The Cavalier daily :: Tuesday, March 3, 1970 :: University of Virginia Library

This past October 15,
Virginia's rookie swimming
coach, Ron Good, began to
lead his team through
long-distance workouts. The
following week, the tankers
were in the pool at 6:30 each
morning, and 3:30 in the
afternoons swimming five miles
daily, trying to get in shape for
the coming season. There was
no diving coach, and 28
swimmers were working out in
the small (4-lane, 25 yards)
pool at Memorial Gym.

Between Thanksgiving
recess and Christmas vacation,
Virginia swam its toughest
competition, and during that
period, the Cavaliers were
beaten by Wake Forest, 72-32,
in a meet that was to provide
incentive to the team for the
remainder of the season.

During the last week of
Christmas vacation, while most
students were enjoying the
holidays, the swimmers
voluntarily returned to
Charlottesville in order to
prepare for the bulk of the
season.

The Mermen also devoted
Semester Break to gruelling, daily,
double workout sessions.

The rigorous training schedule
paid off as the Cavaliers closed their
dual meet season with four
consecutive victories and a
respectable 7-3-1 overall record.

Next on the swimming schedule
was the State Meet. Although
Virginia was defending champion,
Coach Good decided not to enter
this year, and has since called his
effort. "The best move I ever
made."

Last Wednesday, the
enthusiastic Virginia coach, 11
swimmers, and four divers, (still
without a diving coach), travelled
to Chapel Hill for the Atlantic
Coast Conference Championship
meet. The Cavaliers had been
picked to finish sixth out of the
eight teams competing, but Coach
Good refused to pay any attention
to the "experts" and set his team's
sights on dunking Wake Forest for
fifth place.

Led by John Shrum, Gary
Chewning, Don Farmer, and Brian
Fuller, the tankers not only reached
their pre-meet goal, but almost
broke every existing Virginia swimming
record.

In setting a school record in the
200-yard backstroke, Farmer missed
qualifying for the Nationals by
two seconds with his 2:03.9 clocking.
His time of 57.1 in the
100-yard backstroke also broke a
school record, and was .5 seconds
off the pool record held by
Thompson Mann, the first human
ever to go under one minute in that
event.

Meanwhile, Shrum, Chewning,
and Fuller were, in effect, rewriting
the Virginia record books. The trio
combined to set new records in
both the 400 and 800-yard freestyle
relays, the 400-yard medley
relay, the 100,200, and 400-yard
freestyle events, the 100 and
200-yard butterfly, the 100 and
200-yard breaststroke, as well as the
200-yard individual medley.

The Virginia divers also performed
exceedingly well. Competing
against scholarship divers, Captain
J.I. Wainwright finished seventh in
the one-meter diving. His teammate,
Steve Remine, captured a
seventh place in the three-meter
diving competition, despite the fact
that Memorial Gym pool has no
three-meter board.

Coach Good pointed out an
interesting sidelight in the performances
of all the 200, 500, and
1,000-yard freestylers, as well as
the 200 and 400-yard backstrokers.
The Virginia mentor said that each
Cavalier who swam in the aforementioned
broke the school record
in those events. This means that the
no. 2 and no. 3 men were also
shattering school marks.

Despite all the record-breaking
performances, Coach Good still
managed to pick the highlight of
the meet for he and his swimmers.
It occurred on the final day, when
each team was being introduced,
Coach Good and the rest of the
team received a standing ovation
from all but two of the opposing
schools. The coach felt this was
quite an honor for a fifth-place
finisher.