Travis S. Hall
"I read about the swimming banquet in the Winged M and I would love to participate. I have a long past with the MAC swimming program. I was in swim lessons until I was 5 years old. Then, I joined the club program on Becky Roth's squad. I swam for Debbie Roth, Brandon Draws, and Alex Nikitin in pre-senior squad. I competed in State, and Regional Championships for the MAC club. I ended my MAC club swim career when I was 15 years old.
Currently, I'm the Assistant Coach for Lincoln High School's Swim Team, as well as the Assistant Coach for
Lakeridge High School's Water Polo Team, and the Head Age Group Coach for Iron Mountain Water Polo Club. I'm also currently on the Decathlon Committee at the MAC. Please feel free to contact me in any regards. Thanks!"
A response from Jon Waldum III
What years did you swim with MAC?
: 1966-1976
Who was your coach/coaches?: Mr. Simpson, Mike Hastings & Ray Conlon
What were your most memorable swimming accomplishments?: As a boy, I recall being able to travel to the Santa Clara Invitational with my mates and that my Mom was there for me. As a preteen, I recall the Long Course Junior Olympics, swimming the 200 meter butterfly, leading way ahead and setting the record with my Dad there watching. As high school freshmen, I struggled to swim a pool length but with my friends support and perseverance I started my way back. As a senior in high school; at the PIL Championship held that year at the MAC, swimming the 100 yd butterfly came from behind to break the event record swimming against an old adversary. In college, swimming intramurals at a school where I knew no one, I set a record for the 200 yd. IM; which for the next four years provided my name at the entrance to that facility; which always made me feel at home.
Now, I still enjoy swimming from time to time but most recently I've enjoyed giving back, to the community where I reside, by volunteering on the swim team just like all of parents I fondly remember.
Would you like to share an anecdotes or memory of your swimming experience at The MAC?: My family and I would be remiss if I didn't thank all of those who were there for me in times of need. That the camaraderie and athleticism make me want to come back to the MAC every day. To quote a MAC member and athletic icon -Larry Paulus -"How sweet it is"
Ari Berlin
What years did you swim with MAC? 1988-2002, then masters 2003-2007.
Who was your coach/coaches?: Becky Roth, Debbie Roth, Chris Doyle, Alex Nikitin and Skip Runkle
What were your most memorable swimming accomplishments?: My first Junior National cut at Washington Open in 1998.
Would you like to share an anecdotes or memory of your swimming experience at The MAC?: Relays in Chris's group and the winners received office supplies (Swizzle stick relays). Alex's many lectures (including "why we shouldn't give blood during taper" & "the squandered talent" speech to my brother, Ruben, and I). I also achieved the quickest time for getting kicked out of practice (Greg Nichols, co-record holder). Skip's pink shirt.
My wife Nancy also swam for Alex and Skip from 1998 to 2001.
Michelle Watts (Donahue)
What years did you swim with MAC?
: 1980-1992
Who was your coach/coaches?: Trond Williams & Skip Runkle.
What were your most memorable swimming accomplishments?: Placing 3rd at the 1984 US Olympic Trials was my most memorable.
Would you like to share an anecdotes or memory of your swimming experience at The MAC?:
I enjoyed all my time swimming at the MAC. Of course, I remember the timed 3000's and 20 x 50 on the minute. But the things I remember the most are from the swim meets. Like when the rental agency only had a shuttle van available for us at Nationals- what they use to shuttle people to and from rental car agencies to the airport. We would stop at bus stops, Skip would crank open the door and people would start to get on and then get confused. Or when Skip, Alex Stiles, Matt & Mark Rankin filled a manilla envelope up with shaving cream, sealed it, stuck it under our hotel room door and then knocked. Right as Erin King got close to the door, they stomped on it from the hallway and it exploded all over her. I still laugh about these things.
Member Name: Troy Drawz
: 1984-1986 & 1990: USS, 2004-present: Masters
Who was your coach/coaches?: Skip Runkle, Gary Leach, Stephanie Turner, Alex Nikitin
What were your most memorable swimming accomplishments?: 1990 US Short Course National Championships
Member Name: Jeffrey Grubb
What years did you swim with MAC?
: 1960 to 65
Who was your coach/coaches?: Olive Mucha
Rebecca Obletz
What years did you swim with MAC?
: Rebecca Obletz started swimming competitively with the MAC masters 1997 and currently still practices with the masters
Who was your coach/coaches?: Sean Taylor, Alex Nikitin, Stephanie Turner, Dennis Baker
What were your most memorable swimming accomplishments?: being recognized at the YMCA Nationals in Fort Lauderdale for the outstanding participant award for sportsmanship and subsequently being honored in the Swimming Hall of Fame for this honor.
Would you like to share an anecdotes or memory of your swimming experience at The MAC?: my most memorable experience with the mac swim team was when we went to the masters nationals in Honolulu. We had so much fun as a group!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Century of Swimming Update
Century of Swimming
We have sent out 1,000 invitations about 10% came back because of incorrect addresses or no forwarding addresses or people have dropped their MAC membership. These were just the former swimmers on the database @ MAC. We need help contacting the other 800 plus swimmers. If you have not received your invitation please contact: Lorilyn Wilson at the MAC. Her phone number is 503-517-7512. Her e-mail address is LWilson@themac.com. Members can register online at the MAC website. All other interested parties should call Lorilyn.
A list of swimmers to whom we sent invitations, a list of swimmers for whom we could not get an address or their invitation was returned and a list of simmers who are attending the event. If you know someone on the first two lists, please contact them about attending. Every swimmer from your era who attends will make the event more enjoyable for you! We also listed below those attending, those who have been sent invitations and names of former swimmers that we need addresses or an email to send an invitation, please help us make this a success for all attending. Please send these on to any of the swimmers you contact.
We look forward to seeing you in October and thank you for your help in making this a great Century Celebration.
Attending
Boyd, Julia
Dick
Carpenter, Chris
Carpenter, Julie
Dana, Marjorie
Gudman, Jeffrey
Hall, Travis
Imwalle, Cathy
Juckeland, Carol
Juckeland, Philip
Kingery, Frederick
Moss, Sharie
Munro, Stuart
Murphy, Maureen
Radler, Robert
Roberts, Rebecca
Evan
Tyrrell, Laura
Tyrrell, Sean
Watts, Michelle
Names Invited
Aaron Altman
Alex Pullen
Alex Rankin
Alex Tonkin
Alexander Baker
Alexander Brown
Alexander Brown
Alexander Nikitin
Alexander Platt
Alexander Rubenstein
Alexander Wilson
Alexandra Beeson
Alexandra Martin-banzer
Alexandra Nichols
Alexandra Rodinsky
Alexandre Wuilloud
Alexandria Powers
Alexis Doerfler
Alexis Perry
Alice Avery
Alice Moore
Alison Davis
Alison Reilly
Alix Sakai
Allison Baer
Allison Barbey
Allison Foote
Allison Stoloff
Allison Wehrley
Allison Wehrley
Allyson Estey
Alyson Quatier
Alyssa Bonine
Alyssa Froude
Amanda Deharpport
Amanda Zusman
Amelia Frey
Amy Fowler
Amy Jarvis
Amy Tennant
Amy Zahler
Andrea Moerer
Andrew Pence
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew Wright
Ann Brown
Ann Marie Smith
Anna Bishop
Anna Bolek
Anna Puetz
Annalise Norling
Annie Arcuri
April Robinson
Arianna Fardanesh
Ashley Fardanesh
Ashley Williams
Audrey Almy
Audrey Weiss
Austin Gregg
Ava Vossoughi
Ayeza Bajwa
Bailey Pearson
Barclay Thompson
Barkley Hedinger
Beatrix Thomas
Becky Roth
Benjamin Dominguez
Benjamin Karlin
Bill Jones
Blake Hedinger
Bonnie Allen
Bonnie Boyd Shannon
Bowman Leigh
Brad Bachulis
Bradford Phillips
Bradley Noonan
Brady Childs
Brendan Carey
Brenna Horan
Brenna Moran
Brenna O'Neill
Brenna Wagy
Brett Moshofsky
Brian Martin
Brian Butterfield
Brian Juckeland
Brian Ray
Brianna Hoffmann
Bridget Chapman
Brittany Kelley
Bryan Irwin
Bunkie Estey
Caitlin Junkin
Cali Livingstone
Cameron Cory
Cameron Dardis
Cara Boulton
Carissa Burke
Carley Otto
Carol Briggs
Carol Juckeland
Caroline Heath
Caroline Lilley
Caroline Marnoch
Caroline Miller
Caroline Wall
Carolyn Wood
Carson Brindle
Casey Colton
Casey Dineen
Cassie Heller
Catherine Nisbet
Celeste Parisi
Celia Tonkin
Charles Matschek
Charles Neville
Charlie Guinasso
Charn Bak
Chelsea Lauridsen
Chris Johnson
Chris Leupold
Chris Sinai
Christina Herrle
Christina Lackey
Christine Cook
Christopher Johnson
Christopher Reynolds
Christopher Wright
Claire Diener
Claire Gould
Claire Page
Claire Rompa
Claire Westlake
Clarice Decastro
Clarice Wong
Clarke Dillard
Cole Schoonmaker
Colin Douglas
Colton Graham
Conor Arcuri
Corbin Brindle
Courtney Hall
Curtis Merk
Cynthia Von Weller
Dana Deharpport
Dane Wirtz
Daniel Dineen
Daniel Karlin
Daniel Macnaughton
Danielle Larson
Danny Karlin
David Coughlin
David Radler
David Reynolds
David Stecher
Delia Tyrrell
Diana Callaway
Diana Savinar
Dick Boyd
Dieter Hoffmann
Dionna Anast
Dirk Zeller
Dona Bowlsby
Donald Lachman
Donald Palmer
Doug Anderson
Doug Brenner
Doug Hamilton
Douglas Brenner
Edgar McCall
Edward Mann
Elinor McMonies
Elisabeth Shellan
Elizabeth Brenner
Elizabeth Corvi
Elizabeth Dow
Elizabeth Ellis
Elizabeth Gunderson
Elizabeth Manske
Elizabeth McGuirk
Elizabeth Minniti
Elizabeth Waters
Elle Shelby
Eloise Grout
Emelia Hush
Emily Bierwirth
Emily Birer
Emily Casey
Emily Porter
Emily Wilson
Emma Ferguson
Eric Lovett
Eric Nehl
Eric Parker
Eric Redd
Eric Sokol
Erik Helzer
Erin Cope
Erin Dineen
Erin King
Erin Runkle
Erin Schenk
Erynn Beeson
Eve Lowenstein
Fiona Walker
Forest Alexander
Francoise Janik
Frank Parisi
Gabriella Nanson
Gabrielle Decastro
Galenya Brocks
Gary Geist
Gavin Hall
Geoffrey Nichols
George Johnson
George Kingsley
Gordan Euler
Gordon Usher
Grace Culhane
Grace Haessler
Grace Summers
Grant Gooding
Greg Hendryx
Gregory Hendryx
Gregory Nichols
Gretchen Brevig
Gretchen Page
Guerry Bethell
Haeyeun Bak
Hal Fay
Haley Koss
Hallie Todd
Heather Busse
Heather Ebert
Heather Jones
Heidi Covington
Henri Wuilloud
Hillary Brevig
Hillary Brevig
Hillary Frey
Hillary Titus
Hope Titus
Hunter Ruttum
Ian Elliott-Engles
Ingrid Larson
Iris Dowd
Isabel Weiss
Isabelle Wuilloud
Jack Bishop
Jackie Nguyen
Jackson Locke Harris
Jackson Roholt
Jacob Husk
Jacob Von Weller
Jacqualyn Noir
Jacqueline Neville
Jacqueline Weiss
Jake Schweinfurth
James Connolly
James Dilapo
James Hendryx
James Peterson
James Veber
Jamie Ware
Jane Neiman
Jane Powell
Jeanne Foden-Vencil
Jeff Crews
Jeff Grubb
Jeffrey Frank
Jeffrey Gudman
Jeffrey Lambie
Jennifer Deharpport
Jennifer Hendryx
Jerry Robinson
Jessica Walters
Jessica Waters
Jim Richardson
Jimmy Cranston
Jocelyn Noonan
Joe Landsverk
Joe Santry
John Bradley
John Carey
John Connolly
John Kennedy
John Kingery
John Wassam
Jon Waldum
Jonathon Gudman
Jordan Director
Jordan Johnson
Jordana Lewis
Joseph Bieze
Joseph Henderson
Joseph Hungate
Joseph Kendig
Joseph Nolf
Joshua Froude
Josiah Failing
Joy Sidman
JP and Sharie Moss
Judith L'Roy
Judy Belford
Julia Bates
Julia Page
Juliana Courogen
Julianne Willis
Julie Creary
Juliet Hillman
Justin Lindsey
Justine Mutchler
Kailan Mink
Kailee Johnson
Kaitlin Kavanaugh
Kara Lester
Karen Perry
Karen Stromme
Karim Varela
Karine Hoffman
Karsten Wong
Kate Kehoe
Kate O'Scannlain
Kate Westlake
Katelyn Hart
Katherine Brown
Katherine Bruce
Katherine Gerstmar
Katherine Gram
Katherine James
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Jurgenson
Katherine Kelly
Katherine Madden
Kathleen Barry
Kathleen Lance
Kathryn Adkisson
Kathryn Lilley
Kathryn Trumbo
Katie Allen
Katie Ferguson
Katie Havens
Katie Malueg
Katie Stevenson
Kayla Trumbo
Kelly Lovett
Kelly Montgomery
Kelly Strader
Kelly Walthers
Kelly Ware
Kelly-Ann Macdowell
Kelsey Giacchino
Kelsey Parr
Ken & Mary Jane Eagon
Kendall Sand
Kenji Kurosaki
Kent Fredrickson
Kevin Kavanaugh
Kimberly Howell
Kori Carpenter
Kristen Collins
Kristen Deharpport
Kristin Stecher
Kristine Jones
Kristy Walthers
Kyle Carpenter
Lacey Stoffer
Lanakila Macnaughton
Laura Meyer
Laura Tyrrell
Lauren Becker
Lauren Chauncey
Lauren Langley
Lauren Moir
Lauren Thies
Leah Krenek
Leal Whittlesey
Leland Leatherman
Leslie Vanbellinghen
Lian Horenblas
Lily Hergenhan
Linda Dakin-Grimm
Lindsay Haffner
Lindsey Campbell
Lindsey Zehner
Loeta McElwee
Lorraine Lesher-Boulton
Louis Kallgren
Lucas Marshall
Lucile Miller
Luke Cleve
Luke Kincaid
Lynn Gotcher
MacKenzie Fulton
Mackenzie Reid
Madeleine Patton
Madeline Angeli
Madeline Culhane
Madeline Ehl
Madeline McMonies
Madison Cameron
Maggie Cech
Mairead Willis
Mallory Wade
Marguerite Newton
Marianne Dolan
Marisa Westbrook
Mark Collier
Mark Arcuri
Mark Hunsaker
Mark Radler
Mary Claire Brenner
Mary Shelton
Maryann Concannon
Mason Zehr
Matt Rankin
Matthew Bernstein
Matthew Schmelzer
Matthew Winchester-Arlow
Maureen Murphy
Max Bley-Male
Max Sullivan
Maya Schell
Mclean Boggess
Megan Brevig
Megan Conchuratt
Megan Gooding
Megan Moran
Megan Wagy
Megan Williams
Meghan Mahalic
Melisa Kegans
Melissa Jones
Melissa Lilley
Merilee Avery
Michael Casey
Michael Frey
Michael McCartney
Michael Moshofsky
Michaela Phillips
Michelle Engelsman
Michelle Mark
Michelle Tonkin
Mika Chesnutt
Mike Phillips
Minh Nguyen
Molly Connolly
Molly Ellsworth
Nancy Locke
Nancy Merki
Natalia Perry
Natalie Reilly
Neil Bullier
Nicholas Ehlen
Nicholas Gudman
Nicholas Munch
Nicholas Obletz
Nicole Gooding
Nicole Ossey
Nikki Nelson
Nina Chamlou
Nina Handelman
Noah Takla
Noelle Buffam
Noelle Foden-Vencil
Nolan Gary
Olivia Durant
Olivia Nicholas
Olivia Schane
Owen Papworth
Patricia Walsh-Haroldson
Patrick Dolan
Patrick Johnson
Paul Bourgeois
Paul Mann
Paula Madden
Peter Koss
Peter Krenek
Peter Parisi
Peter Serrurier
Peter Tennant
Philip Barry
Philip Weiss
Phillip Brooks
Quinlan Bingham
Rachel Kelly
Rebecca Pearson
Reegan O'Keefe
Reid Olson
Reid Williams
Richard Fewel
Richard Kriesien
Robert Groves
Robert Katz
Robert Krage
Robert Nisbit
Robert Renecker
Robin Parisi
Rose Connolly
Ruby Reed
Ruthie Henderson
Ryan Carpenter
Ryan Chiotti
Ryan Corno
Ryan Elliott-Engles
Ryan Kavanaugh
Sally Lovett
Sally Roberts
Sam Director
Sam Obletz
Samantha Bondarowics
Samantha Overall
Samuel Conchuratt
Santina Sisson
Sara Kelley
Sarah Burczak
Sarah Koe
Sarah Larson
Sarah Porter
Sarah Scrivens
Savannah Savage
Scott Chauncey
Scott Chauncey
Scott Percival
Scott Stevenson
Sean Tyrrell
Shannon Fraser
Sharon Foley
Simon Trinchero
Siobhan Sullivan
Skip Runkle
Spencer Crum
Stephanie Haessler
Steve Jones
Steven Geringer
Stuart Douglas
Stuart Munro
Suzanne Zimmerman
Tammy Singh
Tara Cook
Tatiana Ruess
Taylor Bergmann
Taylor Leigh
Teresa Oja
Theodora Mautz
Thomas Dudrey
Thomas Leineweber
Thomas Malchow
Tim Haslach
Toby Sokol
Todd Huegli
Tomas Oliva
Tommy Bingham
Tommy Leineweber
Travis Hall
Trevor Connell
Troy Drawz
Tyler Walthers
Urlin Page
Valerie Oja
Van Mathias
Victor Perry
Victoria Kreft
Vini Colasurdo
Virginia Corbett
Wayne Richards
Wendy Wilce
William Reilly
William Scroggins
William Volckening
William Zolna
Winston Neville
Zev Handelman
Zoe Stasko
Need Addresses
Adam Moss
Alan Rector
Alanna Finn
Aletha? Morden
Alex Rodinsky
Alexander Rankin
Allen Deharport
Allen Mitts
Alta Bond
Alyson Hamilton
Amy Leigh
Amy Nicholaisen
Andrea Bloch
Andrea Jones
Andrew Flemming
Andrew Luft
Ann Coffey
Ann Hackworth
Ann Howard
Ann seidel
Ann Sigler
Anne Dorsey
Anne Jubitz
Annmarie Smith
Art Hanson
Ashley Macy
Babette Romancier
Barbara Angerman
Barbara Hackworth
Barbara Huffschmidt
Barbara Illge
Barbara Locke
Barbara Massengale
Barbara Sidman
Barbara Smith
Barclay Hedinger
Becky Schneider
Ben Karlin
Bernard Wolfard
Beth Gunderson
Bethell Dodson
Betsy Fay
Betsy Paulus
Betsy Shanklin
Betsy Stoinoff
Betty Henkle
Betty Johnson
Beverly Fisher
Bill Boscole
Bill Failing
Bill Gearhart
Bill Reilly
Bill Wall
Bill Weaver
Billy Sailing
Blondy Rievely
Bob Bruce
Bob Kasavage
Bob Mautz
Bob McAlpin
Bob Thornton
Bobby Miller
Brad Dodson
Brad Pease
Brad Pickens
Brandon Drawz
Brenda Goudge
Brenda Loukes
Brian Leibrecht
Brian Martin
Brian Richards
Brian Workman
Bruce Bowlsby
Bruce Campbell
Bruce Ross
Caitlin Laman
Cam Dardis
Camilo Bruce
Carla Faulkner
Carol Boyd
Carol Chapman
Carol Eggen
Carol Everett
Carol McKelligon
Carol O’Brien
Carol Pfluger
Carol Stout
Caroline Hatch
Carolyn Burchart
Carrie Patterson
Catherine Maletis
Cathy Jamison
Cathy Martell
Cemil Atay
Cev Handleman
Charles Bechtold
Charlie Schwartz
Cheryl Shuler
Chick Clair
Chris Dick
Chris Doyle
Chris Flemming
Chris Graham
Chris Hill
Chris Sigler
Christa Clarke
Christian Ritzenthaler
Christin Grant
Christine Patterson
Christopher Gregores
Christopher Nichols
Christy Eggen
Christy Wittliff
Chuck Neal
Chuck Wheeler
Cindy Bahler
Cindy Roush
Cindy Speikerman
Claus Sinai
Colin Knudsen
Colleen Dolan
Colleen Leahy
Connie Bohoskey
Connie Cook
Connie Wilson
Corinne Biamont
Courtney Jensen
Courtney Miller
Courtney Sundquist
Courtney Trull
Craig Ott
Craig Redfern
Cynthia Statter
D Robinson
Dale McDonald
Damon Becker
Dana Horstman
Dana Thomas
Darmen Becker
Dave Bahler
Dave Kriesien
Dave Meyers
Dave Wickwire
David Austin
David Drake
David Goodell
Debbie Ham
Debbie Hill
Debbie Hyatt
Debbie Moore
Debbie Roth
Delos Parks
Dian Dimitre
Diane Phillips
Dianne Kienow
Dick Kriesien
Dick Lowell
Dick Paine
Dick Rotto
Dick Rotto
Dick Slawson
Dolores Dinneen
Don Lachman
Don Smith
Don Sulloway
Donna Bowlsby
Donna Flynn
Donna Lawrence
Doris Meisen
Dorothy Lachmund
Dorothy Smithson
Doug McClung
Doug Thomas
Doug Towne
Drake Nelson
Drew King
Dusty Norris
Dwight Mackey
E Mathews
Ed Miller
Edwin Smith
Elizabeth Massengale
Elizabeth Robertson
Elizabeth Wicks
Ellen Hahn
Elsa Blaesing
Elsa Larson
Emily feldman
Eric Flemming
Erin Halton
Evelyn Everett
Farrah Bostic
Fay Rabe
Foster King
Frances Kelly
Frances Mundoff
Frances Mundorff
Fred Templeton
Frederica Schultze
Gabe Key
Gabe Lipshutz
Gail Miesen
Gail Pederson
Gail Verdurman
Gary DeFrang
Gary Gunn
Gene Ervast
Gene McKenzie
Gene Sigler
Gene Stocks
George Hansen
George Robinson
Georgiana Johnsrud
Greg Nichols
Gretchen Rittenour
Gunnar Haglund
Haley Cloyd
Hap Clark
Harold Clifford
Hayley Anderson
Hazel Campbell
Hazel Olmstead
Heidi Seiberts
Helen Wolfe
Herb Eisenschmidt
Howard Morgan
Howie Davis
Hugo Lombard
Inez Edwards
Irvalita Smith
J. Burke Knapp
J.D. Brown
Jack Holbrook
Jack Huber
Jack Huntley
Jack Johnson
Jack Palmer
Jack Pobochenko
Jack Weber
Jackie Arnold
Jacquelyn Morrow
James Campbell
James Wohlmacher
Jamie Steinfield
Jamie Veber
Jan Gleason
Jan Simonsen
Jane Kelly
Jane Ridgway
Jane Whitfield
Janet Baumhofer
Janet Fewel
Janet Johnson
Janeth Atterbury
Janice Phillips
Jason Green
Jason Hallman
Jay Cox
Jay Gladstein
Jay Judson Thompson
JD Brown
Jean Crosby
Jean Kent
Jean Mucha
Jeanette Hendricks
Jeannie Miller
Jeff Creary
Jeff Fairchild
Jeff Frank
jeff Gurbb
Jeff Newbrey
Jeffrey Mercer
Jeffrey Stiling
Jenni Sharff
Jennie Frank
Jennie Sharff
Jennifer Frank
Jennifer Freedman
Jennifer Steckmest
Jenny Shannon
Jerry Newman
Jerry Walsh
Jesse Gann
Jill Gleason
Jim Krippaehne
Jim Mason
Jim McKelligon
Jim Nicholson
Jim Peterson
Jim Sparks
Jim Stewart
Jim Thomas
Jim Travis
Jimmie Barnes
Jimmie New
Jimmy Moore
Jimmy Reid
Jo Nelson
Joanne Fredrickson
Joanne Herron
Joanne Lenchitsky
Joanne Roberts
Joe Holloway
Joey Kendig
Joey Landsverk
John Anderson
John Gearhart
John Harlow
John Kendall
John Krippaehne
John Lisoski
John May
John Ott
John Pease
John Sorich
Jon Gudman
Jon Sidman
Judie Hendrix
Judy Hauser
Judy Martin
Judy Muncey
Julian Smith
Julie Hesse
Julie Hoffman
Julie Moore
Julie Tank
Kaitlen Kelty
Kara Norris
Karen Barker
Karen Bressie
Karen Cook
Karen Fredrickson
Karen Larson
Karen Maletis
Karen Patterson
Karen Taylor
Kate Chester
Kate Fraser
Kathleen Normandin
Kathryn Cronin
Kathryn Smith
Kathy Patterson
Kathy Dick
Kathy Kerwin
Kathy McKellingon
Katie Bradley
Katie Doblie
Katie Hooker
Katie Merz
Katie O’Scannlain
Katie Schultze
Katie Thompson
Katy Boyd
Kay Granquist
Keld Bangsberg
Kelli Childs
Kelly Duffy
Kelly McInnis
Kelsey Nicholaisen
Ken Roush
Kennedy Patterson
Kenyon Eagon
Keri Schourup
Kevin Corno
Kevin Franklin
Kevin Gujral
Kevin Piro
Kim Abbott
Kim Feig
Kim Patterson
Kitty Campbell
KJ Merry
Kris Eggen
Kris Patterson
Kristi Shelton
Kristin Collins
Kristin Neupert
Kristin Swanson
Laddie Sherman
Larry Hancock
Larry Hill
Laura Baumhofer
Laura Meek
laurie meek
Lavelle Stoinoff
Lee Haglund
Lenore Lindholm
LeRoy Huntley
Leslie Gale
Leslie Rosenfeld
Linda Cook
Linda Eggen
Linda Fairchild
Linda Maletis
Linda Mitchel
Linda Reiff
Linda Warner
Lindsay Long
Lindsey Geist
Lisa Hergenham
Lois Martin
Lois Murfin
Lon Frey
Lorna Burke
Lorna Tramblay
Lovilla Taylor
Lucy Fairbank
Luella Lilly
M. Zaniker
Manisse Kollowratek
Marcella Jubitz
Marcia Stromme
Margaret Gilbaugh
Margaret Hayes
Margaret Howard
Maria Bloch
Marilyn Neupert
Mark Busssey
Mark Clark
Mark Collier
Mark Fretta
Mark Groening
Mark Juckeland
Mark Kundee
Mark Mercer
Mark Nadal
Mark Rankin
Marlis Claussen
Marni Bethel
Marry Massengale
Martin Pepper
Marvin Lewis
Mary Brown
Mary Harrow
Mary Jane Rieke
Mary Massengale
Mary Wong
Mary Zeller
Matt Covington
Matt Green
Maureen Wehrley
Max Feldman
Max Handelman
Maxine Seelbinder
Meg Maves
Megan Bailey
Megan Buller
Megan Foley
Megan O'Scannain
Megan O'Scannlain
Meghan Finn
Meghan Wright
Melizza Lucas
Michael Dick
Michael Hale
Michael Percival
Michele Donahue
Michele Morgan
Michelle Donahue
Michelle Ritzenthaler
Michelle Sang
Michelle Turner
Mike Allen
Mike Jones
Mike Long
Mike Riley
Mike Robberson
Mickey Kruger
Mitchell Freed
Molly Davis
Molly Day
Molly Duffy
Molly Long
Molly Luft
Molly Macnamara
Muriel Brown
Muriel Peterson
Nadine Caviness
Nancy Coffen
Nancy Davidson
Nancy Johnsrud
Nancy Olsen
Nancy Santry
Nancy Wassam
Nicole Langley
Nikki Hokkanen
Nina Mehlhaf
Noel Gabie
Olive Lewis
Otto Leuschal
Paige Wright
Pam Albright
Pat Duden
Pat Huffschmidt
Pat Johnson
Pat Keane
Pat Smith
Pat Walsh
Patti Miller
Patty Swindells
Paua Aleskus
Paul Gollender
Paul Nasburg
Paula Aleskus
Peg Haslach
Peggy Heitkemper
Perry Fisher
Pete Papulski
Peter Adam
Peter Sepernuk
Peter Van Dijk
Philip Krohn
Philip Wild
Phill Hansel
Phillip Barry
Piper Iles
Prudy Sawyer
Puff Leep
Ralph Rittenour
Reba Jo Nelson
Rebecca Schneider
Reuben Berlin
Ric Foreman
Richard Walsh
Ricky Froeman
Rion Groves
Robert Groth
Rosanna Young
Roselyn Adkisson
Ryan Parker
Sally Simonsen
Sally Winter
Sally Woodworth
Sam Lockwood
Sandi Thomas
Sandra Bahler
Sandra cook
Sandra Ford
Sandy Baker
Sara Cronin
Sara Quan
Sarah Leigh
Scott Hesse
Scott Jones
Shanna Ebert
Sharon Hatch
Sharon Rose
Sharr Bergner
Sherman Gue
Sherri Jenkinson
Sheryl Baldridge
Signe Larson
Slate Wilson
Sophia Mautz
Spencer Thanhouser
Stella Voreas
Steve Arndt
Steve Davey
Steve Frederick
Steve hare
Steve Hill
Steve Roth
Steve Zak
Steven Hare
Sue Agosti
Sue Brown
Sue Gottsch
Sue Hendrix
Sue O’Brien
Sue Parks
Sue Pierce
Susan Habernigg
Susan Parks
Susan Younce
Susie Sidman
Sydeny Stephenson
Sylvia Kester
Tamera Beatty
Tammy Shannon
Ted Kennedy
Ted Leovich
TED SIMPSON
Ted Wheeler
Terry Kelly
Terry Rittenour
Terry Thomas
Tessa Schulte
Theresa Rittenour
Tiana Dressel
Todd Kennedy
Tom Bagby
Tom Coffey
Tom Davis
Tom Duff
Tom Meek
Tom Price
Tom Shannon
Tom Zhaniser
Tony Frey
Topher Nichols
Tory Hawkins
William Covington
William Callaway
Tye Steinbach
Val Jones
Virginia Heath
Virginia Pietz
Vivian Eiseman
Vivian Hearn
We have sent out 1,000 invitations about 10% came back because of incorrect addresses or no forwarding addresses or people have dropped their MAC membership. These were just the former swimmers on the database @ MAC. We need help contacting the other 800 plus swimmers. If you have not received your invitation please contact: Lorilyn Wilson at the MAC. Her phone number is 503-517-7512. Her e-mail address is LWilson@themac.com. Members can register online at the MAC website. All other interested parties should call Lorilyn.
A list of swimmers to whom we sent invitations, a list of swimmers for whom we could not get an address or their invitation was returned and a list of simmers who are attending the event. If you know someone on the first two lists, please contact them about attending. Every swimmer from your era who attends will make the event more enjoyable for you! We also listed below those attending, those who have been sent invitations and names of former swimmers that we need addresses or an email to send an invitation, please help us make this a success for all attending. Please send these on to any of the swimmers you contact.
We look forward to seeing you in October and thank you for your help in making this a great Century Celebration.
Attending
Boyd, Julia
Dick
Carpenter, Chris
Carpenter, Julie
Dana, Marjorie
Gudman, Jeffrey
Hall, Travis
Imwalle, Cathy
Juckeland, Carol
Juckeland, Philip
Kingery, Frederick
Moss, Sharie
Munro, Stuart
Murphy, Maureen
Radler, Robert
Roberts, Rebecca
Evan
Tyrrell, Laura
Tyrrell, Sean
Watts, Michelle
Names Invited
Aaron Altman
Alex Pullen
Alex Rankin
Alex Tonkin
Alexander Baker
Alexander Brown
Alexander Brown
Alexander Nikitin
Alexander Platt
Alexander Rubenstein
Alexander Wilson
Alexandra Beeson
Alexandra Martin-banzer
Alexandra Nichols
Alexandra Rodinsky
Alexandre Wuilloud
Alexandria Powers
Alexis Doerfler
Alexis Perry
Alice Avery
Alice Moore
Alison Davis
Alison Reilly
Alix Sakai
Allison Baer
Allison Barbey
Allison Foote
Allison Stoloff
Allison Wehrley
Allison Wehrley
Allyson Estey
Alyson Quatier
Alyssa Bonine
Alyssa Froude
Amanda Deharpport
Amanda Zusman
Amelia Frey
Amy Fowler
Amy Jarvis
Amy Tennant
Amy Zahler
Andrea Moerer
Andrew Pence
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew Wright
Ann Brown
Ann Marie Smith
Anna Bishop
Anna Bolek
Anna Puetz
Annalise Norling
Annie Arcuri
April Robinson
Arianna Fardanesh
Ashley Fardanesh
Ashley Williams
Audrey Almy
Audrey Weiss
Austin Gregg
Ava Vossoughi
Ayeza Bajwa
Bailey Pearson
Barclay Thompson
Barkley Hedinger
Beatrix Thomas
Becky Roth
Benjamin Dominguez
Benjamin Karlin
Bill Jones
Blake Hedinger
Bonnie Allen
Bonnie Boyd Shannon
Bowman Leigh
Brad Bachulis
Bradford Phillips
Bradley Noonan
Brady Childs
Brendan Carey
Brenna Horan
Brenna Moran
Brenna O'Neill
Brenna Wagy
Brett Moshofsky
Brian Martin
Brian Butterfield
Brian Juckeland
Brian Ray
Brianna Hoffmann
Bridget Chapman
Brittany Kelley
Bryan Irwin
Bunkie Estey
Caitlin Junkin
Cali Livingstone
Cameron Cory
Cameron Dardis
Cara Boulton
Carissa Burke
Carley Otto
Carol Briggs
Carol Juckeland
Caroline Heath
Caroline Lilley
Caroline Marnoch
Caroline Miller
Caroline Wall
Carolyn Wood
Carson Brindle
Casey Colton
Casey Dineen
Cassie Heller
Catherine Nisbet
Celeste Parisi
Celia Tonkin
Charles Matschek
Charles Neville
Charlie Guinasso
Charn Bak
Chelsea Lauridsen
Chris Johnson
Chris Leupold
Chris Sinai
Christina Herrle
Christina Lackey
Christine Cook
Christopher Johnson
Christopher Reynolds
Christopher Wright
Claire Diener
Claire Gould
Claire Page
Claire Rompa
Claire Westlake
Clarice Decastro
Clarice Wong
Clarke Dillard
Cole Schoonmaker
Colin Douglas
Colton Graham
Conor Arcuri
Corbin Brindle
Courtney Hall
Curtis Merk
Cynthia Von Weller
Dana Deharpport
Dane Wirtz
Daniel Dineen
Daniel Karlin
Daniel Macnaughton
Danielle Larson
Danny Karlin
David Coughlin
David Radler
David Reynolds
David Stecher
Delia Tyrrell
Diana Callaway
Diana Savinar
Dick Boyd
Dieter Hoffmann
Dionna Anast
Dirk Zeller
Dona Bowlsby
Donald Lachman
Donald Palmer
Doug Anderson
Doug Brenner
Doug Hamilton
Douglas Brenner
Edgar McCall
Edward Mann
Elinor McMonies
Elisabeth Shellan
Elizabeth Brenner
Elizabeth Corvi
Elizabeth Dow
Elizabeth Ellis
Elizabeth Gunderson
Elizabeth Manske
Elizabeth McGuirk
Elizabeth Minniti
Elizabeth Waters
Elle Shelby
Eloise Grout
Emelia Hush
Emily Bierwirth
Emily Birer
Emily Casey
Emily Porter
Emily Wilson
Emma Ferguson
Eric Lovett
Eric Nehl
Eric Parker
Eric Redd
Eric Sokol
Erik Helzer
Erin Cope
Erin Dineen
Erin King
Erin Runkle
Erin Schenk
Erynn Beeson
Eve Lowenstein
Fiona Walker
Forest Alexander
Francoise Janik
Frank Parisi
Gabriella Nanson
Gabrielle Decastro
Galenya Brocks
Gary Geist
Gavin Hall
Geoffrey Nichols
George Johnson
George Kingsley
Gordan Euler
Gordon Usher
Grace Culhane
Grace Haessler
Grace Summers
Grant Gooding
Greg Hendryx
Gregory Hendryx
Gregory Nichols
Gretchen Brevig
Gretchen Page
Guerry Bethell
Haeyeun Bak
Hal Fay
Haley Koss
Hallie Todd
Heather Busse
Heather Ebert
Heather Jones
Heidi Covington
Henri Wuilloud
Hillary Brevig
Hillary Brevig
Hillary Frey
Hillary Titus
Hope Titus
Hunter Ruttum
Ian Elliott-Engles
Ingrid Larson
Iris Dowd
Isabel Weiss
Isabelle Wuilloud
Jack Bishop
Jackie Nguyen
Jackson Locke Harris
Jackson Roholt
Jacob Husk
Jacob Von Weller
Jacqualyn Noir
Jacqueline Neville
Jacqueline Weiss
Jake Schweinfurth
James Connolly
James Dilapo
James Hendryx
James Peterson
James Veber
Jamie Ware
Jane Neiman
Jane Powell
Jeanne Foden-Vencil
Jeff Crews
Jeff Grubb
Jeffrey Frank
Jeffrey Gudman
Jeffrey Lambie
Jennifer Deharpport
Jennifer Hendryx
Jerry Robinson
Jessica Walters
Jessica Waters
Jim Richardson
Jimmy Cranston
Jocelyn Noonan
Joe Landsverk
Joe Santry
John Bradley
John Carey
John Connolly
John Kennedy
John Kingery
John Wassam
Jon Waldum
Jonathon Gudman
Jordan Director
Jordan Johnson
Jordana Lewis
Joseph Bieze
Joseph Henderson
Joseph Hungate
Joseph Kendig
Joseph Nolf
Joshua Froude
Josiah Failing
Joy Sidman
JP and Sharie Moss
Judith L'Roy
Judy Belford
Julia Bates
Julia Page
Juliana Courogen
Julianne Willis
Julie Creary
Juliet Hillman
Justin Lindsey
Justine Mutchler
Kailan Mink
Kailee Johnson
Kaitlin Kavanaugh
Kara Lester
Karen Perry
Karen Stromme
Karim Varela
Karine Hoffman
Karsten Wong
Kate Kehoe
Kate O'Scannlain
Kate Westlake
Katelyn Hart
Katherine Brown
Katherine Bruce
Katherine Gerstmar
Katherine Gram
Katherine James
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Jurgenson
Katherine Kelly
Katherine Madden
Kathleen Barry
Kathleen Lance
Kathryn Adkisson
Kathryn Lilley
Kathryn Trumbo
Katie Allen
Katie Ferguson
Katie Havens
Katie Malueg
Katie Stevenson
Kayla Trumbo
Kelly Lovett
Kelly Montgomery
Kelly Strader
Kelly Walthers
Kelly Ware
Kelly-Ann Macdowell
Kelsey Giacchino
Kelsey Parr
Ken & Mary Jane Eagon
Kendall Sand
Kenji Kurosaki
Kent Fredrickson
Kevin Kavanaugh
Kimberly Howell
Kori Carpenter
Kristen Collins
Kristen Deharpport
Kristin Stecher
Kristine Jones
Kristy Walthers
Kyle Carpenter
Lacey Stoffer
Lanakila Macnaughton
Laura Meyer
Laura Tyrrell
Lauren Becker
Lauren Chauncey
Lauren Langley
Lauren Moir
Lauren Thies
Leah Krenek
Leal Whittlesey
Leland Leatherman
Leslie Vanbellinghen
Lian Horenblas
Lily Hergenhan
Linda Dakin-Grimm
Lindsay Haffner
Lindsey Campbell
Lindsey Zehner
Loeta McElwee
Lorraine Lesher-Boulton
Louis Kallgren
Lucas Marshall
Lucile Miller
Luke Cleve
Luke Kincaid
Lynn Gotcher
MacKenzie Fulton
Mackenzie Reid
Madeleine Patton
Madeline Angeli
Madeline Culhane
Madeline Ehl
Madeline McMonies
Madison Cameron
Maggie Cech
Mairead Willis
Mallory Wade
Marguerite Newton
Marianne Dolan
Marisa Westbrook
Mark Collier
Mark Arcuri
Mark Hunsaker
Mark Radler
Mary Claire Brenner
Mary Shelton
Maryann Concannon
Mason Zehr
Matt Rankin
Matthew Bernstein
Matthew Schmelzer
Matthew Winchester-Arlow
Maureen Murphy
Max Bley-Male
Max Sullivan
Maya Schell
Mclean Boggess
Megan Brevig
Megan Conchuratt
Megan Gooding
Megan Moran
Megan Wagy
Megan Williams
Meghan Mahalic
Melisa Kegans
Melissa Jones
Melissa Lilley
Merilee Avery
Michael Casey
Michael Frey
Michael McCartney
Michael Moshofsky
Michaela Phillips
Michelle Engelsman
Michelle Mark
Michelle Tonkin
Mika Chesnutt
Mike Phillips
Minh Nguyen
Molly Connolly
Molly Ellsworth
Nancy Locke
Nancy Merki
Natalia Perry
Natalie Reilly
Neil Bullier
Nicholas Ehlen
Nicholas Gudman
Nicholas Munch
Nicholas Obletz
Nicole Gooding
Nicole Ossey
Nikki Nelson
Nina Chamlou
Nina Handelman
Noah Takla
Noelle Buffam
Noelle Foden-Vencil
Nolan Gary
Olivia Durant
Olivia Nicholas
Olivia Schane
Owen Papworth
Patricia Walsh-Haroldson
Patrick Dolan
Patrick Johnson
Paul Bourgeois
Paul Mann
Paula Madden
Peter Koss
Peter Krenek
Peter Parisi
Peter Serrurier
Peter Tennant
Philip Barry
Philip Weiss
Phillip Brooks
Quinlan Bingham
Rachel Kelly
Rebecca Pearson
Reegan O'Keefe
Reid Olson
Reid Williams
Richard Fewel
Richard Kriesien
Robert Groves
Robert Katz
Robert Krage
Robert Nisbit
Robert Renecker
Robin Parisi
Rose Connolly
Ruby Reed
Ruthie Henderson
Ryan Carpenter
Ryan Chiotti
Ryan Corno
Ryan Elliott-Engles
Ryan Kavanaugh
Sally Lovett
Sally Roberts
Sam Director
Sam Obletz
Samantha Bondarowics
Samantha Overall
Samuel Conchuratt
Santina Sisson
Sara Kelley
Sarah Burczak
Sarah Koe
Sarah Larson
Sarah Porter
Sarah Scrivens
Savannah Savage
Scott Chauncey
Scott Chauncey
Scott Percival
Scott Stevenson
Sean Tyrrell
Shannon Fraser
Sharon Foley
Simon Trinchero
Siobhan Sullivan
Skip Runkle
Spencer Crum
Stephanie Haessler
Steve Jones
Steven Geringer
Stuart Douglas
Stuart Munro
Suzanne Zimmerman
Tammy Singh
Tara Cook
Tatiana Ruess
Taylor Bergmann
Taylor Leigh
Teresa Oja
Theodora Mautz
Thomas Dudrey
Thomas Leineweber
Thomas Malchow
Tim Haslach
Toby Sokol
Todd Huegli
Tomas Oliva
Tommy Bingham
Tommy Leineweber
Travis Hall
Trevor Connell
Troy Drawz
Tyler Walthers
Urlin Page
Valerie Oja
Van Mathias
Victor Perry
Victoria Kreft
Vini Colasurdo
Virginia Corbett
Wayne Richards
Wendy Wilce
William Reilly
William Scroggins
William Volckening
William Zolna
Winston Neville
Zev Handelman
Zoe Stasko
Need Addresses
Adam Moss
Alan Rector
Alanna Finn
Aletha? Morden
Alex Rodinsky
Alexander Rankin
Allen Deharport
Allen Mitts
Alta Bond
Alyson Hamilton
Amy Leigh
Amy Nicholaisen
Andrea Bloch
Andrea Jones
Andrew Flemming
Andrew Luft
Ann Coffey
Ann Hackworth
Ann Howard
Ann seidel
Ann Sigler
Anne Dorsey
Anne Jubitz
Annmarie Smith
Art Hanson
Ashley Macy
Babette Romancier
Barbara Angerman
Barbara Hackworth
Barbara Huffschmidt
Barbara Illge
Barbara Locke
Barbara Massengale
Barbara Sidman
Barbara Smith
Barclay Hedinger
Becky Schneider
Ben Karlin
Bernard Wolfard
Beth Gunderson
Bethell Dodson
Betsy Fay
Betsy Paulus
Betsy Shanklin
Betsy Stoinoff
Betty Henkle
Betty Johnson
Beverly Fisher
Bill Boscole
Bill Failing
Bill Gearhart
Bill Reilly
Bill Wall
Bill Weaver
Billy Sailing
Blondy Rievely
Bob Bruce
Bob Kasavage
Bob Mautz
Bob McAlpin
Bob Thornton
Bobby Miller
Brad Dodson
Brad Pease
Brad Pickens
Brandon Drawz
Brenda Goudge
Brenda Loukes
Brian Leibrecht
Brian Martin
Brian Richards
Brian Workman
Bruce Bowlsby
Bruce Campbell
Bruce Ross
Caitlin Laman
Cam Dardis
Camilo Bruce
Carla Faulkner
Carol Boyd
Carol Chapman
Carol Eggen
Carol Everett
Carol McKelligon
Carol O’Brien
Carol Pfluger
Carol Stout
Caroline Hatch
Carolyn Burchart
Carrie Patterson
Catherine Maletis
Cathy Jamison
Cathy Martell
Cemil Atay
Cev Handleman
Charles Bechtold
Charlie Schwartz
Cheryl Shuler
Chick Clair
Chris Dick
Chris Doyle
Chris Flemming
Chris Graham
Chris Hill
Chris Sigler
Christa Clarke
Christian Ritzenthaler
Christin Grant
Christine Patterson
Christopher Gregores
Christopher Nichols
Christy Eggen
Christy Wittliff
Chuck Neal
Chuck Wheeler
Cindy Bahler
Cindy Roush
Cindy Speikerman
Claus Sinai
Colin Knudsen
Colleen Dolan
Colleen Leahy
Connie Bohoskey
Connie Cook
Connie Wilson
Corinne Biamont
Courtney Jensen
Courtney Miller
Courtney Sundquist
Courtney Trull
Craig Ott
Craig Redfern
Cynthia Statter
D Robinson
Dale McDonald
Damon Becker
Dana Horstman
Dana Thomas
Darmen Becker
Dave Bahler
Dave Kriesien
Dave Meyers
Dave Wickwire
David Austin
David Drake
David Goodell
Debbie Ham
Debbie Hill
Debbie Hyatt
Debbie Moore
Debbie Roth
Delos Parks
Dian Dimitre
Diane Phillips
Dianne Kienow
Dick Kriesien
Dick Lowell
Dick Paine
Dick Rotto
Dick Rotto
Dick Slawson
Dolores Dinneen
Don Lachman
Don Smith
Don Sulloway
Donna Bowlsby
Donna Flynn
Donna Lawrence
Doris Meisen
Dorothy Lachmund
Dorothy Smithson
Doug McClung
Doug Thomas
Doug Towne
Drake Nelson
Drew King
Dusty Norris
Dwight Mackey
E Mathews
Ed Miller
Edwin Smith
Elizabeth Massengale
Elizabeth Robertson
Elizabeth Wicks
Ellen Hahn
Elsa Blaesing
Elsa Larson
Emily feldman
Eric Flemming
Erin Halton
Evelyn Everett
Farrah Bostic
Fay Rabe
Foster King
Frances Kelly
Frances Mundoff
Frances Mundorff
Fred Templeton
Frederica Schultze
Gabe Key
Gabe Lipshutz
Gail Miesen
Gail Pederson
Gail Verdurman
Gary DeFrang
Gary Gunn
Gene Ervast
Gene McKenzie
Gene Sigler
Gene Stocks
George Hansen
George Robinson
Georgiana Johnsrud
Greg Nichols
Gretchen Rittenour
Gunnar Haglund
Haley Cloyd
Hap Clark
Harold Clifford
Hayley Anderson
Hazel Campbell
Hazel Olmstead
Heidi Seiberts
Helen Wolfe
Herb Eisenschmidt
Howard Morgan
Howie Davis
Hugo Lombard
Inez Edwards
Irvalita Smith
J. Burke Knapp
J.D. Brown
Jack Holbrook
Jack Huber
Jack Huntley
Jack Johnson
Jack Palmer
Jack Pobochenko
Jack Weber
Jackie Arnold
Jacquelyn Morrow
James Campbell
James Wohlmacher
Jamie Steinfield
Jamie Veber
Jan Gleason
Jan Simonsen
Jane Kelly
Jane Ridgway
Jane Whitfield
Janet Baumhofer
Janet Fewel
Janet Johnson
Janeth Atterbury
Janice Phillips
Jason Green
Jason Hallman
Jay Cox
Jay Gladstein
Jay Judson Thompson
JD Brown
Jean Crosby
Jean Kent
Jean Mucha
Jeanette Hendricks
Jeannie Miller
Jeff Creary
Jeff Fairchild
Jeff Frank
jeff Gurbb
Jeff Newbrey
Jeffrey Mercer
Jeffrey Stiling
Jenni Sharff
Jennie Frank
Jennie Sharff
Jennifer Frank
Jennifer Freedman
Jennifer Steckmest
Jenny Shannon
Jerry Newman
Jerry Walsh
Jesse Gann
Jill Gleason
Jim Krippaehne
Jim Mason
Jim McKelligon
Jim Nicholson
Jim Peterson
Jim Sparks
Jim Stewart
Jim Thomas
Jim Travis
Jimmie Barnes
Jimmie New
Jimmy Moore
Jimmy Reid
Jo Nelson
Joanne Fredrickson
Joanne Herron
Joanne Lenchitsky
Joanne Roberts
Joe Holloway
Joey Kendig
Joey Landsverk
John Anderson
John Gearhart
John Harlow
John Kendall
John Krippaehne
John Lisoski
John May
John Ott
John Pease
John Sorich
Jon Gudman
Jon Sidman
Judie Hendrix
Judy Hauser
Judy Martin
Judy Muncey
Julian Smith
Julie Hesse
Julie Hoffman
Julie Moore
Julie Tank
Kaitlen Kelty
Kara Norris
Karen Barker
Karen Bressie
Karen Cook
Karen Fredrickson
Karen Larson
Karen Maletis
Karen Patterson
Karen Taylor
Kate Chester
Kate Fraser
Kathleen Normandin
Kathryn Cronin
Kathryn Smith
Kathy Patterson
Kathy Dick
Kathy Kerwin
Kathy McKellingon
Katie Bradley
Katie Doblie
Katie Hooker
Katie Merz
Katie O’Scannlain
Katie Schultze
Katie Thompson
Katy Boyd
Kay Granquist
Keld Bangsberg
Kelli Childs
Kelly Duffy
Kelly McInnis
Kelsey Nicholaisen
Ken Roush
Kennedy Patterson
Kenyon Eagon
Keri Schourup
Kevin Corno
Kevin Franklin
Kevin Gujral
Kevin Piro
Kim Abbott
Kim Feig
Kim Patterson
Kitty Campbell
KJ Merry
Kris Eggen
Kris Patterson
Kristi Shelton
Kristin Collins
Kristin Neupert
Kristin Swanson
Laddie Sherman
Larry Hancock
Larry Hill
Laura Baumhofer
Laura Meek
laurie meek
Lavelle Stoinoff
Lee Haglund
Lenore Lindholm
LeRoy Huntley
Leslie Gale
Leslie Rosenfeld
Linda Cook
Linda Eggen
Linda Fairchild
Linda Maletis
Linda Mitchel
Linda Reiff
Linda Warner
Lindsay Long
Lindsey Geist
Lisa Hergenham
Lois Martin
Lois Murfin
Lon Frey
Lorna Burke
Lorna Tramblay
Lovilla Taylor
Lucy Fairbank
Luella Lilly
M. Zaniker
Manisse Kollowratek
Marcella Jubitz
Marcia Stromme
Margaret Gilbaugh
Margaret Hayes
Margaret Howard
Maria Bloch
Marilyn Neupert
Mark Busssey
Mark Clark
Mark Collier
Mark Fretta
Mark Groening
Mark Juckeland
Mark Kundee
Mark Mercer
Mark Nadal
Mark Rankin
Marlis Claussen
Marni Bethel
Marry Massengale
Martin Pepper
Marvin Lewis
Mary Brown
Mary Harrow
Mary Jane Rieke
Mary Massengale
Mary Wong
Mary Zeller
Matt Covington
Matt Green
Maureen Wehrley
Max Feldman
Max Handelman
Maxine Seelbinder
Meg Maves
Megan Bailey
Megan Buller
Megan Foley
Megan O'Scannain
Megan O'Scannlain
Meghan Finn
Meghan Wright
Melizza Lucas
Michael Dick
Michael Hale
Michael Percival
Michele Donahue
Michele Morgan
Michelle Donahue
Michelle Ritzenthaler
Michelle Sang
Michelle Turner
Mike Allen
Mike Jones
Mike Long
Mike Riley
Mike Robberson
Mickey Kruger
Mitchell Freed
Molly Davis
Molly Day
Molly Duffy
Molly Long
Molly Luft
Molly Macnamara
Muriel Brown
Muriel Peterson
Nadine Caviness
Nancy Coffen
Nancy Davidson
Nancy Johnsrud
Nancy Olsen
Nancy Santry
Nancy Wassam
Nicole Langley
Nikki Hokkanen
Nina Mehlhaf
Noel Gabie
Olive Lewis
Otto Leuschal
Paige Wright
Pam Albright
Pat Duden
Pat Huffschmidt
Pat Johnson
Pat Keane
Pat Smith
Pat Walsh
Patti Miller
Patty Swindells
Paua Aleskus
Paul Gollender
Paul Nasburg
Paula Aleskus
Peg Haslach
Peggy Heitkemper
Perry Fisher
Pete Papulski
Peter Adam
Peter Sepernuk
Peter Van Dijk
Philip Krohn
Philip Wild
Phill Hansel
Phillip Barry
Piper Iles
Prudy Sawyer
Puff Leep
Ralph Rittenour
Reba Jo Nelson
Rebecca Schneider
Reuben Berlin
Ric Foreman
Richard Walsh
Ricky Froeman
Rion Groves
Robert Groth
Rosanna Young
Roselyn Adkisson
Ryan Parker
Sally Simonsen
Sally Winter
Sally Woodworth
Sam Lockwood
Sandi Thomas
Sandra Bahler
Sandra cook
Sandra Ford
Sandy Baker
Sara Cronin
Sara Quan
Sarah Leigh
Scott Hesse
Scott Jones
Shanna Ebert
Sharon Hatch
Sharon Rose
Sharr Bergner
Sherman Gue
Sherri Jenkinson
Sheryl Baldridge
Signe Larson
Slate Wilson
Sophia Mautz
Spencer Thanhouser
Stella Voreas
Steve Arndt
Steve Davey
Steve Frederick
Steve hare
Steve Hill
Steve Roth
Steve Zak
Steven Hare
Sue Agosti
Sue Brown
Sue Gottsch
Sue Hendrix
Sue O’Brien
Sue Parks
Sue Pierce
Susan Habernigg
Susan Parks
Susan Younce
Susie Sidman
Sydeny Stephenson
Sylvia Kester
Tamera Beatty
Tammy Shannon
Ted Kennedy
Ted Leovich
TED SIMPSON
Ted Wheeler
Terry Kelly
Terry Rittenour
Terry Thomas
Tessa Schulte
Theresa Rittenour
Tiana Dressel
Todd Kennedy
Tom Bagby
Tom Coffey
Tom Davis
Tom Duff
Tom Meek
Tom Price
Tom Shannon
Tom Zhaniser
Tony Frey
Topher Nichols
Tory Hawkins
William Covington
William Callaway
Tye Steinbach
Val Jones
Virginia Heath
Virginia Pietz
Vivian Eiseman
Vivian Hearn
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
MAC CELEBRATES A CENTURY OF SWIMMING
The Century of Swimming Committee wants to make sure that every swimmer, official, parent and anyone connected with the 100 years of Multnomah Athletic Club swimming is invited to attend the October 17th Banquet Dinner.
As of now the celebration agenda is as follows:
Friday October 16:
6 pm Welcome 6 pm @ Founders-No host cocktails with complimentary hors d’oeuvres.
7:30-9 pm- No host dinner ‘special’ menu prepared for event guests.
Saturday October 17:
9-10 am and 10-11 am Tour of MAC Club
11 am MAC swim team inner squad meet: 50meter pool
6-9 pm Century of Swimming Banquet Dinner- Main Ballroom
Cost of the event is $75.00 per person.
For those needing hotel accommodations we have rooms reserved at Hotel De Luxe. Visit online: www.hoteldeluxeportland.com and also Silver Cloud www.silvercloud.com.
Itinerary may change slightly but check our website for further updates.
http://centuryofmacswimming.blogspot.com/
For further information about this event, please contact: lwilson@themac.com
We have a good response about the ‘Century of Swimming’. However, we still need more names and e-mail addresses or mailing addresses. Please contact us!
Former swimmers that we have heard form include: Karen (Fredrickson) Emerson, Sharr Stark, Althes (Morden) Sabia, Melissa (Brennan) Springer, Mark Bernett, Mike Miller, Matt Rankin, Joe Santry, Al Irwin, John Dakin, Judy Belford, Marni (Bethell) Williams, Ron Van deHey, Lynn (Hargreaves) Gotcher and Sally Lovett .
We need more information and people from the MAC's 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Please help us get the information out. Renew your acquaintances, see friends from years ago and help us make the ‘Century of Swimming’ an evening of fun. We have begun the second century of MAC Swimming- proud and confident with a strong tradition of swimming excellence.
As of now the celebration agenda is as follows:
Friday October 16:
6 pm Welcome 6 pm @ Founders-No host cocktails with complimentary hors d’oeuvres.
7:30-9 pm- No host dinner ‘special’ menu prepared for event guests.
Saturday October 17:
9-10 am and 10-11 am Tour of MAC Club
11 am MAC swim team inner squad meet: 50meter pool
6-9 pm Century of Swimming Banquet Dinner- Main Ballroom
Cost of the event is $75.00 per person.
For those needing hotel accommodations we have rooms reserved at Hotel De Luxe. Visit online: www.hoteldeluxeportland.com and also Silver Cloud www.silvercloud.com.
Itinerary may change slightly but check our website for further updates.
http://centuryofmacswimming.blogspot.com/
For further information about this event, please contact: lwilson@themac.com
We have a good response about the ‘Century of Swimming’. However, we still need more names and e-mail addresses or mailing addresses. Please contact us!
Former swimmers that we have heard form include: Karen (Fredrickson) Emerson, Sharr Stark, Althes (Morden) Sabia, Melissa (Brennan) Springer, Mark Bernett, Mike Miller, Matt Rankin, Joe Santry, Al Irwin, John Dakin, Judy Belford, Marni (Bethell) Williams, Ron Van deHey, Lynn (Hargreaves) Gotcher and Sally Lovett .
We need more information and people from the MAC's 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Please help us get the information out. Renew your acquaintances, see friends from years ago and help us make the ‘Century of Swimming’ an evening of fun. We have begun the second century of MAC Swimming- proud and confident with a strong tradition of swimming excellence.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Featuring MAC National Champions: Lauren Thies
During the yearlong recognition of the Century of Swimming at MAC at its competitive swimming, we feature swimmers and coaches who had a big impact on the swimming program at the Multnomah Athletic Club.
Today we will focus our feature article on swimmer Lauren Thies. Lauren was the last swimmer to win National titles in the spring of 2007 where she won both the 100 and 200freestyle. In 2006 Lauren placed at Nationals, which made a spot for on the National Team representing USA in the Pan American games in Brazil in august of 2007.
Lauren, how did you start your swimming career?
With swimming lessons at MAC when she was 5 years old, which she didn’t really take a liking to. Because she was always around the water whether a lake, river or ocean her parents insisted. At the age of 7 or 8 she was asked to join the swim team because of her steady progress through the lesson program. Her first coach was Becky Macklem.
Lauren, did you have any interest in any other sport/activities?
Skiing, ballet and gymnastics but her height got in the way and her coordination was lacking in sports with hand-eye coordination and body awareness.
Once on the team, who were your coaches?
Becky Macklem started her out in a pre-competitive program. Debbie Barnes was her next coach in the age group program. At 12, Lauren swam with the Senior Team with Skip Runkle. Lauren did remember that Debbie was the first coach to recognize her potential in swimming and what she might do in the future. In her first swim meet at the Sandy Pool she broke the pool record in the 25 yd. Butterfly. Skip was impressed with her body type, long and lean-for any swimmer- ideal. As she got older she grew into her body and the earlier characteristics of coordination faded away in the water.
How many National titles?
Lauren kind of hesitated but did admit 5 –3 in the 200m free and 2 in the 100m free.
Tell me a little bit about your college swimming…
Lauren swam for Stanford 3 years red shirting her sophomore year due to a back injury, in her 5th year she swam at Texas and returned to Stanford to graduate. Along the way she helped Stanford win the NCAA’s Women’s team title in 1998. She did mention that her best placing was swimming at Texas with a 5th place finish in the 200 yd free.
Fondest memories of swimming?
Great teammates, then she went on to mention Brady Childs, Chris and Scott Sinai, Lindsey Haffner. Rewards such as- making Junior Nationals as a 14 year old and winning 3 Jr. Nat. titles. Hard work does pay off!
Lauren, how did you start your swimming career?
With swimming lessons at MAC when she was 5 years old, which she didn’t really take a liking to. Because she was always around the water whether a lake, river or ocean her parents insisted. At the age of 7 or 8 she was asked to join the swim team because of her steady progress through the lesson program. Her first coach was Becky Macklem.
Lauren, did you have any interest in any other sport/activities?
Skiing, ballet and gymnastics but her height got in the way and her coordination was lacking in sports with hand-eye coordination and body awareness.
Once on the team, who were your coaches?
Becky Macklem started her out in a pre-competitive program. Debbie Barnes was her next coach in the age group program. At 12, Lauren swam with the Senior Team with Skip Runkle. Lauren did remember that Debbie was the first coach to recognize her potential in swimming and what she might do in the future. In her first swim meet at the Sandy Pool she broke the pool record in the 25 yd. Butterfly. Skip was impressed with her body type, long and lean-for any swimmer- ideal. As she got older she grew into her body and the earlier characteristics of coordination faded away in the water.
How many National titles?
Lauren kind of hesitated but did admit 5 –3 in the 200m free and 2 in the 100m free.
Tell me a little bit about your college swimming…
Lauren swam for Stanford 3 years red shirting her sophomore year due to a back injury, in her 5th year she swam at Texas and returned to Stanford to graduate. Along the way she helped Stanford win the NCAA’s Women’s team title in 1998. She did mention that her best placing was swimming at Texas with a 5th place finish in the 200 yd free.
Fondest memories of swimming?
Great teammates, then she went on to mention Brady Childs, Chris and Scott Sinai, Lindsey Haffner. Rewards such as- making Junior Nationals as a 14 year old and winning 3 Jr. Nat. titles. Hard work does pay off!
Any favorite sets or workouts?
8-10-12X 50’s all out on 1minute. Fastest average, endurance and give it your all. Lauren also mentioned kick sets, being an outstanding kicker she likes to work with stretch bands around her ankles while she kicks. Another set she mentioned was long course, 3x200 broken at the 100 on 5minutes-fast.
After graduation-what developed?
After graduation, Lauren retired form the sport in 2002 but because of her interest and experience she returned to the sport in 2005. She headed into coaching at Lincoln H.S. and Hillsboro Heat club coaching. She could understand and appreciate what was going on with swimmers both in and out of the water. The more she coached the more she missed the sport and taking an active roll in her own life. She had more to give and had to prove it to her self. She was at home in the water and couldn’t get it out of her system, at least not yet.
What would pass along to younger swimmers?
Listen to your coaches because they can tell where you’ve been and where you’re headed. As long as you are commit to the sport, the long practices, the meets, etc. they will always believe in you! Stick with it! If you are injured, work thru it. Experience failure because it can only help you grow stronger. Look beyond the surface-for the swimmer and the sport there is a lot more than meets the eye.
8-10-12X 50’s all out on 1minute. Fastest average, endurance and give it your all. Lauren also mentioned kick sets, being an outstanding kicker she likes to work with stretch bands around her ankles while she kicks. Another set she mentioned was long course, 3x200 broken at the 100 on 5minutes-fast.
After graduation-what developed?
After graduation, Lauren retired form the sport in 2002 but because of her interest and experience she returned to the sport in 2005. She headed into coaching at Lincoln H.S. and Hillsboro Heat club coaching. She could understand and appreciate what was going on with swimmers both in and out of the water. The more she coached the more she missed the sport and taking an active roll in her own life. She had more to give and had to prove it to her self. She was at home in the water and couldn’t get it out of her system, at least not yet.
What would pass along to younger swimmers?
Listen to your coaches because they can tell where you’ve been and where you’re headed. As long as you are commit to the sport, the long practices, the meets, etc. they will always believe in you! Stick with it! If you are injured, work thru it. Experience failure because it can only help you grow stronger. Look beyond the surface-for the swimmer and the sport there is a lot more than meets the eye.
As we get closer to the October 18th, 2009 celebration please help us acknowledge all those, swimmers, coaches, parents, officials and management who helped develop this program and make it one of success and pride that we can take with us for years to come.
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
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.
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 1981-2008Skip 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.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The MAC Swimming Legend: Coach JACK CODY
FOR THE RECORD: Coach of both Olympic medal winning divers and swimmers at the Multnomah Club in Portland, Oregon from 1913-1948; His swimmers and divers won 3 National Team Titles, 42 individual championships, and 16 relay championships.
As with so many great swimming coaches, Jack Cody began as a diver and his first successes were as a coach of divers.
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".
Beginning with national AAU Senior Championships in 1939, when Nancy Merki, then 13 years of age, won her first of three high-point titles, the Cody Kids were in the nation's sports headlines for 10 years. Nancy, Brenda Helser, Suzanne Zimmerman, Joyce Macrae and Mary Anne Hansen were the nucleus of a team that won national team titles three times, 42 individual championships, and 16 relay championship, many of these setting American records. This was an era before the increase in national championship events, before age-group and Junior Olympic programs.
The war years prevented these girls from participating at their peak in Olympic Games. Brenda and Joyce were named to the 1940 Olympic team, for Games not held. Again in 1944 many of the Cody Kids would have made the Olympic team. By 1948, though "old women" to the current swimmers, Nancy and Suzanne made the U.S. team for the Games in London and Suzanne was silver medalist in the backstroke. Brenda, then living in California and representing Los Angeles Athletic Club, swam on the Olympic championship winning relay team.
A reflection of the Cody talent for coaching might be seen in his swimmers' versatility. Nancy Merki, for example, swam and won at every distance from sprint to mile and every stroke. An editorial in the Portland's Oregonian at the time Cody retired as MAC coach pointed to his "rare blend of requisite qualities -- plus that rather mystical something else -- which makes a good swimming coach."
After retiring from the Multnomah Athletic Club in 1949, Jack moved to Los Angeles where he continued some teaching and coaching for several years. He died on April 11, 1963, at the age of 78. Editorial comment in the Oregon Journal after his death observed that "Cody and his Kids made Oregon swimming conscious in a day when there were no high school or grade school swimming teams."
Greatest tribute is evident at the Multnomah Athletic Club where thousands of successful adults still identify themselves as "Cody Kids" because they learned to swim in Cody classes, though far from becoming competitive swimmers themselves.
CHAMPIONS AGAINST ODDS: Nancy Merki Lees
by Al J. Stump
MACRAE SMITH COMPANY : PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, 1952, AL J. STUMP
Library of Congress catalog card member: 52-6766
THE GREATEST WOMAN SWIMMER OF ALL TIME? SOME MAY SAY that she was Gertie Ederle, who whipped the English Channel, or her counterpart of 1951, Florence Chadwick. On the basis 75 of wrecking pool records at sprint distances, many coaches would vote for Helene Madison, the first o her sex to hit one minute flat for 100 yards. Or Ann Curtis, the strapping Olympic champion who virtually swam herself out of competition in 1948.
But for all-around ability and a magnificent example of sheer courage against odds here is a vote for Nancy Merki Lees.
If Hollywood screened the story of Nancy Merki, it would have its fade-in shot ready made. The scenario would call for her to be seated, a tousle-haired youngster of fourteen, on the White House porch in Washington, sipping tea with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President has called her clear across the country from Oregon as his special guest
"They tell me, Nancy," the late F.D.R. would say, "that you are our youngest swimming champion in history. Yet you and I have had the same illness. Tell me how you did it."
The Merki answer might sound overdramatic by its very simplicity. But it would be exactly what she told the crippled President on a day in 1939. "Well I guess I just kept trying, Mr. President."
In real life, the answer was so well-received by Roosevelt that it became the rallying cry at his Warm Springs, Georgia, foundation for poliomyelitis victims. Nancy Merki "just kept trying" against the stiffest handicap to beset any sports figure, and out of her battle came such personal rewards as the White House invitation to tell the nation her story through the March of Dimes and as fine a pair of legs as ever graced a female athlete.
If the Hollywood version should sound like the All-America girl story, a Jack Armstrong twist in a two-piece suit, then so much the better for celluloid veracity. Through the 1940's, Nancy Merki was just that in the eyes of the Amateur Athletic Union All-American seven times.
Yet not much earlier than that, Nancy couldn't take a sponge bath without assistance.
The swimmer who wasn't given much chance even to walk is now appraised by aquatic experts as the most versatile and durable swimmer of her sex ever produced in the United States. She won more important championships than Madison; she stayed at the top longer than Curtis. She could do more things in the water than any mermaid on record, so fabulously versatile that her coach, Jack Cody, never knew from meet to meet where she would pick up her first-place points.
"The only thing she couldn't do was dive," says Cody. "And if she'd concentrated on that, Nancy would have been the sensation of the springboard. It just wasn't in her to be second- rate."
Supporting Cody's contention is a record covering a ten-year span, which at the same time unbuttons the theory that women athletes are vacillating, temperamental, fuzzyheaded creatures with the competitive urge of a goldfish. Merki started tearing records apart in 1938 at the unheard-of age of thirteen. When she first hit the tank, a skinny 95-pounder, the big stars nationally were Eleanor Holm, Lenore Sight Wingard, Katie Rawls, Marjorie Gestring, Esther Williams, Ruth Jump, and Ann Hardin. All had long faded from the headlines by 1948 when Merki's tireless crawl was still close to unbeatable.
The onetime polio-crippled Portlander was American champion and record holder in the most demanding event of all, the 300-yard individual medley, which combines all three types of water locomotion: backstroke, breast stroke, and free style. She set national records at all the standard metric free- style distances, from 200 to 1500 meters, and put a 400-meter long-course mark on the books that still hasn't been touched. She won fifteen indoor and outdoor individual American titles and at one time or another splashed her way to nine senior A.A.U. records.
A moppet of thirteen, she made mature swimmers seem slow in her first national meet at Des Moines as she set 400- and 800-meter marks and placed a phenomenal second in the mile, to boot. That day Nancy Merki became the youngest high-point winner at a national swimming meet in history.
In 1946, Denmark held the women's 400-yard relay world record, and U.S. coaches despaired of ever coming close to it. Yet with Nancy anchoring the celebrated "Cody Kids" quartet, a full second was cut from it, and our local talent realized for the first time that it could compete on equal terms with the best in Europe.
Advocates of water therapy for polio will never get a better ad than that.
Jack Cody, a sun-blackened little man with forty years of coaching champions behind him, first laid eyes on Nancy in 1935. He had been a specialist at producing divers and had several Olympic Games winners to his credit, including Hap Kuehn and Norman Ross. With no warning, Cody found him- self placed in charge of a frail ten-year-old who for some time had been partially paralyzed. To Cody, at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, her heartsick parents made the plea that he "try to do something for her the doctors give us very little hope."
The disease had settled in the child's hips, constricting movement, and had already somewhat shriveled the right leg. "Shell have to wear iron braces and maybe get around on crutches as the polio progresses," medical men said. Modern treatment for polio was unthought-of in the Thirties; there was nothing in the books that could help Nancy, She couldn't swim; in fact, she was terrified of the water, Cody is a man of infinite patience with a deep conviction that the healing powers of swimming have long been under- estimated. But he was no physician, and the paralysis had been creeping upward since Nancy was eight. All he could do was coax her to hang onto the rim of the athletic club tank and try to kick her legs. "I wouldn't know what the odds were
against her," says Cody. "Yet, as weak and tiny as she was, she had heart. There was an urge to get well that kept her in the water for hours at a time, just trying to master the trick of fluttering her legs"
It was close to a year before Nancy was able to suck in a chestful of air and paddle a length of the tank. Constant mas- sage seemed to help. Her strength grew by painfully slow degrees. Now Nancy could swim two laps. Now three. Now she was watching the healthy kids and picking up the elements of a crawl. And a year later, Nancy was begging Cody to let her enter an indoor event for girls under twelve.
"O.K., Minnow/' he told her. "I guess it won't hurt you/' Nancy did fairly well for thirty yards but weakened and had trouble finishing. Cody, therefore, couldn't have been more astonished a few weeks later when she tried again and this time won a fifty-yard sprint for girls older than herself.
"Until then I'd been thinking of her in terms of a cripple who might get well enough to live normally," the veteran coach recalls. "Now, all at once, I realized that here was a competitor who wanted to win as badly as her family wanted her to recover from the polio."
Doctors checked and were startled. The disease had been halted. But for how long?
Not much later, making magical progress, Nancy was a surprise starter in the three-mile Lake Oswego marathon. Cody figured it would be a triumph if she went a mile before he had to pull her into the official launch. But Nancy finished the grind, gamely bringing up the rear.
The next major event she entered, another marathon, Nancy gave her growing body of Oregon fans a shock by not only finishing, but winning in the good time of 1 hour, 10 minutes, and 18 seconds.
The following year, when she cracked the state 100-meter record, Cody realized that he had held a front seat at the unfolding of a miracle. The withered leg had filled out, Nancy's body rippled with long supple muscles, and she had more endurance than any other swimmer on the Multnomah team. Almost as remarkable, she had a natural aptitude for the various techniques of speed swimming and, unlike most girls, was more concerned with winning than having fun in the tank. She told Jack, "Some day I'm going to be a champ."
The 1938 National A.A.U. meet was held in Santa Barbara, California. More to slip Nancy a lollypop for her game efforts than for any other reason, Cody wangled a round-trip ticket for his "minnow." He had told her to keep an eye on the older girls and learn everything she could. What happened was that the stringy infant came up like a torpedo to finish third in the 440-yard free style and fourth in the 880.
Sports writers wouldn't believe it when Cody told them that three years earlier Nancy had been a hospital case. In 1939, the story got better. Still short of her fourteenth birthday, she went to the Des Moines Nationals and cut 13.3 seconds from Katie Rawls' 800-meter free-style record, won the 400 meters in 5:29.6, just 1.1 seconds off the American record, and placed second in the mile to the veteran Mary Ryan. That made her high-point scorer of the meet . . . and the biggest news event in swimming.
Cody's wonder girl had just started to swim. Around her he fashioned his "Cody Kids/' starring Merki, Brenda Helser, Suzy Zimmerman, Joyce Macrae, Anne Cooney, and others. They trouped to San Francisco for the 1939 Far Western Championships, and Nancy set American 400- and 200-meter freestyle marks. Then it was 1940 and Miami Beach, where Nancy won the 440. At High Point, North Carolina, in 1941, "Fancy Nancy" astonished coaches by paring 27 seconds from the American 1500-meter record and lowering the 800-meter standard. The streak continued, and between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, at Buffalo, Chicago, and Neenah, Wisconsin, she was supreme at anything from 200 to 1500 meters. She was named the country's No. 1 feminine swimmer by the A.A.U. and was the only nominee of her sex for the James E* Sullivan Memorial Award. She swept the 440-yard indoor title for three straight years, splashing her wake in the faces of such standouts as Betty Bemis, Dot Leonard, Ann Hardin, and Lenore
Wingard.
"This was a hard period, in a way," Nancy says, "because so many letters came in from all over this country and even from Europe. People begged me to tell them the secret of how I overcame the paralysis. It was hard just to say, 'Don't give up, and try to swim!"
Letters from foreign lands that she could not read were taken by Nancy to local consulates or language teachers. But she answered them all.
Now, when you're still only sweet sixteen and a national champion of four years' standing, the whole world is rosy. Nancy was a well girl and a pretty one, as photogenic as any in the pool. Her volume of personal publicity was tremendous. With the Cody Kids she saw the breadth and depth of the land feted at the Stork Club in New York, at the U.S. Senate by Oregon legislators; she was even the honored guest of Franklin Roosevelt. When she returned to Portland with another batch of blue ribbons, she rode up Broadway with sirens screaming and crowds cheering. The Cody Kids became national team champions and could have anything their city possessed in the way of tribute.
Came now the second-biggest blow of Nancy's life, the challenge that catches up with every champion.
Suddenly her speed in the water was gone. Competing in the National Indoor meet late in 1943, Nancy finished in the ruck and lost her 440 title. In the 220 free style, she was beaten again. For the first time in four years, she returned home without a U.S. championship. At Shakamak, Indiana, later in the year, she was shut out in her middle-distance specialties and, in a desperate switch to the mile, finished a bad fifth. Nancy was in more than a slump. Her career looked finished almost as suddenly as it had flowered.
"Merki has passed her peak," the word went around the swimming galleries. For the first time, she was dropped from All-America ranking.
There were no more motorcycle escorts, but only puzzled glances* Cody, progressing from worry to bafflement, couldn't find an explanation. It just didn't make sense to the coach that Nancy could be washed up at seventeen, when a swimmer's best performances should be just starting.
The gamble Cody and Nancy took beginning with the 1944 season made aquatic history. She switched over from the free style to the breast and backstroke events. It was radical, daring,
asking far too much of any athlete in high-pressure national competition. It was like converting a track sprinter to hurdling or telling a fastball pitcher to throw nothing but curves, for the
crawl is the speed stroke and it was galling to Merki to propel herself along in this new laborious way.
But she stuck it out through the winter, working seventy- five per cent on the breast stroke, where she was weakest., and the rest of the time on backstroking. By the stop watch, she was only fair.
The test came at the 1944 National Indoor meet at Oakland. Merkfs opponent in the breast stroke was Patty Aspinall of the Riviera Club, the American record holder. Pre-meet char-
ters gave Merki no better than fourth place. Sea-green pool water splashed high into the scuppers as the big field thrashed the first lap of the 220-yard finals. Paddling Patty led into the final twenty yards and then here came Merki!
Stroke and stroke, the pair came down the stretch. Judges crouched far over the edge of the tank to catch the winner. Merki by a half yard! When Cody hauled her out of the pool, he exuberantly
started to slap her back. But he stayed his hand. She was so exhausted that a tap would have knocked her fiat.
Forty minutes later, the gamest lass in a nylon suit dove in and won the killing 300-meter individual medley in just three seconds over the meet record. "There is the greatest competitor I ever saw," congratulated Coach Charley Sava of San Francisco's Crystal Plunge. Other coaches came up to express astonishment at the sight of a converted free styler and one believed finished, at that beating the country's leading butterfly and backstroke artists.
Marvelous Merki went on wrecking records for several more years. Then, having won everything in sight a dozen times, she retired from the tank to marry. Today a housewife, she can look back on the most unique career of any girl who ever dipped ten toes in a plunge.
For any man's money, Nancy Merki has to rank as the greatest gal swimmer of them all.
MACRAE SMITH COMPANY : PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, 1952, AL J. STUMP
Library of Congress catalog card member: 52-6766
THE GREATEST WOMAN SWIMMER OF ALL TIME? SOME MAY SAY that she was Gertie Ederle, who whipped the English Channel, or her counterpart of 1951, Florence Chadwick. On the basis 75 of wrecking pool records at sprint distances, many coaches would vote for Helene Madison, the first o her sex to hit one minute flat for 100 yards. Or Ann Curtis, the strapping Olympic champion who virtually swam herself out of competition in 1948.
But for all-around ability and a magnificent example of sheer courage against odds here is a vote for Nancy Merki Lees.
If Hollywood screened the story of Nancy Merki, it would have its fade-in shot ready made. The scenario would call for her to be seated, a tousle-haired youngster of fourteen, on the White House porch in Washington, sipping tea with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President has called her clear across the country from Oregon as his special guest
"They tell me, Nancy," the late F.D.R. would say, "that you are our youngest swimming champion in history. Yet you and I have had the same illness. Tell me how you did it."
The Merki answer might sound overdramatic by its very simplicity. But it would be exactly what she told the crippled President on a day in 1939. "Well I guess I just kept trying, Mr. President."
In real life, the answer was so well-received by Roosevelt that it became the rallying cry at his Warm Springs, Georgia, foundation for poliomyelitis victims. Nancy Merki "just kept trying" against the stiffest handicap to beset any sports figure, and out of her battle came such personal rewards as the White House invitation to tell the nation her story through the March of Dimes and as fine a pair of legs as ever graced a female athlete.
If the Hollywood version should sound like the All-America girl story, a Jack Armstrong twist in a two-piece suit, then so much the better for celluloid veracity. Through the 1940's, Nancy Merki was just that in the eyes of the Amateur Athletic Union All-American seven times.
Yet not much earlier than that, Nancy couldn't take a sponge bath without assistance.
The swimmer who wasn't given much chance even to walk is now appraised by aquatic experts as the most versatile and durable swimmer of her sex ever produced in the United States. She won more important championships than Madison; she stayed at the top longer than Curtis. She could do more things in the water than any mermaid on record, so fabulously versatile that her coach, Jack Cody, never knew from meet to meet where she would pick up her first-place points.
"The only thing she couldn't do was dive," says Cody. "And if she'd concentrated on that, Nancy would have been the sensation of the springboard. It just wasn't in her to be second- rate."
Supporting Cody's contention is a record covering a ten-year span, which at the same time unbuttons the theory that women athletes are vacillating, temperamental, fuzzyheaded creatures with the competitive urge of a goldfish. Merki started tearing records apart in 1938 at the unheard-of age of thirteen. When she first hit the tank, a skinny 95-pounder, the big stars nationally were Eleanor Holm, Lenore Sight Wingard, Katie Rawls, Marjorie Gestring, Esther Williams, Ruth Jump, and Ann Hardin. All had long faded from the headlines by 1948 when Merki's tireless crawl was still close to unbeatable.
The onetime polio-crippled Portlander was American champion and record holder in the most demanding event of all, the 300-yard individual medley, which combines all three types of water locomotion: backstroke, breast stroke, and free style. She set national records at all the standard metric free- style distances, from 200 to 1500 meters, and put a 400-meter long-course mark on the books that still hasn't been touched. She won fifteen indoor and outdoor individual American titles and at one time or another splashed her way to nine senior A.A.U. records.
A moppet of thirteen, she made mature swimmers seem slow in her first national meet at Des Moines as she set 400- and 800-meter marks and placed a phenomenal second in the mile, to boot. That day Nancy Merki became the youngest high-point winner at a national swimming meet in history.
In 1946, Denmark held the women's 400-yard relay world record, and U.S. coaches despaired of ever coming close to it. Yet with Nancy anchoring the celebrated "Cody Kids" quartet, a full second was cut from it, and our local talent realized for the first time that it could compete on equal terms with the best in Europe.
Advocates of water therapy for polio will never get a better ad than that.
Jack Cody, a sun-blackened little man with forty years of coaching champions behind him, first laid eyes on Nancy in 1935. He had been a specialist at producing divers and had several Olympic Games winners to his credit, including Hap Kuehn and Norman Ross. With no warning, Cody found him- self placed in charge of a frail ten-year-old who for some time had been partially paralyzed. To Cody, at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, her heartsick parents made the plea that he "try to do something for her the doctors give us very little hope."
The disease had settled in the child's hips, constricting movement, and had already somewhat shriveled the right leg. "Shell have to wear iron braces and maybe get around on crutches as the polio progresses," medical men said. Modern treatment for polio was unthought-of in the Thirties; there was nothing in the books that could help Nancy, She couldn't swim; in fact, she was terrified of the water, Cody is a man of infinite patience with a deep conviction that the healing powers of swimming have long been under- estimated. But he was no physician, and the paralysis had been creeping upward since Nancy was eight. All he could do was coax her to hang onto the rim of the athletic club tank and try to kick her legs. "I wouldn't know what the odds were
against her," says Cody. "Yet, as weak and tiny as she was, she had heart. There was an urge to get well that kept her in the water for hours at a time, just trying to master the trick of fluttering her legs"
It was close to a year before Nancy was able to suck in a chestful of air and paddle a length of the tank. Constant mas- sage seemed to help. Her strength grew by painfully slow degrees. Now Nancy could swim two laps. Now three. Now she was watching the healthy kids and picking up the elements of a crawl. And a year later, Nancy was begging Cody to let her enter an indoor event for girls under twelve.
"O.K., Minnow/' he told her. "I guess it won't hurt you/' Nancy did fairly well for thirty yards but weakened and had trouble finishing. Cody, therefore, couldn't have been more astonished a few weeks later when she tried again and this time won a fifty-yard sprint for girls older than herself.
"Until then I'd been thinking of her in terms of a cripple who might get well enough to live normally," the veteran coach recalls. "Now, all at once, I realized that here was a competitor who wanted to win as badly as her family wanted her to recover from the polio."
Doctors checked and were startled. The disease had been halted. But for how long?
Not much later, making magical progress, Nancy was a surprise starter in the three-mile Lake Oswego marathon. Cody figured it would be a triumph if she went a mile before he had to pull her into the official launch. But Nancy finished the grind, gamely bringing up the rear.
The next major event she entered, another marathon, Nancy gave her growing body of Oregon fans a shock by not only finishing, but winning in the good time of 1 hour, 10 minutes, and 18 seconds.
The following year, when she cracked the state 100-meter record, Cody realized that he had held a front seat at the unfolding of a miracle. The withered leg had filled out, Nancy's body rippled with long supple muscles, and she had more endurance than any other swimmer on the Multnomah team. Almost as remarkable, she had a natural aptitude for the various techniques of speed swimming and, unlike most girls, was more concerned with winning than having fun in the tank. She told Jack, "Some day I'm going to be a champ."
The 1938 National A.A.U. meet was held in Santa Barbara, California. More to slip Nancy a lollypop for her game efforts than for any other reason, Cody wangled a round-trip ticket for his "minnow." He had told her to keep an eye on the older girls and learn everything she could. What happened was that the stringy infant came up like a torpedo to finish third in the 440-yard free style and fourth in the 880.
Sports writers wouldn't believe it when Cody told them that three years earlier Nancy had been a hospital case. In 1939, the story got better. Still short of her fourteenth birthday, she went to the Des Moines Nationals and cut 13.3 seconds from Katie Rawls' 800-meter free-style record, won the 400 meters in 5:29.6, just 1.1 seconds off the American record, and placed second in the mile to the veteran Mary Ryan. That made her high-point scorer of the meet . . . and the biggest news event in swimming.
Cody's wonder girl had just started to swim. Around her he fashioned his "Cody Kids/' starring Merki, Brenda Helser, Suzy Zimmerman, Joyce Macrae, Anne Cooney, and others. They trouped to San Francisco for the 1939 Far Western Championships, and Nancy set American 400- and 200-meter freestyle marks. Then it was 1940 and Miami Beach, where Nancy won the 440. At High Point, North Carolina, in 1941, "Fancy Nancy" astonished coaches by paring 27 seconds from the American 1500-meter record and lowering the 800-meter standard. The streak continued, and between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, at Buffalo, Chicago, and Neenah, Wisconsin, she was supreme at anything from 200 to 1500 meters. She was named the country's No. 1 feminine swimmer by the A.A.U. and was the only nominee of her sex for the James E* Sullivan Memorial Award. She swept the 440-yard indoor title for three straight years, splashing her wake in the faces of such standouts as Betty Bemis, Dot Leonard, Ann Hardin, and Lenore
Wingard.
"This was a hard period, in a way," Nancy says, "because so many letters came in from all over this country and even from Europe. People begged me to tell them the secret of how I overcame the paralysis. It was hard just to say, 'Don't give up, and try to swim!"
Letters from foreign lands that she could not read were taken by Nancy to local consulates or language teachers. But she answered them all.
Now, when you're still only sweet sixteen and a national champion of four years' standing, the whole world is rosy. Nancy was a well girl and a pretty one, as photogenic as any in the pool. Her volume of personal publicity was tremendous. With the Cody Kids she saw the breadth and depth of the land feted at the Stork Club in New York, at the U.S. Senate by Oregon legislators; she was even the honored guest of Franklin Roosevelt. When she returned to Portland with another batch of blue ribbons, she rode up Broadway with sirens screaming and crowds cheering. The Cody Kids became national team champions and could have anything their city possessed in the way of tribute.
Came now the second-biggest blow of Nancy's life, the challenge that catches up with every champion.
Suddenly her speed in the water was gone. Competing in the National Indoor meet late in 1943, Nancy finished in the ruck and lost her 440 title. In the 220 free style, she was beaten again. For the first time in four years, she returned home without a U.S. championship. At Shakamak, Indiana, later in the year, she was shut out in her middle-distance specialties and, in a desperate switch to the mile, finished a bad fifth. Nancy was in more than a slump. Her career looked finished almost as suddenly as it had flowered.
"Merki has passed her peak," the word went around the swimming galleries. For the first time, she was dropped from All-America ranking.
There were no more motorcycle escorts, but only puzzled glances* Cody, progressing from worry to bafflement, couldn't find an explanation. It just didn't make sense to the coach that Nancy could be washed up at seventeen, when a swimmer's best performances should be just starting.
The gamble Cody and Nancy took beginning with the 1944 season made aquatic history. She switched over from the free style to the breast and backstroke events. It was radical, daring,
asking far too much of any athlete in high-pressure national competition. It was like converting a track sprinter to hurdling or telling a fastball pitcher to throw nothing but curves, for the
crawl is the speed stroke and it was galling to Merki to propel herself along in this new laborious way.
But she stuck it out through the winter, working seventy- five per cent on the breast stroke, where she was weakest., and the rest of the time on backstroking. By the stop watch, she was only fair.
The test came at the 1944 National Indoor meet at Oakland. Merkfs opponent in the breast stroke was Patty Aspinall of the Riviera Club, the American record holder. Pre-meet char-
ters gave Merki no better than fourth place. Sea-green pool water splashed high into the scuppers as the big field thrashed the first lap of the 220-yard finals. Paddling Patty led into the final twenty yards and then here came Merki!
Stroke and stroke, the pair came down the stretch. Judges crouched far over the edge of the tank to catch the winner. Merki by a half yard! When Cody hauled her out of the pool, he exuberantly
started to slap her back. But he stayed his hand. She was so exhausted that a tap would have knocked her fiat.
Forty minutes later, the gamest lass in a nylon suit dove in and won the killing 300-meter individual medley in just three seconds over the meet record. "There is the greatest competitor I ever saw," congratulated Coach Charley Sava of San Francisco's Crystal Plunge. Other coaches came up to express astonishment at the sight of a converted free styler and one believed finished, at that beating the country's leading butterfly and backstroke artists.
Marvelous Merki went on wrecking records for several more years. Then, having won everything in sight a dozen times, she retired from the tank to marry. Today a housewife, she can look back on the most unique career of any girl who ever dipped ten toes in a plunge.
For any man's money, Nancy Merki has to rank as the greatest gal swimmer of them all.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
RAY CONLON, THE “GO TO GUY”
During the yearlong recognition of the Century of Swimming at MAC at its competitive swimming, we feature swimmers and coaches who had a big impact on the swimming program at the Multnomah Athletic Club. Today we will focus our feature article on a coach Ray Conlon.
Two of the present coaches, Gary and Alex have special relationships with Ray Conlon. “This interview took me back to my high school days.” – said Gary Leach. “I attended Wilson High at the time when Ray was a teacher there (and a very good one in year book-award winner, to say the least.) I also swam on the high school team but wasn’t good enough to swim on varsity, so had to settle on the J.V. team with Mr. Carlson.”
“I met Ray when I became an assistant coach here at the MAC, back in 1994.” – said Alex Nikitin. “Ray was always very generous with his time and shared many great stories with me from the past history of our swimming program, and the Club. I always been a big fan of history, and Ray filled in many blanks. I ran many of my training ideas by him, and we had many stimulating discussions. Since then, Ray and I developed a great friendship and we are keeping in touch.”
Gary: Ray, how did you get started in competitive swimming?
I received a call from Bob Johansen, an Athletic Director for MAC in the spring of 1962. As it turned out, MAC was looking for an assistant swim coach and knew all about my successful work with Wilson High School swim team. Walt Schlueter, MAC Head Swim coach, had just announced that he was leaving the club and was heading to Arizona. I was offered his coaching position. Because of my career as a teacher, I could not commit to a full time coaching, therefore, I agreed to assist the head Coach, Olive Mucha and also work with the instructional program and the Early Bird program.
So it happened that my coaching position at the MAC always worked around my loyalty to Wilson High and his swim team. As it turned out through my tenure at the MAC, I would always be the interim coach, always filling in for a Head Coach when another coach would leave. That happened after Walt Schlueter, Olive Mucha, Mike Hastings, Mike Burton, Mickey Fleskas, Trond Williams and right before the arrival of Skip Runkle.
Gary: How long did you coach at the MAC and at Wilson high?
I started teaching at Wilson when it opened up in 1956, came to the MAC in 1962 and left coaching in 1982. (Side note: Gary Leach knew that Ray had a remarkable string of PIL District Championships for the Wilson High boys, but he couldn’t remember the exact number. Twenty-four came to his mind, but Gary thought it was 26. That‘s an impressive record.)
Alex: Ray what do you value as the most important qualities in a coach?
Good coaches always continue refining their fundamentals. They have an uncanny ability to ask questions ‘Why?” and find the right answers. Two different coaches can bring two different teams to a competition. There are two different philosophies, and their athletes are equally prepared to compete. Who will win the meet? I bet on the team that has been trained best on fundamentals. And fundamentals are developed through the quality of day-to-day work.
Gary: Who was your favorite coach to work with at the MAC?
There were many fine coaches here at the MAC over the years, and each of them brought something different to the program. However, if I had to choose one on the basis of quality workouts, ability to teach swimming technique, presence on deck it would have to be Walt Schlueter. Walt had mercurial personality, but he was also a true genius. One thing to mention about him is the fact that Don Shollander, who was swimming with Walt at the time, had a bit of a falling out and left the club to swim with George Haines in Santa Clara, CA. Several weeks later Don went on to set several American records - and Walter Schlueter never received the credit he deserved for all of the work and time spent with this young athlete.
Walt was an innovator, a perfectionist, and an eminently successful coach. He was originator of the rhythm method of teaching pace and the race pace/short rest/ broken swim method of training. He is best known as a coach of coaches, a stroke specialist originating dozens of stroke drills. “He was called a Dr’of The Stroke” Walt was also the master of efficiency, pacing and strategy.
Alex: What do you think was so special about Walt Schuster’s coaching?
I loved the way Walt Schlueter was conducting his practices here at the MAC: his workouts very efficiently organized, and always well thought out. Everything he did at the pool had its purpose. I believe that’s they way you should coach. The amazing thing was his timing, the flow, like watching all the ingredients melting down together like in a perfect recipe. All things there conformed to a single objective. It did not always look like a gold medal today, but every practice was like a set of bricks that were laid into a road towards the future result. One of my favorite Schlueter’s sets was “Turn 25” – 10 yards off the wall, flip turn, and race back into the wall, then ease up.
Gary: What was your favorite set as a coach in practice?
Every set has its purpose and I look at it as selecting the “right tool for the job”. However, if you insist, then I’d choose 10x100’s even pacing (Schlueter style-pacing skills), when to accelerate and when not to.
Gary: Ray did you have any past Olympians under your tutelage?
I worked with Carrie Steinseifer (pictured left) who later became an Olympic gold medal winner in 1984, Carolyn Woods (1964); Susie Habernigg (1980) Olympic team boycotted Moscow. I also worked on occasion with Cathy Jamison (1968 Olympian), but Olive Mucha deserves full credit for coaching Cathy while she was swimming at the MAC.)
I would like to mention a few other distinguished swimmers from the MAC that I worked with - John Kingery, Graham Colton, Ken Webb, and Matt Rankin.
Alex: did you remain close to any swimmers or coaches after you retired?
I recently received 55 Christmas cards from the athletes I coached when I got my first coaching position at Neah-A-Kah-Nee High School and the baseball team. They had won the 2-A classification but had to play the 5-A Jefferson High School team in Portland. I keep in touch with Anne Habernigg and Linda Dankin, who both achieved as H.S. All-Americans and later went on the Princeton and Law School at Harvard. Both ladies still stay in touch as does Cathy Jamison every once in a while.
Alex: What are you hobbies?
I stay busy with training of my racehorse, Bamby. I enjoy this very much.
Do you have any words of wisdom for us?
I believe in teaching swimming from competitive stroke perspectives right from the beginning, in the swim lessons. Teach specific skills as they relate to stroke mechanics rather than “kill time”.
Kids have to know their role and have an understanding of how to achieve their goals. Keep them connected to their goals, and communicate the importance of taking small steps daily towards that goal. Kids need to identify themselves with the objectives, and have to want to achieve. You can’t teach the desire to achieve, but you can teach them to “connect the dots” and those with the will to win and burning desire will make it happen.
Swimmers need energy, drive and commitment to succeed. You have to do what is necessary to get the job done and do a personal assessment of your talents. There are no short cuts, use the talent you have to the best of your ability.
Alex: Where would you like to see the MAC swim program go from here?
Collaboration is a very important word here. I would like to see more collaborative communication and effort among the coaching staff and administration of the Club. Everybody needs get on the same page and bridge their differences: athletes, their parents and coaching staff. The next step is to pull all their energy towards one goal, following the mission statement of the team, and focusing on achievements and excellence. MAC itself needs to ask the question “What’s the bottom line?” If a team has an Olympic potential swimmers, is there a mechanism to support their pursuit of excellence?”
Your motto?
There is no ’I’ in team.
That would sum up Ray Conlon as a coach, teacher, mentor, team player, motivator, politician, and “The Go To Guy”.
Two of the present coaches, Gary and Alex have special relationships with Ray Conlon. “This interview took me back to my high school days.” – said Gary Leach. “I attended Wilson High at the time when Ray was a teacher there (and a very good one in year book-award winner, to say the least.) I also swam on the high school team but wasn’t good enough to swim on varsity, so had to settle on the J.V. team with Mr. Carlson.”
“I met Ray when I became an assistant coach here at the MAC, back in 1994.” – said Alex Nikitin. “Ray was always very generous with his time and shared many great stories with me from the past history of our swimming program, and the Club. I always been a big fan of history, and Ray filled in many blanks. I ran many of my training ideas by him, and we had many stimulating discussions. Since then, Ray and I developed a great friendship and we are keeping in touch.”
Gary: Ray, how did you get started in competitive swimming?
I received a call from Bob Johansen, an Athletic Director for MAC in the spring of 1962. As it turned out, MAC was looking for an assistant swim coach and knew all about my successful work with Wilson High School swim team. Walt Schlueter, MAC Head Swim coach, had just announced that he was leaving the club and was heading to Arizona. I was offered his coaching position. Because of my career as a teacher, I could not commit to a full time coaching, therefore, I agreed to assist the head Coach, Olive Mucha and also work with the instructional program and the Early Bird program.
So it happened that my coaching position at the MAC always worked around my loyalty to Wilson High and his swim team. As it turned out through my tenure at the MAC, I would always be the interim coach, always filling in for a Head Coach when another coach would leave. That happened after Walt Schlueter, Olive Mucha, Mike Hastings, Mike Burton, Mickey Fleskas, Trond Williams and right before the arrival of Skip Runkle.
Gary: How long did you coach at the MAC and at Wilson high?
I started teaching at Wilson when it opened up in 1956, came to the MAC in 1962 and left coaching in 1982. (Side note: Gary Leach knew that Ray had a remarkable string of PIL District Championships for the Wilson High boys, but he couldn’t remember the exact number. Twenty-four came to his mind, but Gary thought it was 26. That‘s an impressive record.)
Alex: Ray what do you value as the most important qualities in a coach?
Good coaches always continue refining their fundamentals. They have an uncanny ability to ask questions ‘Why?” and find the right answers. Two different coaches can bring two different teams to a competition. There are two different philosophies, and their athletes are equally prepared to compete. Who will win the meet? I bet on the team that has been trained best on fundamentals. And fundamentals are developed through the quality of day-to-day work.
Gary: Who was your favorite coach to work with at the MAC?
There were many fine coaches here at the MAC over the years, and each of them brought something different to the program. However, if I had to choose one on the basis of quality workouts, ability to teach swimming technique, presence on deck it would have to be Walt Schlueter. Walt had mercurial personality, but he was also a true genius. One thing to mention about him is the fact that Don Shollander, who was swimming with Walt at the time, had a bit of a falling out and left the club to swim with George Haines in Santa Clara, CA. Several weeks later Don went on to set several American records - and Walter Schlueter never received the credit he deserved for all of the work and time spent with this young athlete.
Walt was an innovator, a perfectionist, and an eminently successful coach. He was originator of the rhythm method of teaching pace and the race pace/short rest/ broken swim method of training. He is best known as a coach of coaches, a stroke specialist originating dozens of stroke drills. “He was called a Dr’of The Stroke” Walt was also the master of efficiency, pacing and strategy.
Alex: What do you think was so special about Walt Schuster’s coaching?
I loved the way Walt Schlueter was conducting his practices here at the MAC: his workouts very efficiently organized, and always well thought out. Everything he did at the pool had its purpose. I believe that’s they way you should coach. The amazing thing was his timing, the flow, like watching all the ingredients melting down together like in a perfect recipe. All things there conformed to a single objective. It did not always look like a gold medal today, but every practice was like a set of bricks that were laid into a road towards the future result. One of my favorite Schlueter’s sets was “Turn 25” – 10 yards off the wall, flip turn, and race back into the wall, then ease up.
Gary: What was your favorite set as a coach in practice?
Every set has its purpose and I look at it as selecting the “right tool for the job”. However, if you insist, then I’d choose 10x100’s even pacing (Schlueter style-pacing skills), when to accelerate and when not to.
Gary: Ray did you have any past Olympians under your tutelage?
I worked with Carrie Steinseifer (pictured left) who later became an Olympic gold medal winner in 1984, Carolyn Woods (1964); Susie Habernigg (1980) Olympic team boycotted Moscow. I also worked on occasion with Cathy Jamison (1968 Olympian), but Olive Mucha deserves full credit for coaching Cathy while she was swimming at the MAC.)
I would like to mention a few other distinguished swimmers from the MAC that I worked with - John Kingery, Graham Colton, Ken Webb, and Matt Rankin.
Alex: did you remain close to any swimmers or coaches after you retired?
I recently received 55 Christmas cards from the athletes I coached when I got my first coaching position at Neah-A-Kah-Nee High School and the baseball team. They had won the 2-A classification but had to play the 5-A Jefferson High School team in Portland. I keep in touch with Anne Habernigg and Linda Dankin, who both achieved as H.S. All-Americans and later went on the Princeton and Law School at Harvard. Both ladies still stay in touch as does Cathy Jamison every once in a while.
Alex: What are you hobbies?
I stay busy with training of my racehorse, Bamby. I enjoy this very much.
Do you have any words of wisdom for us?
I believe in teaching swimming from competitive stroke perspectives right from the beginning, in the swim lessons. Teach specific skills as they relate to stroke mechanics rather than “kill time”.
Kids have to know their role and have an understanding of how to achieve their goals. Keep them connected to their goals, and communicate the importance of taking small steps daily towards that goal. Kids need to identify themselves with the objectives, and have to want to achieve. You can’t teach the desire to achieve, but you can teach them to “connect the dots” and those with the will to win and burning desire will make it happen.
Swimmers need energy, drive and commitment to succeed. You have to do what is necessary to get the job done and do a personal assessment of your talents. There are no short cuts, use the talent you have to the best of your ability.
Alex: Where would you like to see the MAC swim program go from here?
Collaboration is a very important word here. I would like to see more collaborative communication and effort among the coaching staff and administration of the Club. Everybody needs get on the same page and bridge their differences: athletes, their parents and coaching staff. The next step is to pull all their energy towards one goal, following the mission statement of the team, and focusing on achievements and excellence. MAC itself needs to ask the question “What’s the bottom line?” If a team has an Olympic potential swimmers, is there a mechanism to support their pursuit of excellence?”
Your motto?
There is no ’I’ in team.
That would sum up Ray Conlon as a coach, teacher, mentor, team player, motivator, politician, and “The Go To Guy”.
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