Howard Firby Inducted Into Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame

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OTTAWA, Ontario, January 22. ONE of Canadian swimming's great craftsmen, Howard Firby, will be inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame. The Canadian Olympic Committee announced today during a press conference that Firby would be recognized amongst Canada's legendary coaches.

"We are very proud to have one of our peers receive such an honor," said Pierre Lafontaine, CEO and National Coach for Swimming Canada. "Howard's coaching methods are still relevant today. He was a great teacher with attention to details on technique and his methods have become the basis of coaching swimming."

The Hall of Fame Gala & Induction Ceremony will be held in Vancouver on March 26.

Born in Alabama and raised in Saskatchewan, Firby grew up to become one of Canada's most successful swimming coaches, making Canada a force in the pool for years. After contracting polio while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, he studied kinetics and anatomy with the goal of preparing himself to walk again. His new knowledge of the human body, coupled with his knowledge of aerodynamics from his time in the RCAF, would prepare Firby for his first job as a swimming coach at the Vancouver Amateur Swim Club in 1947.

Firby co-founded the Canadian Dolphin Swim Club in 1956, a club that quickly became a national power, winning the Canadian team championship six times between 1961 and 1967. Those teams won 100 events over that time and set 300 Canadian senior records. At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, the vast majority of the women's swim team were members of his Dolphin Swim Club.

Firby was the head coach of the swimming teams that represented Canada at the 1958 British Empire Games, the 1964 Olympic Games, and the 1966 Commonwealth Games. He coached such Canadian swim greats as Elaine Tanner (three medals at the 1968 Olympic Games) and Mary Stewart, who was the 100m butterfly champion of Canada, USA, Britain, and the British Commonwealth.

In 1970, he left coaching to become the technical advisor and director of the Canadian Amateur Swimming Association. He also published a guide for swimmers and coaches, entitled Howard Firby on Swimming, in 1975.

As a full time commercial artist, Firby used his drawing expertise to revolutionize the art of coaching swimming. His unique drawings and ability to illustrate the strokes from a variety of angles clearly showed how crawl swimmers and backstrokers naturally roll the body on its long axis while butterfly and breaststroke swimmers rotate the body up and down on its short axis like airplanes taking off and landing. Firby's book "Howard Firby on Swimming" (1975) published by Pelham, London, which he illustrated himself, became a classic and is a collector's item.

Firby was inducted into British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1977 and into the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1979. In 1985, he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He passed away in Vancouver in 1991.

Special thanks to Swimming Canada for contributing this report.

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