Pool of Champions

In East Campbell Avenue in Phoenix, nestled comfortably in a residential area, surrounded by oleander bushes, bursting with physical energy and athletic activity, is a robust enclave stressing one man's philosophy on the meaning of the word “championship.” The man's name is Dick Smith; the enclave is DICK SMITH SWIM GYM.

More and more, national and international sports' attention is focusing on both the man and his enterprise. Why? Because each year Dick Smith manages to turn out amazing divers who walk off from competitions as champions and near-champions. In the past three seasons, 17 divers from Swim Gym have placed first in worldwide competitions. The 1962 National Championships saw Smith's girl divers cop six of twelve possible medals - an astounding accomplishment. Breaking down his record even finer, in Olympic Development, International, Senior and Junior Nationals, 70 of Smith's 80 entries finished as finalists!

Patsy Willard, a Mesa girl and protege of Smith, is an Olympics champion, having placed fourth in the 1960 Olympic Games. She continues a rugged training course each day at Swim Gym, along with many others, aimed at the 1964 Olympic Games in Japan in October.

Patsy is by no means atypical of the divers found at Swim Gym. In 1963 Smith played host to the Japanese divers who most likely will face his own entries in the Olympic Games. The three expert divers, accompanied by their coach, wished to exchange ideas and to train in the same area where Smith's top divers were perfecting their techniques.

Each summer, high school and college students from all over the world, Down Under, the Orient, South America, and from distant states, Alaska and Hawaii, take advantage of their school holiday to flock to Swim Gym and learn more about diving.

One father wrote from New Zealand, after seeing Smith's divers perform, and asked if it would be possible for his son to train at Swim Gym. This letter and Smith's return communication, which answered simply that there be no problem, is a fairly routine exchange for the diving coach and the countless people he has managed to impress with the result of his training methods. Paul Gazely, the young man from Australia, is now an honor student at Arizona State University.

Smith makes arrangements with Phoenix families to board his out-of-state trainees with little effort. In fact, everything about the man and his operation appears painfully effortless and simple as is so often the case when things are actually exacting and complicated. Making them appear otherwise is the mark of the master.

But to discover how and why Smith manages to turn out his champions, it's necessary to know something about the man, for Smith and his philosophy of life are inseparable components of his winning achievements.

Dick Smith, now in his mid-forties, is that rare bird on the contemporary Arizona scene a native born Phoenician. He's short, ruggedly constructed and wiry,

DICK SMITH'S SWIM GYM By TIM KELLY The Pool of Champions

WHERE EVERYONE CAN BE A CHAMPION - And Many Are!

Giving the impression he's taller than his 5' 41/2", and heavier than his actual weight (138 pounds). A good idea of the man's will to succeed and bend for tenacity can be gleaned from a childhood experience. Barely into his early teens, Smith injured himself severely by taking a high dive that miscarried. So bad, in fact, was the bodily damage that after many months of bed care and partial paralysis, his doctor decided that the quiet life, free from excitement and physical exertion, would be Smith's fate."

I think that accident was the turning point in my life. In more than one way. I loved to dive and swim, but after the accident something terrible happened - I began to be afraid of water. I knew if I didn't get back to it, and soon, I'd probably never swim or dive again. I had to conquer my own fear."

It was a painful and somewhat terrifying rehabilitation. Physically he hadn't completely recovered; mentally the fear of water was growing stronger. But gradually, over a period of some three years, Smith managed to conquer his innere Schweinehund, the coward lurking in the soul of every man. It was, also, three years of silence, for his parents assumed that the doctor's advice was being adhered to, and until they read one day in a local paper that Smith, then 16, had won, hands down, the junior and senior springboard title in the Arizona State Championships, they had no idea of their son's personal struggle to win over himself.

This conquering experience is revered by Smith to such a degree that is can be considered the cornerstone of his training methods. Even the publicity for his new "Desert-Sun Athletic Club," a family-styled mecca for good health, expounds his viewpoint: "We ask the individual to compete with himself not the world. And to satisfy himself not the spectators."

If anyone wonders how Smith is able to produce champion after champion in the diving field, they would do well to consider his comments.

"There can only be one winner in a contest, but there can be many champions. Every kid I get into the pool is competing against himself and he will do so for the rest of his life. I'm not interested in champions the way most people use that term but I am very concerned with what these kids will be twenty years from now. I want them to be ladies and gentlemen. I can take my kids anywhere, New York, Chicago, and and know they'll behave like young adults."

Dick Smith graduated from Phoenix Union High School in 1935 and went on to achieve a Bachelor and Master of Arts degree in Physical Education from the University of Southern California.

There is still much of the professional educator about Smith, unquestionably due to his career with the Los Angeles County Board of Education as coordinator of corrective physical education, as well as the more standard physical education programs.

"If there's one thing Smith frowns upon it's the attitude found in many Departments of Physical Education in countless schools that of catering everything to the talented few, of ignoring the athletically shy youngster, of aiming everything at spectator response, whether that response come from the stands of a football stadium, the bleachers surrounding a basketball court, or from the watchers at a diving competition. Smith's concept makes athletics the tool of the active participant not of the spectator. In fact, as far as Smith is concerned, the spectator can go dive.

The approach, naturally, is straight from the concepts of early Greek and Roman civilizations. Smith doesn't play with physical education. He's as fully able to discuss it from any angle, as he is to practice what he preaches. (He was a competitive diver himself for many years.) Pen in hand, stating his viewpoint: “This concept (physical education for the participant, not the spectator) was forfeited in the pell-mell rush to capitalize on athletics by transforming them into popular entertainment and eulogizing a cast of performers limited to a chosen, athletically-apt few. With physical education thus degraded, the athletic steam drained out of the great majority of Americans who lack the talent to make a ‘team.’” Smith aims to restoke the fires that will create that steam.

This world-famous diving instructor is no dreamer, nor does his background training cast any shadow of doubt on his ability; it enhances it instead. His two degrees, coupled with lengthy teaching experience, would appear to be ample experience for his present role, but he also served, on and off, many years as the company manager for Buster Crabbe's Aquaparade; he is a Reserve Lieutenant Colonel, the commanding officer of Air Force Reserve Squad 9621, one of Arizona's four Air Reserve Squadrons. And when it comes to athletic organizations that have Smith serving in one capacity or another, the list, like the record of diving champions he has produced, goes on and on. And on. (National Chairman, Age Group Diving; Vice President, National men's Diving Committee; President, American Coaches Association; Member, Women's National Diving Committee, etc.).

Yet there are many aspects of Smith's establishment that rarely come to public attention. His name and that of Gym Swim are associated with champion divers, and it often comes as considerable surprise to many when they discover that far from being interested solely in divers, Swim Gym is a miniature city interested in many pursuits.

The gymnasium, and Swim Gym is exactly this — in the truest sense of the word, is a collection of rooms, schools, and practice areas that surround a swimming pool, one not of Olympic specifications. It does meet the standards of the National Indoor Short Course, being 25 yards by 40 feet, in contrast to the Olympic size, 55 yards with a minimum width of approximately 44 feet.

One thing strikes the observer instantly when he scans the pool. Although the water is hosting active people, young and old (the youngest Smith has taken was slightly under 18 months, the oldest slightly over 87), no one is just swimming, for no one comes simply to play; there are numerous pools in Phoenix for people who want that. Swim Gym, however, is not one of them. At one end of the pool, tots will be splashing and stroking to the authoritarian yet reassuring tones of instructors, half-way point is taken with divers, perfecting form, hitting the water, out and on the springboard once again in no time, nearly always to the shouts of criticisms of Smith, whose eyes never leave the individual diver.

"You have to control your body. Mechanical aspects cannot take care of themselves. You have to do it for them."

The youngster, on a whistle from Smith, dives, his head bobbing from the water in a fraction of a second, waiting for his instructor's comments.

"That's what happens when a diver looks down at the board. You ruin your dive. Don't look down at the board that can be very dangerous. Again."

The student repeats his dive, making certain that Smith's criticisms are respected.

"Be proud of your hands and arms make them look good."

"Stretch your stomach and squeeze tight."

"What makes you think you do a double twist in the opposite direction?"

"Keep yourself together a small package. Don't look like scrambled eggs!"

What does Smith look for in a diver? In his own words, "I look for a tremendous desire to learn, heart, willingness, the ability to stick. I would rather have a kid who has these things than a well-coordinated diver who hasn't. I give every child the same treatment, whether he's talented or not. Most times talent real talent won't show up for at least 2 to 3 years."

The far end of the pool is very likely to be occupied by a class in scuba diving. So far, Smith hasn't been able to work in a class in water skiing, but the idea wouldn't be surprising to those who know this dynamo. His new Desert-Sun Athletic Club, however, will have such activity, as well as fishing, hunting, and winter sports.

If the casual observer at Swim Gym hears thuds and groans, they're most likely coming from the judo classes, which are housed in a long low room at the far end of the establishment. On the staff is Maurice Lenninger, of Paris, France, holder of the Black Belt Degree, and one of the world's foremost instructors in judo. If music is heard, chances are it'll be coming from the adjacent room a dance studio, and if the place is suddenly swarming with energetic tots, they've come straight from Swim Gym's kindergarten, a novel innovation in pre-schooling, stressing a program that devotes half the day to academic pursuits and half to physical education.

To the rear of the judo and dance studio is an enclosed area for gymnastics, acrobatics, and muscle development. Every portion of Swim Gym is animated and it never seems to close. (Actually the health colony is open 7 days a week. In the summer from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and in the winter from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., long days, and Smith always seems to be in attendance, too.) "I have the finest instructors in the business. I go anywhere and everywhere to find them. They all have degrees in Physical Education. They've all taught previously and they are all proficient in their individual field."

Swimming coach Walter Schlueter was the U. S. Pan-American swim coach in 1950 at Buenos Aires.

His swimmers have set five world records, thirty-five American and National Records and won 26 National Senior championships. The international team sent to Europe in 1961 featured two Schlueter swimmers who managed to take five European titles between them. Smith points out that Schlueter's claim to personal fame has always been the 100 free style, and his swimmers have won the national title in this event ten times.

Schlueter, too, is a champion.

Smith and Schlueter, through combined efforts, hope to make Phoenix the world's swimming and diving capital. The community's stand-behind efforts and support indicate this will be accomplished soon.

Perhaps one of the most noteworthy aspects of Smith's Swim Gym is in the field of Remedial Swimming. The health Mecca has a steady stream of participants who take full advantage of Smith's rehabilitative knowledge and programming.

The Remedial Swimming course offered and supervised by Smith is one of the very few in the country. Sufferers of arthritis, muscular dystrophy, polio and like afflictions find Smith's pool not only a therapeutic blessing, but a place with plenty of heart and understanding. They, too, as Smith points out, are fighting a battle with themselves aiming to be champions.

Smith has carefully analyzed the reasons that parents bring their children to him for diving instructions, and

Discipline, dedication and hard work mean classic form and grace for divers

His conclusion is that there is not one single reason but four.

"Usually parents will bring the child here because the kid loves to dive and they're afraid that if the child doesn't learn to do it correctly, he'll get hurt." To this, with a beaming smile, Smith adds, "Remember what happened to me?"

The second reason according to Smith, "The child may have poor co-ordination. Now diving certainly isn't going to correct this especially if there is any serious medical reason for the co-ordination deficiency, but in many cases it can be of decided aid. Bad posture is another reason I get the kids. Diving, you know, is really fine for this problem. I think it's the greatest device for aligning the body toward symmetrical development."

The fourth reason is simple enough. The parent or parents will say, 'He loves to dive. Train him. Make him a champ or something close to it."

There is a colorful side of Smith that bears investigating. He has stated when other interviewers have sought out his secret for producing champion divers that no exercise is truly worthy unless courage, desire and wit are part of it; that what must be created is an individual not an animal of remarkable strength. The word wit is very much a part of Smith's champion philosophy, and the story of his experience at Lodi, California, about seventeen years ago has given an unusual insight into Smith the man, as well as Smith the diver.

A sizeable crowd had gathered to watch an aquacade but found to their chagrin that things were turning out sadly, for the water tank mechanism failed. So, to save the day, Smith dived from a four-meter platform into, of all substitutes for a pool a wine cask!

As a youngster, Dick Smith was so intent on becoming a top diver that he slept with his legs braced and forced together by roped wooden planks. He hoped this would help to straighten out his bowed legs. In the western tradition - cowboy legs.

The effort, laudable in the Spartan sense, didn't, however, succeed. His legs are still at home on the range, but Smith was undaunted and determined.

Determination is still with him today.

The training methods employed by Smith to create his winning divers are exacting and tough. When a diver places himself or herself under Smith's tutelage, it's a serious step. About the only time Smith loses patience is when he discovers a diver is not serious, but merely amusing himself. As soon as this attitude is discovered for what it is, the diver is on his way to the municipal swimming pool.

Olympic national champion, Patsy Willard, gives a fair idea of the discipline Smith expects.

"I came here when I was 13 (Patsy is now 22), and I think my life has been completely intertwined with Dick's diving instruction. In the summer I practice 7 hours a day, 61/2 days a week. In the winter, of course, I'm in school so that cuts down my practice time. (She is a student at Arizona State University, where she is majoring in Physical Education.) But I manage at least 4 hours a day during these months."

Patsy came to Swim Gym for the same reason the Japanese team traveled to Phoenix - Smith's divers had been seen in action and made a strong impression.

What is Patsy's summation of Smith as a coach?

"Well, I've worked with many some of the best. But Dick is the top diving coach in the country. All you have to do is look at where his divers place in competition."

"Patsy," Smith recalls, "wasn't being groomed for the 1960 games. I was aiming for 1964. But she was good. Very good. She was anxious and so was I. I told her it would be tough, that she'd have to give up all the extra nice things a girl in school might think important, and she'd have to work hard harder than she had ever worked before. She said she wanted a chance for the '60 games and we began."

The will of the champion can be illustrated by two circumstances that plagued Patsy before the Olympics. Three weeks prior to the National Championships, which were held in Indiana, she struck her head on a springboard and was severely cut. She did not, however, withdraw, and eagerly faced her challengers who had no idea Patsy was diving with a surgical sponge secured under her bathing cap.

And she won.

As if this mishap weren't enough, prior to the Olympic tryouts in Detroit, Patsy contacted influenza, but again she went to the board, ignoring, as much as possible, a situation which would have floored most divers. She managed to place second, competing against 60 top divers from all parts of the country. This, incidentally, was the first time only the two top divers, instead of the usual three, were taken for the Olympic team.

After winning her position on the team, Patsy came under the directorship of a personal friend of Smith, Dr. Sammy Lee. She left for Rome after her training period and placed fourth. Fifty-eight countries were represented. First place went to Germany, second to the United States, third to Britain, fourth also to the United States (Patsy). She trains steadily with Smith, aiming for her great-est chance the 1964 Olympics in Japan.

Barbara McAlister Talmage is another diver who bears watching. "Right now," states Smith, "I'm going full speed ahead, aiming everything toward the 1964 Olympics."

Barbara, who became the three meter springboard champion in the Senior Nationals held in Chicago, the 10-meter national champion North Carolina, and PanAmerican champion at Sao Paulo, Brazil, will join Patsy as a favorite from the entries Smith will present, but there are other names, not as well-known as Willard and Talmage who Smith feels will supply some surprises.

Jeannie Collier, 16 years old, youngest of Smith's National champions, was winner of the 1963 National 3-meter championships. Another Smith protege, Nancy Poulsen, 17, placed second in the Pan-American Games.

Girl divers seem to gather more attention than Smith's male contingent, but this is due to the fact, as Smith points out, that there is no collegiate diving program for girls, while there is for boys. Some eastern schools have started some, but for the most part a girl diver must be trained outside the college.

Smith has high hopes for his male divers because of the emphasis in competitive swimming and diving at Arizona State University where Smith and Schlueter are diving and swimming coaches. Smith was nominated 1963 Coach of The Year by the American Swimming Coaches Association and will coach the Women's Diving team in the Olympic games this year.

Smith's divers started collecting records in 1960 with 1963 the best year in National and International diving competition. The peak of a year high with winners was the first, second and third place medal sweep at the Pan American games at Sao Paulo, Brazil. Patsy Willard won a Gold Medal and Barbara McAlister Talmage earned Silver Medal awards.

Swim Gym girl divers won every National tower and springboard championship in the U. S., taking every first, second and third place medal except one second and one third.

Women's Diving Team, Dick Smith Swim Gym placed six selections. In the Men's Division the DSSG divers received three selections.

The year 1964 promises to be Swim Gym's golden year to date. Bernie Wrightsen and Patsy Willard were the only two U. S. divers invited to the Canadian Open National Indoor Championships at Vancouver, British Columbia, held February 28-29. Both DSSG divers took top Championship honors in the 1 and 3-meter classes.

In his training methods, Smith is a realist as well as an artist. His personal attitude regarding form is one of beauty and symmetry, but realizing the fact judges are frequently impressed by bravado, pyrotechnical displays and gyrations that do not break form, he instructs his divers in the fancier display techniques, while impressing upon them the worth of the aesthetic over the flamboyant.

His divers, then, can do many things. They have

Out of twelve possible places on the All-American

They have been drilled in the classical tradition, but they can meet almost any competition on any level. Balance, a firm foundation in rudiments and basic principles (one of Smith's favored admonitions to his divers, "You can't go on to Algebra 2 until you've mastered Algebra 1, and I mean mastered.") and an exacting practice schedule that knocks from them almost everything except the knowledge championship diving requires hard work, all combine to produce Smith's desired results.

This "healthy respect" for basic fundamentals is drilled into every student. In that gymnastic park to the rear of the judo and dance studios are practice springboards, barely elevated over low mounds of sand. Here the student-divers practice and practice, until they have been thoroughly indoctrinated in two of Smith's concepts for diving form: fluidity and body grace.

Many beginners are overly anxious to begin practice diving into the water at once, but they must wait until Smith decides they are ready before they seriously begin their in water training.

He painstakingly hammers away at work he considers "sloppy," and although he does instruct his students in the before-mentioned showy type of style, he discourages tricks or devices that look good on the surface, but are likely to give the diver a false sense of acquatic security.

To the end of eliminating any flim-flam that will eventually work against his divers, he often weights himself down and sinks to the bottom of the pool where, through a mask, he studies the diver's weak spots and strengths.

He is most particular regarding "Dive to the Bottom." This makes reference to the entry of the body into the water, but more specifically its path to the bottom of the pool.

"I don't feel that it is proper technique for a diver to The idea will undoubtedly perplex, mainly because, like so much about Swim Gym, it is not the usual. For that matter, neither is the record of diving champions Smith has brought forth. The record is decidedly "unusual."

But if the proposal is unorthodox, the close to 4,000 men, women and children who have utilized the services of Swim Gym this past year, don't seem to mind, they seem to benefit.

These 4,000 were involved in 35,000 class hours of teaching and training.

Describing Swim Gym's allure, one writer has written: "The desert city of Phoenix has 10,000 pools, but swimmers and divers and dunkers crowd into one of them as if it were the only water hole west of the Pecos."

Champion divers trained by Smith are the most publicized aspect of this teacher and his gymnasium, but it is the power emanating from Smith's philosophy of physical education that has done so much to create them.

Rather or roll his entry," known today as the "Save" and yesteryear as "The Cheat."

Smith, naturally, is a non-conformist in the physical education field, and he is fully prepared in argument, debate and practice to defend his position.

"We can't rely on departments of Physical Education in the schools to deliver the end-products any more than we can expect them to continually turn out top divers. We know they simply don't. I'm all in favor of President Kennedy's fitness program, but it depends on how the program is carried out. Exercising so many minutes each day can be good or bad. What exercises? How are they supervised? A brief exercise session daily can be beneficial or it can be drudgery. We farm out laundry, we take out cars to a garage to be tuned up, we take various lessons for various things at commercialrun schools, so why not farm out physical education, too?"

Smith believes in his ideas and since the old adage states that proof of the pudding is in the tasting, or - more to the point the proof of the teacher's worth is the sum of his pupil, he is understandably confident.

"Let me point out something," said Smith, handing me a booklet outlining his concepts: "My definition of a champion is not in the sports headlines. It is in the individual who, believing in the proven resources of his body, strives to exploit them to the fullest capacity. He is a champion to us when he wins that victory in competition with himself."

Dick Smith's entries in the 1964 Olympic Games tryouts, to be held in New York City in September, will undoubtedly write some interesting footnotes. One can safely expect Smith-trained divers will represent Old Glory with distinction in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in October of this year.