VMST Part 6: Personal Rememberances
In the March and April issues, I traced the team evolution in the 70s. In the LMSC newsletter (May), I dealt briefly with the development of the LMSC. I have received some wonderful feedback and this month's history story will deal with contributions from others.
David Gouger wrote that he remembers Dave Dutrow (swam and coached in Hampton) went to national meets in the very early 70s.
Chuck Wilmore
wrote that he attended most of the early UVA Swim Camps and
made a lot of wonderful friendships there. They include
Forrest Sullivan
,
Judy (Decker) Martin, Terry Sue Galt, Mike Stott, Nancy (Polisky) Miller,
Raymond Snead,
Tazewell Banks
,
Frank Murphy
, Frank and
Nancy Clark
, Donna
Murphy and many more. He said "I still think Masters swimmers are the
nicest people I know".
From Terry Laughlin. I was delighted to see I merited a mention from the early days of Virginia Masters. I don't recall the organizational meeting, but I do remember the early workouts, organized by Jim Miller at Briarwood. I was coaching the Briarwood age group team at the time and Ron Basso was my lead assistant. I recall swimming in those workouts about two evenings a week. Ron's wife Jessie also swam in them (Ron usually stayed home to babysit). I did most of swimming earlier in the day with Debbie Cain and Wout Kymmel, who were my most regular training partners. Charlene Burke (now Magee) had two sons on the age group swim team and was just beginning her involvement with swimming and triathlons. In the 20 years since, I've not had a swimming environment that I enjoyed more than that. Thanks for the memories.
From Ann Svanson , former DC Master, now chairman of Adirondack LMSC. Nancy Miller was the first "real" Masters swimmer I ever met. It was at a clinic that Jim put on in Syracuse about a year after I started swimming. There was an upcoming meet that offered only 50s and 100s and, having come from a running background, I couldn't imagine going to a meet to swim for 2 minutes as I only did free back then. A friend (fellow runner) and I decided to learn the strokes so we went to this clinic. Nancy came to the clinic with Jim. Boy, was she fast! We'd never seen anything like it! Little did I know that I'd be chasing her down the pool a few years later when we moved to DC!
Babs Carter wrote a short note and sent me pictures from the 1984 LC Nationals in Raleigh. I have not had much luck with getting scanned pictures light enough to show up in the newsletter. Anyone able to help out here? I have to get back with Babs to get her to tell us how she got started. Babs is living in Florida now, but still belongs to VMST.
From Marie Kelleher . My first National Masters meet was in Fort Lauderdale in 1983. Marie, our daughter who had been swimming with a D.C. group, had attended one of the earliest Nationals and had a good time. She heard about the Fort Lauderdale meet and told us that if I would agree to participate she and Bob, her husband, would fly us down. I remember Jim Miller, our coach at the time ,and Nancy there, but I don't recall how any of my events turned out. I think that was the meet where Judy Martin was waiting for her heat in one of the races while it was being run right in front of her. I also remember Nancy eating a huge hamburger not long before one of her heats because she said she was starved - I told her I couldn't believe she would do that - and I'll bet she never did it again. I do remember Deb Cain and her father who both competed.
Before Fort Lauderdale, at the first Virginia Golden Olympics I remember that Forrest Sullivan and someone else from the Virginia Beach area were there. I did not know them at that time, but they asked me if I was a member of the Masters and I told them that I didn't know what that was. At that time the Richmond group had not yet been organized.
We have had some enjoyable times at meets - local and national - and although I don't enter many anymore I enjoy the ones I do attend.
Editor's Note: I'd like to have more stories about how and why you started to compete. Who influenced you to try Masters Swimming? Not just from the 70s and early 80s - from everyone. (Betsy Durrant)
