Courtesy of swimming coach Kevin Murphy
Swimming in the 60’s and early 70’s was not very high-tech. Time data-bases? Never heard of them, just waited for Swimming World to come out each month. Lots of 20 yard pools, and 55 yard pools, 33 and 1/3 yard pools, odd-shaped pools, shallow pools, and lots and lots of age group swimmers. The only organized Summer sport offering for many kids in the 60’s was baseball, so lots of non-baseball kids did competitive swimming. “B” times, “BB” times, “A” times? What were those? Just lots of kids in the summer at AAU swim meets, with heat after heat after heat of 10 & unders and 11 & 12’s. Some Prelim/Final Meets in the Summer were so big, that the Finals began right after the last heat of Prelims, IN THE DARK, which meant racing in finals sometimes until after mid-night. Rules and regulations? Not too many. Cost of AAU swimming? $10 per month plus $1.50 for insurance. Certainly a different time.
1. Whoever heard of racing in goggles?
Maybe for practice….
Spitz didn’t race in them at the Olympics in 1972. Didn’t see anyone at the 1964 Olympics or the 1968 Olympics wearing goggles to race. Goggles, in the 60’s, were those big rubber goggles that you wore at practice to save your eyes from the 10 parts per million chlorine in the public pools we used for training. During practice you could go “cross-eyed” trying to see out of those goggles.
2. Wave-Killer lane ropes?
Never saw anything like those until 1968 at Loos Natatorium in Dallas, Texas. Lane ropes were actual hemp or nylon ropes with floating buoys every two or three feet. When you got tangled up in the “rope” you were really tangled up. It was a disaster.
3. Three practices per day in the Summer
Morning, Noon and Night.
Never mind taking off your Speedo all Summer, just sleep in it, shower in it, practice in it, race in it. If you did take it off, it was made of nylon, with rubber strips in the leg seams. Once you took it off, you could stand it up in the corner as the rubber strips tuned to rock as they rotted.
4. “Trophy” starts in the 60’s
Get in the water as flat as possible and try to start kicking while in mid-air.
Get your stroke going as quickly as possible. Lots of splashing means faster, right?.
“Streamlining”? What is “streamlining”?
5. Hand-held watches with a sweep-second hand.
No digital stopwatches and no touch pads and no electronic timing. Hilarious watching old people try to read the watches after your race.
**Big splash and head up at the finish, so the side finish judges and timers will think you have gotten to the wall, even though you may still be 8 or 10 inches away from touching.
A few arguments over times and “judge’s decisions”. Remember the “ballot” format.
Never saw a touch pad or electronic timing until Loos Natatorium in 1968.
6. Huge wood starting blocks.
Every pool was different.
A timer or a teammate would have to stand on the back of the block to make sure it would not fly up when you dived, or fall in on top of you on a backstroke start.
Better dive shallow or you would hit the bottom of many 3 and 4 foot pools that we raced in.
7. Heat times posted on the “time boards”
…behind each lane as soon as the timers did the math to come up with your “official” average time. Waiting by your block, after your race, until you saw the time the timers posted. Sometimes, the times moved when the wind blew and your time changed, from the official time posted on your blue or pink event “card”.
8. Six-beat kicking?
Almost everyone used a two-beat cross-over kick in the 60’s.
Overload pulling was the style. Don’t even know why we bothered to kick on a board at practice, since so few kicked 6-beat style when racing. Maybe it was just for leg torture and to build toughness. Anyone ever use a Ocean “wonder board” in the 60’s?
9. The ready bench:
Trying to “psyche-out” your competitors on the ready bench as you waited for your heat to move to the blocks. Lots and lots of mental games played at meets, waiting side by side, on the ready bench for your heat to come up to the blocks. Lots of mischief too on the ready bench: How about using rubber-bands to shoot paper clips at the single light above the ready bench, 20 feet in the air, with all of the other fifty 10 & unders waiting, and then being successful….the Clerk of the Course took me by the ear and walked me right down to our Head Coach. At 9 yrs old, at the very first meet I ever attended without my parents, I got to spend the rest of the meet , sitting on the ground, right by the Head Coach.
10. Best part of age group swimming in the 60’s:
Outdoor public park pools with lots of creeks and ponds.
Hunting for, and catching, turtles and frogs in the ponds and creeks, between events at the all-day Summer meets. Missed a few events that way and drove my Dad crazy!
Wonder why my own son seems to drive me crazy every day?
About contributor Kevin Murphy via Carroll Southlake
Coach Murphy has been coaching professionally, all ages, since 1979. He was an Oklahoma State HS Swimming Champion in the 100 breast in 1974 and went on to swim 3 years at Oklahoma State University, earning All-Big Eight honors each year. He was a United State Youth Delegate to the Montreal Olympics in 1976. He spent 6 years in the United State Naval Reserves, from 1977-1983. He earned a BS in Physical Education from the University of Tulsa in 1983. He is a member of ASCA, NISCA and TISCA. He has coached USA Swimming for 34 years, at all levels, and has been a Head HS Swim Coach for 28 years. Coach Murphy holds an ASCA Level 5 HS certification.
Swam AAU 60’s early 70’s, two year varsity college, then back to AAU as a coach swimmer for a couple of years. Maybe a bit earlier 60’s, but absolutely most of this is spot on. Three things I remember; whip kick was still legal for butterfly, everything about modern breaststroke would have gotten you disqualified, that odd sit and spin backstroke flipturn you had to do because one split second not on your back and DQ!
Swam novice meets in 1969 to 1970, and Bellflower Ca has a 33 1/3 pool Used googles in 1971 and the first 10,000 workouts show up at this time for your better senior age group swimmers. I had diffculty swtiching to grabbed start and use a modify older start. If the track start was available then it could have been much easier.
Swam novice meets in 1969 to 1970, and Bellflower Ca has a 33 1/3 pool Used googles in 1971 and the first 10,000 workouts show up at this time for your better senior age group swimmers. I had diffculty swtiching to grabbed start and use a modify older start. If the track start was available then it could have been much easier.
Kevin, Loved your article. Those were the days in the Will Rogers pool morning and noon and then downtown to the Kerr McGee pool for kicking.
How about water shows, clown divers, rings of fire on the water and sunburns!
Oh man. This is my favorite article ever. I lived all of this. Some of my recollections:
1. Starter guns. Some of them were pretty fierce – pretty big blast and a ton of smoke. I still have a few. They made the little kids jump!
2. Warm-up was a joke. There was no such thing as cool-down (and no facilities to accomplish it, usually) – you ran back to your friends, spazzed out, and then went to swim your next event. Lactic acid. What’s that?
3. Taper? Taper. Taper early on was pretty useless. Like one day of “going easy” in practice if you had a big meet that weekend. Today is taper day! Yay!
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Normally, we only had one timer with a stopwatch on each lane for high school dual meets. There was no averaging of multiple stopwatch times for a lane. I vividly remember getting on the blocks for the 400 IM and seeing what seemed like a swarm of timers with stopwatches (not to mention some photographers). I was racing against Dick Roth who held the world record (LCM) in the event and I assume multiple timers were needed in case his 400 IM (yards) was an American record.
(1) I’m not sure when pace clocks made a debut. That invention certainly helped swimmers become more independent and accountable. (2) Starting blocks at the shallow end of the pool, with a required water depth of 3 feet. (3) Collegiate AIAW meets with 25s and 50s until the advent of the first Big Ten meet, I think in 1971. (4j Women’s collegiate programs receiving far less support than men’s team.