Clay Parnell, David McCagg, Paul, Lee Anne Williams, Charlie Williams
Photo courtesy of The Fort Myers News-Press
Olympic Gold Medalist
The swim team in Fort Myers, Florida, had always been a summer league team. We started practicing when the weather warmed up the pool water; a heater wasn’t affordable. For most of the swimmers on the Fort Myers Swimming Association team, swimming was a good break from the summer heat and gave our mothers a short respite from us. The highlights were the swim meets where there would be lots of sweets that were justified to “give us energy” for the races that were mostly 25- and 50-yard events and less than a minute long.
Like many second-born children, I did whatever my older brother John did. When he joined the swim team, so did I. I was seven years old and he was nine; neither of us had ever been on a swim team. I knew how to swim from lessons; pools were for having fun not working out. What’s a “practice”?
The first day at practice was a rough one as the coach told us to swim 500 yards. “What’s that?” I asked a kid next to me.
He replied, “Twenty lengths of the pool.”
He might as well have said 100 lengths because that was more than I had ever swum in my whole life. To my amazement everyone jumped in and started swimming twenty laps, so I did, too. The first couple of lengths weren’t too bad but then exhaustion hit; I had never done something so hard.
After about six pool lengths complete fatigue set in. Everyone was swimming past me, and I stuck my head in the corner of the pool and cried. Tears of embarrassment, fear, and anger all came gushing out. The coach was kind and let me out for a while to rest, which was even more embarrassing as I watched kids my age complete the 500 yards.
There was no quitting the team as the dues had already been paid for the summer and John was going, which meant I had to go, too. My swim team goals now became either hiding from mom when she called us to go to the pool or misbehaving so badly at practice that the coach would make me take a time out on the bench. My new definitions of success were achieved on many days.
As it turned out there were three other boys my age who happened to be really good. Clay Parnell and David McCagg were both age-group state champions in their events, Charlie Williams top five in his, and then there was me: “the hack.” This must have been quite a dilemma for the coach, to have three great swimmers and the only option for the four-person relay was me. Ha!
Clay Parnell, David McCagg, Paul, Lee Anne Williams, Charlie Williams
Photo courtesy of The Fort Myers News-Press
For the next five summers, the four of us swam numerous relays together, winning many state championships and setting records. If there would have been a fourth swimmer anywhere near the caliber of the fast three, these records would probably stand today. On our medley relay, David would swim backstroke, Charlie breaststroke, Clay butterfly, and me freestyle, which was the only stroke I knew. By the time it was my turn to swim, we would have such a huge lead, all I had to do was finish one or two lengths of the pool, and I would go home with first place ribbons and trophies. When Clay or David weren’t available, one of my best friends, Richard Johnston, who was a great backstroker, would fill in and lead us off to fast starts. The relay winning was fun and kept me in the pool swimming each summer. Winning is always fun. If it hadn’t been for David, Clay, Richard, and Charlie I would have quit long before.
My lack of swimming enthusiasm continued over these five years, and the summer I turned twelve we decided not to be part of the team. Our family took an extended vacation and it didn’t make sense to pay the dues for only part of the summer. My parents didn’t get any complaints from me.
In the spring of 1970, we decided to be on the swim team again and practice started like every other year, except we had a new coach, Virginia “Ginny” Duenkel. She was young, tall, lean, pretty, and tan, with a big smile and even bigger laugh, who also happened to be an Olympic gold medalist from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics when she was only 16 years old, and had set multiple world records. What?! An Olympic gold medalist on our deck? This was a serious coach.Not only was I in complete awe of our new coach now standing on the pool deck telling us what to do, but had a big crush on her, along with all the other guys on the team. Ginny brought a serious training regime to our team that we had never known.
Our pool was only 3 feet deep on both ends and we had a bad habit of “walking our turns,” which was walking on the pool bottom to shorten the turn and rest a little, instead of doing a flip turn with a hard push off. After a short period of time, Ginny let us know that this was no longer acceptable at practice, and any time we walked a turn, or stood on the bottom, we had to start over the set. Everyone had to start over.
Typical swimming workouts are broken down into mostly short distances of varying strokes and rest intervals. These snippets of the swimming workouts are known as “sets.” With Ginny, our sets were now designed similar to an Olympic swimmer’s preparations, and had a purpose to each workout, and each workout fit within the weekly plan. We knew our new coach was serious about the training when one day doing a set of 3 × 1,000 yards (40 laps), someone (could have been me, probably was) walked a turn. Ginny promptly and calmly stopped everyone in the pool with a loud whistle and, with strong resolve, let us know that someone had walked a turn, and all of us were starting over the set of 1,000s. (Gulp, nothing like pressure from your teammates to stop bad habits, which affected everyone in the workout.)
Not only was this a very difficult set for any of us to complete, but now we had to start over because we hadn’t followed her directions for correct training. Wow! She was really passionate about proper form during workouts, and there was also now peer pressure to train right, which developed a new “team” atmosphere. With this new purpose, we all started working harder together to achieve goals we never thought possible, and to make Ginny proud.
This same season, a new swimmer my age joined the team. His name was Jeff Evans. Jeff was the state record holder in my best events, the 400- and 1,500-meter freestyles. My whole swimming world had been rocked. Workouts were very hard and tough, and there was absolutely no messing around if you wanted to be on the team. And now each workout I was crushed by the best distance freestyler in the state. There was no more showing off, or goofing around. I could either embrace these changes as challenges and opportunities or quit. I became engaged and started training hard for the first time in my life. Staring me in the face every practice was the realization that I had a long way to go to be competitive. In fact, “reality” was leading my lane and had a name: Jeff Evans.
During the years that Ginny coached the team, money was raised and a pool heater and covers were purchased and installed. We were no longer just a summer league team, and now trained year-round.
During these two years, Ginny taught me a lot about training, hard work, and achieving goals that I would have never thought achievable. One of the most important stroke lessons that she insisted we learn was to bilaterally breathe. Bilateral breathing means to breathe equally on the left and right sides of the body while swimming freestyle. Within the rhythm of moving your arms forward, this means to take a breath every 3 strokes, i.e., take a breath on the right and then stroke right arm, stroke left arm, stroke right arm, breathe on the left, stroke left arm, stroke right arm, stroke left arm, breathe on the right, and so on. What I didn’t realize as I struggled with this new swimming technique was that ten years later, bilateral breathing would be one of the most important skills I could have ever learned for open water racing. What a gift I had just received.
Ginny Duenkel was an angel sent to help me get ready for competitions so much bigger than I could ever imagine. I just didn’t know it yet.
Ginny Duenkel Fuldener lives in Monett, Missouri and continued coaching until just recently. She continues to compete in pool and open water swimming competitions.
Photo courtesy of Ginny Duenkel Fuldener