west building overlooking the Intracoastal will include a welcome center, a new International Swimming Hall of Fame museum with interactive exhibits, an aquarium showcasing marine life and a theater designed to engage and entertain visitors.
The makeover, expected to cost more than $218 million, will come with heavy construction noise and plenty of dust starting this spring.
But it’s the vibration that comes with the high-impact force required to drive sheet piles 40 feet into the seabed that has some nearby condo residents worried, they say.
The process, necessary to create a stable foundation for the building, will likely take several months.
A long-awaited makeover is planned for the eastern and western corners of the International Swimming Hall of Fame campus. (Architectonica/Courtesy)
Noisy work to begin in March
John Burns, president of the Venetian Condo Association, shared his concerns with the commission during a recent meeting.
“One of our big concerns is the pile driving,” Burns said. “We’ve been through it before with just days and days of vibrations. Some of our residents are really concerned about buildings that are sinking now or buildings that are falling down.”
The developer plans to conduct vibration monitoring while installing sheet piles for the seawall.
The work, known for being noisy, will begin in mid-March and could take as long as seven months.
“We want to get it done as fast as we can,” said Greg Jennings, the project manager with Hensel Phelps Construction. “We certainly recognize it affects the neighbors.”
Mayor Dean Trantalis questioned the timing.
“That’s when Spring Break is starting,” he told the project manager. “The height of our tourist season you guys are going to start driving sheet pilings.”
Most of the construction will take place on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The noisiest work won’t begin until 8 a.m.
“There will be heavy equipment on site,” Acting Assistant City Manager Ben Rogers said. “There will be cranes operating. Right now the plan is to operate from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be times when extended hours may be requested. And there may be weekend work.”
Divers from Babson College dive from 3-meter boards on Thursday at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Opening day a few years away
Trantalis also worries that the new Ocean Rescue headquarters that will sit right behind the dive tower might take away from the tower’s iconic look.
“I do believe Ocean Rescue is important, but we need to keep in mind how it will interact with the dive tower, which we spent a lot of money on,” he said.
The dive tower was built during a $50 million renovation of the Aquatic Center completed in September 2022. The tower alone cost taxpayers $5.1 million. An observation deck that sits to the north cost another $2.7 million.
The entire Swimming Hall of Fame project will be done in four phases and require at least three years of construction. It might even take four, pushing the opening into 2029, Jennings said.
The project’s first phase involves building a new seawall around the 5-acre peninsula; demolishing the east building; and building a new Ocean Rescue headquarters.
The west building will go up in the second phase; the east building in the third; and water docks and more site work will be done in the fourth phase.
Original plans called for a five-story east building that would stand 108 feet high. The west building was going to have six floors with ceilings close to 20 or 25 feet, bringing the height of the entire structure to 134 feet.
Caption 3 An extreme makeover is planned for the eastern and western corners of the International Swimming Hall of Fame campus, on either side of Fort Lauderdale’s Aquatic Center. (Architectonica/Courtesy)
Buildings too tall?
Critics have concerns about the height of the buildings being proposed by the developer, saying they might block views.
Trantalis says he, too, has concerns about building height.
“The renderings keep changing,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “And artists’ conceptions often fail to give you a realistic understanding of how the buildings are going to be placed on the site and how they interact with other buildings.”
His main concern is that the dive tower not be overwhelmed by the buildings around it.
“I see the encroachment of the dive tower happening slowly, little by little,” Trantalis said. “To the point where this now iconic image is going to be obscured by buildings that are going to surround it.”
The original plans for both buildings are now undergoing a redesign, said Mario Caprini, CEO of Capital Group P3 of Florida and a partner in the project with Hensel Phelps.
“We are redesigning the project to accommodate the aquarium,” he told the Sun Sentinel.
The east building will be either three or four stories. And the west building will have eight floors but won’t get any taller, Caprini said. In fact, the design team is working on reducing the height of the building.
Caprini and his team plan to seek commission approval in March for the updated design of the museum building. They also plan to present a proposed redesign of the east building to get public feedback.
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
The World of Sports Photography loses a Legend…..Heinz Kluetemeier dies after a long battle with illness
Heinz Kluetmeier, ISHOF Honoree, and 2017 Honor Contributor was the first photographer to ever be inducted into ISHOF. He captured 11 Summer Olympics (1972-2012) on film, including some of the most iconic moments in sports. He lost his battle with a number of illnesses and died on Tuesday, January 14th. He was 82 years old.
In addition to the Summer Games, Heinz also photographed the Winter Games, attending all but two Games from 1972-2016. He spent the majority of his long and distinguished career at Sports Illustrated. The first cover he did for SI was the Mark Spitz cover in 1972. The most famous swimming photo in his collection had to be “The Touch .01” that he took at the 2008 Olympic Games of Michael Phelps out-touching Milorad Cavic by 1/100 of a second.
The Touch .01 by Heinz Kluetmeier
Read his entire ISHOF Honoree bio below, written in 2017, the year he was inducted.
HEINZ KLUETMEIER (USA) 2017 HONOR CONTRIBUTOR
FOR THE RECORD: PHOTOGRAPHER AT ELEVEN SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES: 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012; PHOTOGRAPHER AT EVERY WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES SINCE 1972; FIRST COVER: Mark Spitz, Sports Illustrated; COVERED COUNTLESS SUPER BOWLS AND WORLD SERIES; WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS SINCE 1973; KENTUCKY DERBY’S; INDY 500’s; PHOTOGRAPHED JOHN F. KENNEDY ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL; 2007 LUCY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AS PHOTOGRAPHER.
Heinz Kluetmeier was born and raised in Germany until he was nine, when his family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was introduced to the idea of a career in photo journalism when several photos taken of him by his mother, with his multi-talented pet parakeet “Chirpy,” were picked up and published nationally by the Associated Press. By age 15, he was shooting pictures for the local AP office.
Instead of accepting a full time job with the AP upon graduating from high school, he decided to pursue a degree in engineering at Dartmouth College because, as his father said, “photography “wasn’t a serious career.”
After working as an engineer for two years, he returned to photography in 1969, working full-time for the Milwaukee Journal, Time, Life and Sports Illustrated magazines. While he has shot every major collegiate and professional sport, every Olympic Games, winter and summer except two since 1972, and has over 100 Sports Illustrated covers to his name – as a high school swimmer – he has always had a special affinity for the aquatic sports.
His first swimming assignments took him to Indiana University, then to the 1972 US Olympic Trials and then to the 1972 Olympic Games, where he captured the greatest moment in Mark Spitz’ illustrious career, being lifted onto the shoulders of his teammates after winning his seventh gold medal. He was there at the first FINA World Championships in Belgrade – and at the wedding of Mark Spitz. He was there in Montreal to photograph Gary Hall carrying the flag and holding his namesake on the deck, to capture the ever-present smile of John Naber and the American women winning “The Last Gold”.
In 1988, he donated his time and talents to raise money for USA Swimming through a tabletop book, Swimming: A Collection of Photographs by Heinz Kluetmeier, Commemorating One Hundred Years of Amateur Swimming in America.
Always looking to outdo his competition and for a new angle with a unique point of view, Heinz was a pioneer in the development of split-shot lenses and strobes that captured swimmers above and below the water without distortion. In 1992, at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, he became the first photographer to place a remote controlled camera underwater to capture an Olympic swimming event.
Sixteen years later, Heinz and his assistant Jeff Kavanaugh operated a remote underwater camera that landed the signature image of the Beijing Olympic Games: Michael Phelp’s “Miracle Finish” in the men’s 100m butterfly race – frame by frame.
It has been Kluetmeier’s passion for his art and his ability to capture the passion and emotion of our sports that have singled him out from his colleagues. Simply put, Heinz Kluetmeier has the power to make us feel – and remember the great moments -forever.
The information on this page was written the year of their induction
Heinz’s Induction into ISHOF:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anBQnP1aI_I
IOC Will Provide Gary Hall Jr. with Replacement Medals for Those Lost in L.A. Wildfires
by Swimming World Editorial Staff
13 January 2025, 06:55am
IOC Will Provide Gary Hall Jr. with Replacement Medals for Those Lost in L.A. Wildfires
As Gary Hall Jr. ran through his home last week before evacuating the Pacific Palisades residence due to the Los Angeles wildfires that have devastated Southern California, the three-time Olympian focused on grabbing a handful of items. He picked up his dog, the insulin to treat his diabetes, a painting of his grandfather and a religious artifact given to him by his daughter.
Left behind were the 10 Olympic medals won by Hall between the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Games.
“I was getting pelted by embers on that first run,” Hall told the Los Angeles Times. “So I grabbed my dog and some dog food and that was it. Could I have stayed 30 seconds longer and maybe got the medals? I wasn’t willing to take that risk.”
One of the greatest swimmers and a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Hall Jr. will always have the memories of his Olympic accomplishments. And in the future, Hall Jr. will also have replicas of the 10 medals he earned while representing the United States on the biggest stage in his sport.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach took to social media over the weekend and noted that the IOC will provide Hall Jr. with copies of the medals he won in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens. Among the medals will be golds to reflect the back-to-back titles he claimed in the 50-meter freestyle in 2000 and 2004.
Donations to support Hall Jr. can be made at the link below, while donations to the thousands affected by the wildfires can be made to the American Red Cross.
ISHOF Honoree Gary Hall, Jr. loses everything including his 10 Olympic medals in Pacific Palisades Fire……Go Fund Me Link Provided to Help
As we all know, the swimming family is small and when one of us is in trouble, we all come together. Now is that time, but first a little background. ISHOF inducted Gary Hall Sr. in 1981, a legend in the swimming world, who swam for Doc at IU, along side Mark Spitz and the other great ones from that era. Gary Jr. was at his Dad’s induction, so he learned about ISHOF and the swimming greats early on. (see photo below) And we at ISHOF have known Gary Jr. and the Hall family for as far back as we can remember. Then Gary Jr. had his own stellar career, and we inducted him in 2013. Again, the Hall family showed up, this time, to celebrate Gary Jr.’s induction. But now, Gary Jr. needs our help, please read the post below from The Race Club and please help if you are able.
Story Shared from The Race Club……
Gary Jr. lost his home and his livelihood in the devastating Palisades Fire on January 7th. Gary saw flames out his window while he was at home before collecting his dog, Puddles, his insulin, a painting of his grandfather, and a religious wooden piece and drove towards the ocean as quickly as possible. He was forced to leave behind everything else he owned, such as irreplaceable family heirlooms, photos, and more. He has also most likely lost his ten Olympic medals, but nothing can take away his spirit that won those medals. Gary was renting a home located right in the middle of the Palisades Fire which had a pool where he taught swim lessons to children through his business, Sea Monkeys Swimming. Gary Jr. and Puddles were able to get a hotel last night and they drove to stay with family in San Diego today, Wednesday Jan 8. If Gary Jr. has impacted your life in a positive way somehow over the years, please consider supporting him to restart his life. The funds raised will be used to buy clothes and necessities. Gary’s family is supporting him as best we can and we turn to our strong swimming and friends community for additional help. Thank you! We will update as we find out more.
LINK TO GO FUND ME:
34 Years ago ISHOF Honoree Shelley Taylor Smith wins the Inaugural FINA Women’s 25km Open Water Swiming Championships
Shelley Taylor-Smith added 37 new photos to the album: 20th Anniversary 25km FINA World Champs – 10th January, 1991.
Facebook Post from Shelley Taylor-Smith:
“On 10th January 1991, I achieved my goal and became the inaugural FINA Women’s 25km Long Distance Open Water Swimming World Champion in Perth, Western Australia in the 6th FINA World Swimming Championships held in the Swan River. 7am start approx 2.30pm finish. My friends the Jellyfish were out there to cheer me on and the Fremantle Doctor stayed away. Thank you Western Australia!”
To read Shelley’s ISHOF Honoree bio,
click here: https://ishof.org/honoree/honoree-shelley-taylor-smith/