When you were a kid, who was the person(s) you looked up to as the swimmer you wished you were. Or, who do you see as an older person you respect, swimmingly, right now?
I have a couple: Bill Yorzyck, Bob Proebsting, Wally Dobler.
Before I was a flyer, I can remember poring over swim magazines and loving to read about Lance Larson, Murray Rose, George Breen........
You got any ????
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Former Member
Great coaches !
1. George Gate - Ocean Falls, BC - so far ahead of his time; I could never hope to have been this good as a coach !
2. Monte Nitzkowsky (sp?) - Long Beach C.C. in the 50's - better known for water polo, but he knew his stuff about swimming too.
These guys were not only great stroke mechanics, they were mentors and leaders, too.......................... Bert
A quick note on Lenny K. A couple years ago, I was working on an article for Men's Journal magazine. The topic: Olympic training secrets of top athletes. I called up a bunch of top names, usually reachable only through a long line of agents, gait keepers, publicists, etc. Though most of the people I interviewed were polite and reasonably personable on the phone, Lenny proved to be something much more.
Usually, journalists like me try to keep the source on the phone as long as possible so as to glean as much info as possible. Lenny not only joked around, gave me extremely specific tip advice (not that it was exactly easy to apply--"Try sets of 10 x 200 meters backstroke short course, kicking 20 meters underwater off each turn"), but evinced no obvious desire at all to get off the phone.
With the other Olympians I interviewed, I was lucky to get 10 minutes of their time. With Lenny, I had to actually tell him I needed to sign off--after about 45 minutes! What a great guy! If he treated me this nicely, a complete stranger calling him from 3000 miles away, I must conclude that he's likely a first rate gentleman with most everyone he meets.
Bottom line: great times may endure for a while in record books, but athletes who are great people too deserve an extra measure of credit in my book.
Does anyone remember the great Dutch butterflier, Ada Kok? I think they called her "the gentle giant"--she won gold in '68. She was so powerful. I also admired Pokey Watson, a great backstroker in '68 Olympics, Kaye Hall, Ellie Daniel and John Naber and Mark Spitz.
If I were a kid today, I think I would admire Misty Hyman, she has a lot of personality. And Lenny Krayzelburg--he's just awesome.
I read about her time at the Olympics in 1968 in the 200 meter butterfly at 2:24.7. This is a very good time ,especially in the late 1960's. Lenny is ok. At the last olympics, the media talk about his immirgrant background and the fact that he became an american citizen. This is a course a theme of a lot of younger swimmers. Gaby Rose, half-American and half-Brizalizan and Mike Cavic, who swims for Yugoslavia. So Lenny isn't the only swimmer now with different nationality backgrounds and a decision to be made about which country do you swim for.
