INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME
AQUATOTS MURDER CASE:
THE KATHY TONGAY STORY PA R T O N E BY BRUCE WIGO | PHOTOS BY I NTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME
We all want the best for our children—to see them grow up to become healthy, happy and successful adults. For many of us, teaching our children to swim well and love the water through competitive aquatics is an important part of the good parenting formula. But there are some parents— whether pushed by their own dreams or pulled by their child’s talent—who step over the line of having a positive, supportive and encouraging relationship with their children. In the extreme, this “support” can morph into emotional and even physical abuse that may not even be recognized at the time. But I doubt that in the annals of aquatic history, there has ever been an example of abusive parents like the story of “little Kathy Tongay.”
>> “The Water Babies” by Charles Kingsley was intended to be a satire of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”
I
had never heard of Kathy Tongay until early last month, when I received a call from Gail Roper, a 1952 U.S. Olympian and longtime ISHOF supporter. She called to tell me that upon seeing the spectacular 27-meters-high diving tower being built at the Hall of Fame pool in Fort Lauderdale, she couldn’t help but think of “little Kathy Tongay.” “Kathy who?” I asked. “Oh, surely you’ve heard of Kathy Tongay,” said Gail. When I sheepishly confessed my lack of recognition, Gail filled in the gap of my historical ignorance, and now I’m able to share it with you. “THE WATER BABIES” But before getting to Kathy, we need to go back many years before she was born in 1947—back to 1863 and the publication of a Victorian children’s novel and fairy tale, “The Water Babies” by Charles Kingsley. At the time of its publication, the idea of small European children learning to swim was pure fantasy. The book’s appearance also coincided with the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” and Kingsley’s book was meant be a satire on the theory of evolution. For as Darwin’s theory proclaimed that land animals evolved from water animals, one of Kingsley’s characters asks, “Why should not a land animal sometimes change into a water animal?” And, one wonders, how would this “strange 20
OCTOBER 2021
SWIMMINGWORLD.COM
>> The phenomena of baby swimming prodigies from the New York Evening World (1922)
