COLUMNS SPONSORED BY
GUTTERTALK
BY ANDY ROSS | PHOTOS BY PETER H. BICK
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO JOIN ISHOF’S ONE IN A THOUSAND*?
DALE NEUBURGER FINA Vice President [ PHOTO BY ISHOF ]
JESSE VASSALLO 1997 ISHOF Honor Swimmer [ PHOTO BY ISHOF ]
I believe in keeping history. To me, it is a huge honor to be a part of it, and I wouldn’t want that to ever go away. I want it to grow and it’s really nice to see it being rebuilt and recharged. For my big meet, we would drive up here to the Hall of Fame. It was always to come up here. I used to look through the cracks because it seemed like every time we came up, it was closed! We would look through the long windows and read as much as I could. I remember getting the chance to go inside and looking at the wall with all the cartoons and drawings on it. It was very inspiring, and I wondered what it would be like to be in there. To me, it was a great surprise when I got inducted. Being part of the boycott and not making the 1980 team…the ultimate goal for everybody is a gold medal, and to not be there, I thought (getting in the Hall of Fame) wasn’t going to happen. I was very happy when I did.
DAVID MARSH 2020 ISHOF Honor Coach [ PHOTO BY PETER H. BICK ]
The Hall of Fame is the one place where, not just records, but memories are kept for our sport. I think anything I can do to help support the memories and recognition that are so well-deserved and are not often recognized is something that I would hope I can do. It is with great hope with the new building of Fort Lauderdale and with the growth of our sport that has been trending well even during these COVID times. I would say even now with the need for our sport, it is as safe as we can get, and it is crucial to young kids in understanding goal-setting and delayed gratification.
SWIM MART
REACH LONG
KICK STRONG
NZCordz.com 800.886.6621
48
AUGUST 2021
SWIMMINGWORLD.COM
My first association with the International Swimming Hall of Fame was in 1967 as a freshman in college who came to Fort Lauderdale to train at the aquatic center. My association goes back almost 50 years to the college swim forum. It was such a wellestablished training situation at that time—it was really the only situation anywhere where college teams from the north came and trained in warm weather. That really established Fort Lauderdale as a center for aquatic sports and with the Hall of Fame as an anchor to that. So it would be impossible to train there for a few weeks without the pleasure of going through the museum and seeing its development. At that time, the people who were connected to the Hall of Fame were legends: Doc Counsilman, who began as the first president, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe. It was the Hollywood of swimming, so it was really exciting to be there.
JIMMY TIERNEY Head Coach, McKendree University (Lebanon, Illinois) I’ve always been enthralled with swimming history since I was a young swimmer. The Hall of Fame is the caretaker of the history of our sport and the center of all of that. Monuments, articles, equipment and apparel were all things that attracted me to go down there (to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and visit and soak up all that history. I have always loved that kind of stuff, and it’s the same in any sport for me. I love reading about the history of the great people who have left their mark on the various sports. I remember my early days of going to the Hall of Fame in the early ’80s—I was an age group coach at Lakeside Swim Club in Louisville, and I started at some juniors and zones meets there, and I loved the environment. I loved the closeness to the ocean and the sunshine that made that a very special place to have big meets. When I was there, we would go through the Hall of Fame and look at different things and try to find something new that maybe I didn’t know before. I even had one of my favorite races of all-time from the pool down there, which was the 400 IM between Michael Phelps and Erik Vendt at the 2002 nationals. I bring that up to other coaches, and other people have a similar feeling about that race. That has always been a special place from the swimming side, too. * See full-page ad on page 7.
