Obituaries

Robert Raymond "Ray" Riordon, who founded the swimming program and Towson University and coached it for 30 years, died on April 23. He was 87 and living in Millsboro, Delaware. Riordon arrived at what was then Towson State in 1964, coaching cross country for three seasons. When Burdick Pool (then ca...

Hall of Fame coach Nort Thornton passed away Thursday morning in California, at the age of 87, after being hospitalized in March with a heart condition. His son, Marc, wrote in a public Facebook group: Hello “Nort’s” extended family. I am sad to notify you that Dad passed away at 8 AM this morning. ...

Suzanne Zimmerman Edwards, who won a silver medal in the women’s 100 backstroke at the 1948 Olympics, died on March 14. She was 95 years of age. Zimmerman was born in Lake Grove, Oregon, in 1925. She attended West Linn High School and Willamette University. At age 15, she joined the Multnomah Athlet...

19-year-old Chase Smith of Trafalgar, Indiana died Sunday, April 4 in his home with his wife Sadie by his side after a long, six-year battle with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare cancer of the bone and tissue. Smith had initially fought off the disease four times since being diagnosed in July 2014 according ...

Larry Rogers, who spent five decades coaching swimming and water polo at Bellarmine Prep in California, died on March 31. He was 74. Rogers has won more California Interscholastic Federation titles than any other coach, claiming 57 at Bellarmine from 1982 until he retirement in 2017. He also won wat...

Richard A. “Dick” McDonough, Villanova’s only NCAA champion and an American record holder and relay world record holder, died on March 31 in Savannah, Ga. He was 78. McDonough was a standout in high school at Seton Hall Prep, graduating in 1960. He won state titles and claimed gold at the Eastern In...

Clara Lamore Walker, who swam for the United States at the 1948 Olympic Games in London and is a Masters Hall of Fame honoree at the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) died at age 94 on Friday. She won three national championships, and later in life set hundreds of national and wor...

Passages: 1956 Olympic Gold Medalist Ursula Happe Dies at Age 94 ISHOF Honor Swimmer and 1956 Olympic gold medalist Ursula Happe of Germany passed away March 26, 2021 at the age of 94. In the decade of the 1950s, Germany had one female standout in international swimming. She was not only a great swi...

Olympic water polo player Ivo Trumbic died on March 12 at the age of 86 in Zagreb. The Croatian water polo player and coach was a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Trumbic was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale in 2005. Last year, he received th...

1976 Olympian Janis Hape Dowd passed away Sunday at her home in Charlotte, North Carolina after a battle with cancer. Janis Hape qualified to swim at the 1976 Olympics in the 200 breaststroke by virtue of her third-place finish at the 1976 Trials. At the Olympic Games in Montreal, she placed 25th in...

In a devastating blow to the tight-knit community of water polo players on the island of Puerto Rico, Jorge Gonzalez passed away last Friday at the age of 75. Among the first players to be recruited by Head Coach Harry Hauck to compete on the island’s nascent men’s team, Gonzalez was notable as one ...

Jacinto “Jack” Cayco, who represented the Philippines at the 1948 Olympics and won gold medals at the Asian Games, died Wednesday Feb. 17 at age 96. Philippine Swimming Inc. announced Cayco’s passing early Thursday. We are one with the swimming community as we mourn the passing of Mr. Jacinto S. Cay...

2005 Honor Masters Swimmer Burwell "Bumpy" Jones passed away last week February 6, 2021 at the age of 87, his family confirmed in a Facebook post. Jones was inducted into the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame in 2005. There is a masters meet hosted in his name in Sarasota, Florida every ye...

Harry Hauck, universally acknowledged for establishing competitive water polo on the island of Puerto Rico, passed away Saturday at the age of 91. “Harry Hauck no doubt is the grandfather of the sport of water polo in Puerto Rico,” said Carlos Steffens, who represented the island in the 1975, 1979 a...

Serbian swim coach Srdjan Filipovic, who was serving as the head coach of the Oman national swim team, died Feb. 5 at age 49. The Serbian Swimming Federation confirmed Filipovic’s passing. The Oman Swimming Association also released a statement mourning Filipovic’s death. Filipovic worked in his hom...

Dawn Fraser is an Australian Olympic icon. A four-time Olympic swimming gold medallist from 1956, 1960 and 1964. She rose from a scallywag (In Australian parlance: A person, typically a child, who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal) from the back streets ...

Legendary swim coach Harry Gallagher was the man solely responsible for changing the lives of so many Australians – a man who made a difference, a man who had the ability to get the absolute best out of his charges. A decorated life of Olympian proportions for a devoted husband, father, grand-father...

Swimming coach Albert ‘Bert’ Bell, a titan of the Caribbean swimming community, died on Jan. 16. He was 75 years old. Bell was at his home in Grand Bahama. He’s worked for decades tutoring many of the top Bahamian athletes, in cycling, swimming, triathlon and rugby. Those athletes include his sons, ...

Legendary Australian Olympic swim coach Harry Gallagher OAM – the mastermind behind Aussie swimming greats Dawn Fraser and Jon Henricks – passed away peacefully early today on the Gold Coast. “The Crafty Fox” as he was fondly known around the pool decks throughout his colourful 96 years was surround...

Ryder Wade, a freshman on Concordia University’s men’s water polo team, died Jan. 15 in an auto accident near campus. Wade was 18 years old. Wade was killed after leaving practice at the Woollett Aquatics Center. The motorcycle he was riding collided with a car in Irvine around 8:15 on Friday mornin...