USMS Pool All American Honors – 4 years (4 individual)
USMS Top Ten Achievements – 299 individual
I learned to swim at the town beach on Hobbs Pond, Hope ME. At the Y in Philadelphia, they lined up everyone for a 25-yard race at the end of general swim. I always won, so they put me on their team. They had the only good coach I ever had. One day, our butterflier didn’t come so I filled in and got the job. After junior league, I swam for Germantown Academy, later famous for swimming. In 1955, I was the surprise winner of the Eastern Interscholastic 100 fly. I regularly made All American in high school and college. The breaststroke-butterfly rules were changing then. My only flirtation with national records was when you were allowed to swim breaststroke under water. My best national rank was 4th in the 200 breast - not good enough for the Olympics.
Upon college graduation in 1959, I was sick of swimming. I spent 17 happy years neither competing nor paying attention. Worsening back trouble threatened forced disability retirement by age 40. I just dodged surgery. One MD said patients like me were doomed to a life of therapy and pain, but that, occasionally, some who swam a lot didn’t return. Judging swimming preferable to the knife, I resumed swimming and heard about Masters.
I have swum for DC Department of Recreation and Parks, then Maine Masters, since age 40. Work time lost to back trouble declined, though I travelled to nationals in Chapel Hill NC flat in the back of a station wagon and could not dive start the night before winning the 200 fly. On our DC relay fly start, I got to send a wave over MA’s relay’s Paul Tsongas.
Over the years, I have picked up occasional national championships, mostly in long butterfly and IM, and recently by being the only one in my age group to swim something — nationally first and last. I’ve been on some national-championship Maine relays, including a mixed 400 IM that held the national record for 6 years. At 75, I made national top-10 in all 53 events except for the 50 breast, in which I was 11th. I hold or have held a variety of Maine and New England records. And I haven’t had back surgery yet.