Embedded Files
Champs patches, '57 & '58
1957-58 NKAC State Swim Champs Patches and Swim Medal
1957-58 NKAC State Swim Champs Patches and Swim Medal
Donor: Gene Taylor, Class of 1958
Authors: Bob Goes and Gene Taylor, Class of 1958
Web Page Designer: Brayden Moeves, Class of 2024
HHS started a swim team 1955-56 with biology teacher, Howard Law, as their coach. Since Fort Thomas didn’t have an indoor pool (at that time), the boys had to practice three times a week at the Fenwick Club in Cincinnati or at the Covington YMCA. We would have to swim 25 laps using just our arms, 25 laps just kicking, 50 laps freestyle, followed by swimming races. Coach Law heard about a new “flip turn,” so without any instructions, the swimmers had to stay in the pool until we could all do this turn. Later, we found out it was only used in freestyle and backstroke races. Our team had good success with so little training. We learned about hard work, which was also fun and rewarding!
We would then go to the steam sauna, get dressed and eat snacks. The hard practices paid off. We won the 1957 Kentucky State Class B Championship and earned second place in the 1958 State Meet. We also won the 1957 and 1958 Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference Championships each year.
Featured in the display is a First Place 1958 Relay medal, as well as the KY State Champs Patch from 1957 and the NKAC Champs patch from 1958.
We aren’t sure of the exact reason (perhaps it was due to concerns about mold and fungus), but boys or men who swam in these pools had to swim naked. Thus, these sacrificial teenagers had to practice in their birthday suits. They also had to step into a pan of Clorox water to cleanse their feet of potential bacteria or fungus before stepping into the pool.
First Place relay medal
Pages from the 1957 HHS annual
Ken Glass was the star of the team, swimming all four strokes. Bob Goes was the backstroke swimmer and Elwyn Berlekamp swam breaststroke. All members swam freestyle. Team Captains were: Spencer Wadsworth, Lee Bryson in 1957, Ken Glass and Bob Goes in 1958. Other members of the team were: Denny McAtee, Jerry McAtee, Barry Roberts, Elwyn Berlekamp, Gene Taylor, Rob Stoneburner, Bob Bootes, Bob Heinze, Bruce Stanbaugh, Fritz Knapp, Al Fullmer, Charlie Dorsey, Ray Howard, Tom Beineke and R Boone.
We do not have any concrete evidence of when Highlands fielded our very first swim team, since we didn’t have a pool in Fort Thomas until the YMCA opened in the 1960’s. However, the Highlands Yearbooks from 1932, 33, and 35 had photos of a swim team. There isn’t evidence of a swim team again until the 1957 yearbook, which states that in 1956 we started the first swim team in many years.
1933 HHS Swim Team
Swim, Athletics, 1958, 1957, 1933, State Championship
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