Tuesday, March 3, 2009

MAC Head Swim Coaches

Arthur Cavill 1909-1913, the first MAC swimming coach.

Arthur Roland Cavill (nicknamed 'Tums', because as a child he chewed his thumbs), the fourth son of the Cavill family, was born on the night of his father's second attempt on the Channel. At the age of 18, he won the 500 and 1000 yards (457 and 914 meters) amateur championships of New South Wales; at 20 was awarded a Royal Humane Society medal for saving a man’s life in Sydney Harbor; and at 21 was the professional 220 yards (200 meters) champion of Australia. Arthur Cavill later improved the Australian crawl. His whole family was involved in swimming. They participated in swimming as well as coaching. Apparently, Cavill actually saw Alick Wickham training. He realised what a great style is was and started using it himself. He later stopped using the Trudgen kick, and began to use the flutter kick (the legs 'flutter' up and down from the hips).


'Tums' went to the United States in 1901 to "make his fortune", and like his brother Charles, swam the Golden Gate. He coached many great swimmers, and introduced the Australian crawl to Americans. He died in 1914, frozen to death, after swimming across Seattle Harbor in cold weather.



Jack Cody 1913-1948

Cody's career at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, Oregon, began and ended with champions. Cody's divers and swimmers helped make Multnomah world famous as an athletic club. Soon after he came to the club in 1913, he coached Constance Meyer to national recognition as a diver. A few years later, two MAC divers were competing in the 1920 Olympic Games, Thelma Payne placing third and Louis "Hap" Kuehn winning the gold medal in men's fancy diving. Though many other Cody-trained swimmers and divers scored in local and regional events in the next 20 years, Cody's greatest fame developed in the 10 years from 1939 through 1949 when a speedy troupe of girls wearing the winged "M" became known as the "Cody Kids". Read full story...



Phil Hansel 1949-1956

Jim Campbell 1956-1958

Jack Pobochenko 1959-1960

Walt Schlueter 1960-1962




Taken from International Swimming Hall Of Fame



FOR THE RECORD: U.S. Olympic and Pan American coach. He produced swimmers on every Olympic team from 1948 through 1972; His swimmers have established 15 World Records, 51 American and Sr. National Records, 35 National AAU Championships. His teams won two U.S. AAU National Team Championships with Chicago Town Club in 1950 and the Multnomah Athletic Club in 1961.



Walt Schlueter was an innovator, a perfectionist, an eminently successful coach. He is particularly noted for developing the perfect stroke of Don Schollander and Marilyn Ramenofsky. He was originator of the rhythm method of teaching pace and the race pace/short rest/ broken swim method of training. Elected as U.S. Olympic and Pan American diving coach, he was also Pan American swim coach as well as U.S. coach at several international swimming competitions. He is best known as a coach of coaches, a stroke specialist originating dozens of stroke drills. His swimmers have competed for the US. in 36 international competitions.


Olive Mucha 1962-1968

At the 1936 Games in Berlin, Olive McKean Mucha won a bronze medal as a member of the USA's 400-meter freestyle relay and swam to a fifth-place finish in the 100-meter freestyle. She won five national championships in the 100-yard and 100-meter freestyle from 1934 to 1936 and also held American records for the 400-meter and 400-yard freestyle relay from 1935 to 1937.

Olive swam for the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle from 1930 to 1936. Olive was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Swimming Hall of Fame last July 30th.

Olive Mucha coached MAC swimmers from 1962 to 1968.

Ted Simpson 1968-1969



Mike Hastings 1969-1972



Mike Burton 1972-1973

Michael Jay "Mike" "Mr. Machine" was severely injured at the age of 12 when struck by a truck while riding a bicycle. Mike recovered sufficiently to become one of the greatest distance freestylers ever. He set seven world and 16 U.S. records, won 10 AAU titles, and while at UCLA he was five times an NCAA champion. Burton was the first man to break 16 minutes for the 1,650y free and the first to swim 800m under 8:30. He was also the first to follow the now standard training regimen of mega-mileage. The first man to win two Olympic 1,500m freestyle titles, between those championships, he needed further surgery on his knee, a residual of his old injury.


Mickey Fleskas 1973-1976



Trond Williams 1976-1981



Skip Runkle 1981-2008


Skip Runkle coached at the Multnomah Athletic Club for twenty seven years. This is the longest tenure out of any MAC Head Swim Coach in history of the Club. He had tremendous success, leading the team to four top 10 finishes at Senior National Championships. Under Skip's guidance, thirteen MAC’s swimmers have represented the USA in international competition and won 8 individual national championship titles.

In 1998, Skip received the American Swimming Coaches Association’s Silver Achievement Award, given to coaches who had experienced 15 years of placing swimmers in championship finals of the National Championships. Skip is one of 12 coaches in the country who have achieved this award of coaching excellence.
Skip has been on the coaching staff for the USA National Team on 13 occasions, most recently as the Head Women’s Coach for the USA at the 1998 Goodwill Games. Team USA won the gold medal in the team competition. Skip has been the recipient of the "Ohio Coach of the Year" award two times and the "Oregon Coach of the Year" award three times. He has been actively involved with USA Swimming, both at the local and national level.

Coach Runkle now works with swimmers of Mount Hood Aquatics in Gresham, OR.

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