A Celebration of Life for American Olympian swimmer and former Air Force head swim coach Casey Converse has been confirmed for Friday, September 20, in Colorado Springs.
From his daughter Rosie:
Friday, Sept. 20, 12:30 pmShove Chapel, Colorado College, 1010 N. Nevada Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903(Plenty of parking at Ed Robson Arena, 1/2 block south of the chapel)
Reception to follow at Kinship Landing, 415 S. Nevada Ave.
Rosie says they plan to stream the event on Facebook for people can’t make it in person.
Converse died earlier this month after a long battle with cancer. The 66-year-old was a member of the 1976 U.S. Olympic Team when he was only 18 years old and later would go on to become the first man to break 15 minutes in the 1650 yard free when at the 1977 NCAA Championships he swam 14:57.30.
Courtesy: Family Photo
After college, he went on to a long coaching career, most famously at the United States Air Force Academy. He coached there from 1988-2017, leading the men’s and women’s teams from 1988-1996 and focusing on just the women’s team starting in 1997 as the school moved from D2 to D1 athletics.
In 2021, Converse was named as one of the 100 greatest collegiate coaches for the Collegiate Swimming & Diving Coaches’ Association (CSCAA) 100-year anniversary.
The winningest coach in Air Force history with a career record of 326-217 in 29 seasons leading the programs, including 5 women’s conference championships. He was the first non-military swim coach in the academy’s history and was inducted into the Air Force Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
In 2016, Converse wrote a book called Munich to Montreal: Women’s Olympic Swimming in a Tarnished Golden Era that told the story of the East German state-sponsored doping era at the 1976 Olympic Games, for which he had a front-row seat.
Since Converse died, a number of tributes to him have poured out across social media, including by his daughter.
Great coach and even better human. Thankful I got to train with him at the Academy in summer of ’92 and ’93. Was so encouraging to see a coach and athlete who could be tough as nails but still love God and others.
The picture of him in the CBY shirt! Chandler Branch (Mobile, AL) was a legend of a place back when. Let’s see: Casey, Larry Brown, the Brigham brothers, Buck Locke, Mark Kinsey… the numbers of excellence are too thorough for me to recall even half of them!
If you ever see the pool, you will find it the most unprepossessing place of all time. But circa ’69, for the Deep South, it was the fore of the tank builders’ art. We knew what we were in for when traveling that 150 miles east to go to a meet there.
The Y should be renamed…