Back to the Future With Jeff Kostoff’s 500 Free High School Record

PHOENIX, Arizona, February 11. THIS weekend at the 2013 Metro Championships, Good Counsel's Jack Conger took down one of the most iconic and historic national high school records ever — Jeff Kostoff's 1983 time in the 500-yard free.

Swimming World covered the swim extensively, with videos, already this weekend as Conger clocked a 4:13.87 to smash the previous record of 4:16.39 set by Kostoff for Upland High in California on May 14, 1983.

You can see a young Kostoff on a Swimming World cover back in the 1980s with fellow star Tiffany Cohen in the picture above.

Today, however, we wanted to take a time machine back to 1983 to remind some people of just the type of life we led when Kostoff set the record.

– Microsoft Word was launched, revolutionizing word processing forever
– A gallon of gas was $1.25
– Sally Ride become the first American women in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger
– ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, a U.S. defense information network, made the change to using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Or, in other words, the Internet as we would come to know it is born
– Swatch launched their first watches
– The final episode of MASH aired to a record 121.6 million viewers
– Cabbage Patch Doll collecting becomes the rage
– Popular films were Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Tootsie, Trading Places, War Games, Flashdance, Staying Alive, National Lampoon's Vacation and Terms of Endearment
– Top songs included Every Breath You Take by The Police, All Night Long by Lionel Richie and Beat It and Billy Jean from Michael Jackson.
– World leaders included the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
– Rick Carey and Ute Geweniger won Swimming World's World Swimmers of the Year

What are some of your memories from 1983?

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