Remembering President George H.W. Bush: Yale Swimming Fan

As President George H.W. Bush is honored today at his funeral in Washington, D.C., we found an old photo from SwimSwam photographer Tim Binning of Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush at the 2009 NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships.

Famously a passionate sports fan, the 41st president of the United States attended the national swimming championships, which were held at Texas A&M University in Bush’s home state of Texas. Bush, a Yale grad himself, was in attendance to watch Yale standout Alex Righi tie an American record in the 50 free and earn two All-America honors that year, per Yale. The picture above shows President and former first lady Bush at that 2009 meet.

Bush was not only a major sports fan, but an athlete himself. He played on the baseball team at Yale, leading the Bulldogs to play for two College World Series titles in the 1940s. In fact, his Yale teams played in the first two College World Series’ in 1947 and 1948. He stayed regularly connected to many sports, most notably Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros, according to AJC.com.

The elder President Bush was 94 years old when he died last Friday. His funeral services were today in Washington, D.C.

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running start to touch backstroke flags
5 years ago

So True. He is a war criminal many time over. Like Obama and W. Utter disasters to the world for U.S. imperialism.

BKP
5 years ago

“Best to remain silent and be thought a fool than comment on SwimSwam and remove all doubt”

Pvdh
Reply to  BKP
5 years ago

We already knew Steve was a fool

cynthia curran
Reply to  BKP
5 years ago

George H was a moderate more so than his son.

PVSFree
5 years ago

C’mon dude, you can disagree with his decisions and still realize he was a genuinely good human being. Besides, a swimming forum probably isn’t the place for political discussions (which happen with odd frequency here).

Pvdh
5 years ago

Don’t think man dignitaries would go out of there way to do that. RIP Mr. President

cynthia curran
Reply to  Pvdh
5 years ago

I was one of those people that voted twice for him. He did like sports.

Pvdh
Reply to  cynthia curran
5 years ago

So edgy

Mikeh
5 years ago

Awesome, great man. I want to say that John Kennedy was on the Harvard swim team.

Springbrook
Reply to  Mikeh
5 years ago

Correct about Kennedy. And here’s an article from Harvard’s student newspaper, in 1970, talking about his time on the swim team: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1970/10/21/harvard-coaches-recall-kennedy-as-frail/

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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