Former Buckeye Swimmer Dies at Age 83 – Ohio State Buckeyes
1/5/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swim & Dive
Jan. 5, 2004
James “Doc” Counsilman, 83, one of the most innovative coaches in American swimming history, died Saturday after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Counsilman, who was the men’s swimming coach at Indiana from 1957 to 1990, was a 1947 graduate of the Ohio State University. At the 1942 national short course championships in Columbus, he won the 220-yard breaststroke while setting a national AAU record.
After flying 32 bomber missions with the U.S. Army Air Corps, he returned to Ohio State and served as captain of the swim team in both 1946 and 1947. Those two seasons, the Buckeyes won two of their 11 national championships. He won the Big Ten championship in the 200-yard breaststroke in 1946 and finished second at the NCAA championships.
Counsilman was a molder of champions, an inventor, a consultant, an author and an authority on exercise physiology and stroke mechanics. In 1979, at age 58, he swam across the English Channel. At the time, he was the oldest person to have done so.
He was the head coach of the U.S. men’s swimming teams that won nine of 11 gold medals in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and 12 of 13 in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The two gold medals that eluded Americans in 1964 were won by Australians who were coached by Counsilman at Indiana University. He coached the Hoosiers to six national team championships. Of his Indiana swimmers, 48 competed in the Olympics, representing 10 nations, and they won 46 medals (26 gold).
For more about the life of Doc Counsilman, visit: http://www.swiminfo.com/lane9/news/6469.asp
