The sport of swimming was popular in Illinois almost from the turn of the century. It just took the high schools, and particularly the Illinois High School Association, a while to catch up.
Why? A lack of facilities was the most obvious reason. While New Trier High School in Winnetka was one of the first high schools in the country to build its own pool, most school districts had to rely on the cooperation of area YMCA pools.
And until the 1930's, there weren't enough of those pools to go around, either. Club swimming owned the spotlight until the first IHSA state meet was conducted at Maine Township in 1932, and some of the best swimmers in the country were the products of the Chicago area.
The foundation was laid as early as the 1890's, when the Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) began sponsoring youth teams. But until 1905 most interscholastic competition consisted of water polo, not open swimming.
An organization known as the Illinois Athletic Club supplanted the CAA as the leading amateur club and annually conducted championship meets beginning in 1908. By the 1920's Chicago had definitely made a splash. Edwin Lennox of Oak Park set a national interscholastic record in the breaststroke in 1923 and landed a berth as an alternate on the 1924 United States Olympic team. From powerful Lane Tech came Ralph Breyer, a member of the gold-medal winning 800-relay team in the 1928 Olympics. Another Chicagoan, Dick Howell of Hyde Park, set national schoolboy records in both the 100 and 220 freestyle events in 1922.
By the end of the 1920's swimming took hold in the high schools. It was a golden era for coaches, led by pioneers like Chauncey Hyatt and Edgar Jackson of New Trier, E. C. Delaporte of Lane Tech, Arthur Pritzlaff of Senn, O. E. Hurz of Schurz, and Earl Rosinbum of Englewood.
Also belonging on that list was Sam Marsulo of Maine Township, who established the first high school dynasty in the sport by capturing five of the first six state championships. Then the momentum shifted back to the city of Chicago, where coach John Newman's powerhouse squads racked up titles in 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 (tied with New Trier), 1943, 1945, 1946 and 1947.
From 1948 through 1965, New Trier and Evanston had a stranglehold on the sport that hasn't been matched by any two schools in any IHSA-sponsored activity. In that 16-year stretch the two rivals finished 1-2 at the state meet on 13 occasions, including a tie for the title in 1956.
They turned the state finals into a dual meet, with New Trier claiming 13 team titles under Jackson and Dave Robertson. Evanston's best stretch came from 1953-56 with four straight crowns under Coach Dobbie Burton.
"It was a rivalry I really enjoyed," said Burton, who led the Wildkits to top three state finishes in a remarkable 28 of the 38 years he coached there. "New Trier was always the favorite and we were always the have-nots because all we had was a 4-lane pool at the YMCA.
"It was always special when we beat them because swimming was an affluent sport, and it was hard to beat those country club kids. The rivalry just grew on everyone. It got to a point where you always tried to win no matter what. Our kids thought of New Trier as the enemy. Lose to them, and you'd have to listen to them talk about it all year long."
"We built our own success at New Trier," said Robertson. "Edgar Jackson was my mentor and you have to give him credit for starting the learn-to-swim program for kids seven or eight years old. We concentrated on stroke technique, and by the time they got to high school they were ready to race."
Robertson expanded that program and also introduced interval training to the sport, copying Roger Bannister's theories that produced the first sub-four minute mile in track and field history.
But as Olympians like Evanston's Dick Hanley and New Trier's Dave Lyons passed through and the two powerhouses traded titles, the rivalry simmered but never boiled over.
Burton still remembers the 1956 state finals at the Trevian pool, where both teams finished with 54 points.
"I know New Trier thought they were a shoo-in that year, but we were really motivated," Burton recalled. "Rockford had to beat New Trier in the last (200 freestyle) relay, and when they did, we had a tie. I offered to jump in the pool and race Dave Robertson to break the tie, but he declined."
New Trier's 1961 team became the first state champion ever to crack the century mark at the state finals, piling up 104 points, Changes have taken place in the scoring system since then and one of the great Hinsdale Central teams almost tripled that total in 1975.
But the state of Illinois has never seen an array of talent like that of Dave Lyons, Fred Schmidt, Dale Kiefer, Roger Goettsche and Terry Townsend swimming in the same pool for the same team.
All five held national records-not just state records-by the time they ended their prep careers. At the state finals, Lyons won both the 50 (22.4) and 100 (49.2) freestyle races and no one had cracked the respective 23 and 50-second barriers up until then.
Teammate Townsend matched his two titles, ruling both the 400 freestyle (10 seconds faster than the previous record) and the 200 freestyle (four seconds faster). Schmidt claimed top honors in the butterfly, in a record 53 flat, and Goettsche topped his own record in the 100 backstroke after winning the title the previous year.
"Those kids were so great that we had college coaches coming in to visit, to figure out what we were doing right," said Robertson. "We had five unbelievable swimmers on that team and seven kids from that team went on to swim at Yale.
"Lyons was an absolute technician and the most effortless swimmer in the group. Kiefer was a tremendous IM swimmer and he might have been the best one overall. I'll never forget that team."
New Trier won nine events at the state finals and as a group they went on to finish third at the Amateur Athletic Union nationals the following summer, trailing only collegiate powers Yale and Indiana.
Lyons, who swam in the 1964 Olympics, was just as impressed by his teammates as the competition was.
"We really had the horses," Lyons said. "I broke the national record in the 200, but that was because no one could beat Townsend in the 50 or 100, so I didn't swim those events. Those races were both meat-grinder events and I didn't know how I'd do. I wasn't as strong or as big as a lot of the other sprinters. So I had to be efficient and conservative with my strokes. Dave Robertson talked about technique in every single workout, and coaches don't do that now.
"Everyone could tell who the New Trier swimmers were just by our smooth, easy strokes."
As talented as the Trevians were, they were coming off a 1960 campaign in which they didn't win the state championship as a team. One squad member suffered through three straight false starts-that was permitted under the rules of the day-in the final relay, and that cost New Trier the title.
Not that they really needed much motivation.
"At that time we had a different perspective, and we were pointing toward winning a national AAU title," recalled Schmidt. "High school swimming was important to us, but the summer was just as important. Everyone had a niche on that team. We had real camaraderie and it was the same for all of us, because if one guy was feeling down in practice or at a meet, the others would pick him up. The expectations were great for everyone. Robertson expected you to do well, and those expectations fed on each other.
"There was a lot of competition, but I never felt like it was a burden."
"It was an incredible tea, and what we did surpassed even our wildest dreams," added Goettsche, who won the backstroke in both 1960 and 1961. "I think the whole process was set in motion when Adolph Kiefer (a former Olympic champion) moved into the district and Dale came to New Trier. And the tradition was already there. It was an opportunity for us to be part of something that larger than one's self, and it helped us all find a direction in life.
"We had a great summer before the season and everyone just kept getting better and better. I remember at the state finals, I was a little under the weather, with a strep throat and a mild fever, but I wanted to do my best for Dave. We had enormous support from the rest of the school, too. I remember we had our marching band on the deck of the pool and they made the place vibrate."
So did the guys in the pool.
Both Robertson of New Trier and Burton of Evanston are as proud of their coaching innovations as they are of the number of state titles they achieved.
Robertson's devotion to interval training got the jump on the competition in the 1950's to make an already strong program even stronger.
"Roger Bannister's sub-four minute mile was a tremendous accomplishments in sports," Robertson recalled. "He was a medical student who didn't have the time to train the traditional way, so he just ran 15 or 16 400-meter races a day when he was training, and he never trained by running the mile.
"At that time in swimming we would have the kids swim 20 lengths, then kick 20 lengths, but I found that after they swam the 20 lengths the first three times they'd look great, and from then on the fundamentals were poorer. So with the interval training we didn't have them go flat out all the time.
"The beauty of this was that as a coach you had more control, and the kids always had good form. It was much more hands-on and the kids liked it, too. The results were just unbelievable."
Robertson is one of only two high school coaches elected to the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Burton, his chief rival for most of those seasons, made an impact at Evanston by taking advantage of the limited space (four lanes) at his community's YMCA pool.
"The secret of our success was the circle swim, which allowed a lot more simmers in the pool," Burton said. "When you swim lanes and there are only four of them, swimming up and down you can't fit many people in the pool.
"I first saw it at a small high school in Michigan where they actually only had two lanes. We'd get 80 or 90 kids going in circles and that's what saved our program at Evanston. It was a way of keeping a lot of kids interested in the sport. We always started with that workout, and at the time no one else did it."
The architect of the state's greatest dynasty was Hinsdale Central's Don Watson. With standouts like John Kinsella, Glenn Disoway, Charles Nieman, George Tidmarsh and John Murphy, the Red Devils left the rest of the state in their wake by capturing 12 consecutive state championships from 1967 through 1978.
Watson himself competed under legendary coach Doc Counsilman at Indiana University. He acknowledged the community support and the cast of talented individuals he had at Hinsdale, but also noted that building a dynasty in swimming was different than it was for coaches in other sports. Swim coaches had the opportunity to work with their youngsters on almost a year-round basis.
"To build a dynasty you have to have an individual who will dedicate his life to that sport," said Watson, now the director of swim facilities as the University of Texas. "For me it was a year-round job. I also coached some U.S. National teams and went to the nationals every year. Other coaches only worked three or four months out of the year.
"I was the aquatics director at the high school and that made a difference because I had control over all the swim classes. Swimming is a sport for specialists and we were in the pool all year long. You could see the talent first-hand and pick out the best kids. A lot of kids saw more of me than they saw of their parents.
Watson emphasized mileage in his program—it wasn't unusual for the Red Devils to put in 8,000 yards per day—and also relied on more extensive weight training than most coaches. The results were impressive.
"We only lost one dual meet during that stretch, and that was early when I wasn't able to be there," he recalled. "I think one thing we had going for us was that once we started the streak, they had a real intense fear of losing. They'd do anything not to lose. The pressure every year was that they didn't want to be the team that finally lost state.
"I always had a fear of losing, too. It got to the point that I know there were people out there who said God, I wish Watson would lose once. I guess I was a kinda Little Caesar to some people. I got out on top (after winning in 1978) because I knew eventually we'd have to fall down, and I didn't want it to happen."
Kinsella thrived under Watson's coaching, eventually winning the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete and setting world records in the 400 and 1500 meters. Murphy participated on a world record 400-relay team and also placed fourth in two events at the Munich Olympics.
"But we had so many great swimmers at Hinsdale," Watson recalled. "One year in the backstroke we had five great kids, and the three who sat at home could've been state finalists. We had great people in the program, people who would have been the headliners at a lot of other schools."
Every event conducted at the state finals has had its share of multiple winners. In the shorter sprints, Brian Kurza of Hinsdale south won the 50 freestyle in 1986, 1987 and 1988. In the 100 freestyle, you have to go all the way back to the early days as Ron Gora of Lane Tech won three straight from 1949-51 and also won three other individual events in that era.
Check elsewhere in the program and you'll discover that no one has won either the 200 or 400 freestyle (an event extended to 500 yards in 1974) more than twice. Top honors in the 500 freestyle belong to Brian Gunn of Hinsdale Central, who not only won three straight crowns (1987-89) but was also clocked under 4:30 in all three years.
In the specialty stokes—breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke—there's also a star-studded roster of multiple winners. Decatur MacArthur's Robert Mac Adam dominated the breaststroke for all four years of his outstanding career, from 1978-81. Marc Gilliam of Rock Island earned butterfly titles from 1967-69, and Tom Jager of Collinsville was unstoppable with four straight backstroke crowns from 1979 through 1982.
Different swimmers dominated different eras in the individual medley. Hinsdale Central products Charles Nieman and George Tidmarsh ruled the 1960's and 1970's, respectively, and in 1986 Brock Harr of Schaumburg began an identical three-year reign in the event.
Top diver of all-time? That one's easy. Tom Wright of Rockford Guilford captured three consecutive titles from 1989-91 and his winning score of 518.25 points is the third best all-time performance at the state finals.
But the top swimmer produced in Illinois is probably a guy who never swam in the state finals. And he's a guy even your parents would remember as being more famous for being a movie star than a swimmer.
Yet at his peak, no one came close to one Johnny Weissmuller. That's the same Johnny Weissmuller you might come across in an occasional black-and-white old television move, wearing only a loin cloth in the role of Tarzan.
Weissmuller's family came to the United States from Romania, and he was born in Connecticut. But he made his biggest splash as a swimmer in Chicago, even though he dropped out of Lane Tech and never competed on it successful swim teams.
Instead Weissmuller was more of a "beach bum" who hung out at the Fullerton Avenue beach.
He eventually joined the Illinois Athletic Club tea, led by fabled coach William Bachrach. The rest is swimming history. At the age of 17, in 1922, he established world records in the 300-yard and 300-meter freestyle. He also became the first man to break one minute in the 100 freestyle that same year. In 10 years of amateur competition he was reputed to never have lost a race from 50 to 880 yards.
He broke 24 world records and won five Olympic gold medals and one bronze. He was voted the greatest swimmer of the half-century in a poll of sportswriters back in 1950.
According to the Encyclopedia of Swimming, "Weissmuller's high-riding stroke, with its pull and push arm stroke, independent head turning action for breathing, and a deep flutter leg kick was revolutionary and had a tremendous influence on the development of the crawl stroke throughout the world."
Weissmuller made a splash when he finally ended his competitive swimming career. At the age of 36, he said no to an offer of a screen test to play the role of Tarzan. What finally enticed him to change his mind? A chance to have lunch with Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.
No, they weren't swimmers.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Illinois High School Association.