Making waves

Alumni Bobcat swim team members recount memories at a campus reunion.

By Betsy Vereckey

Stanley Bloom says he could swim before he could walk.

No wonder, then, that he was one of the members of the first Ohio University swim team. In fact, the team boasted two Blooms: Stanley's twin brother, Norman, also competed.

In 1935, the team's first official year, the swimmers wore green tank suits and practiced in the women's pool. The team competed against swimmers from Case Western Reserve and Akron, among other schools. At one particular meet, the brothers noticed a swimmer from Case who posed quite some competition.

"I looked away for a minute and I saw he had come back already down the lane, and I thought, 'Didn't he just start?'" Stanley says, noting that the competing swimmer was trying out for the Olympics.

"We got beat all the time," Stanley jokes.

Norman and Stanley, now 87, swam for two years but left to serve in World War II. In 1941, Norman joined the Air Force and flew 35 missions in Europe. Stanley was also in the service, but he didn't leave the country because his military specialty was needed in America. He went to Florida as an instructor in combat swimming, teaching survival techniques to fellow servicemen.

This spring, the Blooms joined approximately 100 alumni to celebrate memories and relive old times at the fifth swimmers reunion. Alan Lephart, BSED '58, organized this year's get-together, he says, because the swimmers want to connect with old friends back at the place where it all began.

"We all celebrate that," Lephart says.

Even though Lephart's studies took him to Australia to teach for 30 years at the University of Melbourne, he has a soft spot for his time at Ohio University.

"I always feel a really warm feeling back here," Lephart says. "OU gave me my start as a teacher."

This year, Lephart spent hours researching records to organize the reunion. He found 1,100 names of swim team alumni who are still living. The alumni who made it back to campus this year took part in a June weekend full of good fun and long-lost anecdotes. The first reunion was organized in 1989 in honor of Bob Bartell, who coached the men's swim team from 1954 to 1960. Other previous reunions were in 1994, 1997 and 2000.

Unfortunately, there isn't an accurate account of how the team was started because each story differs. Lephart says that Jerry Hughes, the first coach, put an ad in the newspaper for swimmers to come and try out for the team.

"All I know is Coach (Bernard "Jerry") Hughes put out a bulletin for swimmers," Stanley Bloom says. "My brother and I reported and from there on, it's history."

"We were lucky," Norman adds. "We were in the right place at the right time."

Although accounts of the team's beginnings vary, one thing is certain: "Everybody there," Lephart says, "had a contribution to start the team."

Although swimming is the Blooms' passion, they came back to Athens like the other alumni to spend time with long-lost pals.

"This group didn't come here because they were swimmers; they're here because they're friends," Lephart says.

Betsy Vereckey, MS '04, is a former graduate student writer for Ohio Today Online.