![\"1-2-2048-25-George](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1-2-2048-25-George-Kistler.jpg\")
Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive: George Kistler, University of Pennylvania<\/p><\/div>\n
Kistler\u00a0had traveled to the US in 1891 hoping to find a position as a swimming instructor at a private athletic club. Unable to find a job in swimming, he found work as a\u00a0 coal miner until the promoters of the National Swimming Association saw him swim and learned his background. The NSA was building the Wayne Natatorium in a suburb of Philadelphia. When completed it wold be the largest concrete swimming pool in the world, measuring 500 ft long by 100 ft. wide.\u00a0 It had a fine clubhouse with changing rooms for ladies and when the “Nat” opened in July of 1895, a large crowd of amateur swimmers, representing the NSA, the Philadelphia Swimming Association, the New York Athletic Club, the University of Pennsylvania and a number of other organizations were present. It was indeed a gala occasion!<\/p>\n
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Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive – Wayne Natatorium, Wayne, Pennsylvania<\/p><\/div>\n
Two years later, Penn opened its pool in the basement of Houston Hall, a building designed as a recreational center for students. Where students could find relief from the rigors of study. In addition to the swimming pool, there was a bowling alley, pool tables and exercise rooms. \u00a0A university building dedicated to play\u00a0was a revolutionary concept for Universities at the time.\u00a0 With the building of the pool, the University also made it mandatory that students know how to swim, and to teach swimming it hired George Kistler\u00a0as\u00a0America\u2019s first collegiate swimming instructor.<\/p>\n
![\"HoustonKissler\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/HoustonKissler.jpg\")
Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive – University of Pennsylvania Houston Hall Pool<\/p><\/div>\n
On the occasion of Ladies Day at the university, on February 21, 1897 he organized the first swim meet in the pool that measured just 10 feet in width by 30 feet in length.\u00a0 The meet included exhibitions of the strokes used at the time: the breaststroke, side-stroke, Trudgeon and over-arm side stroke, by Professor Kistler, relay races and a water polo game pitting students at Penn against members of the NSA.\u00a0 Then in the Fall of 1897, Kistler organized the first Intercollegiate meet, featuring his Penn swimmers against swimmers from the New York Athletic Club who attended Columbia University.<\/p>\n
The next year, Kistler joined forces with\u00a0 James Sullivan<\/strong> (President of the AAU and namesake of the Sullivan Award) to organize the first \u201cNational\u201d collegiate championship as part of the AAU Championships at the Sportsmen\u2019s Show, in Boston, in March of 1898.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive – 1898 Sportsmen’s Show, Boston Mechanic’s Hall<\/p><\/div>\n Like our modern-day Olympic Trials, a temporary tank was constructed in Boston\u2019s Mechanics Hall and 14,000 spectators watched Penn beat Columbia in both swimming and water polo for the \u201cNational\u201d intercollegiate titles. The next year the Championship was contested again at the Sportsmen\u2019s Show, this time in New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden before another huge crowd.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive: The Sportsmen’s Show at Madison Square Garden, 1899<\/p><\/div>\n The star performer of both the AAU and College events at MSG was E. Carroll Schaeffer<\/strong>, America\u2019s first great swimmer and first great college swimmer. Swimming for the University of Pennsylvania from 1898 to 1902,\u00a0 he held every American swimming record from 20 yds. to 1 mile. Called “Midget’ because of his small stature, Schaeffer swam his way back from polio and weighed a scant 118 lbs. when he began his brilliant swimming career at Penn.\u00a0 Besides being a speed swimmer, he held the American record for swimming underwater (232 ft. 11 in).<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive – E. Carroll Schaeffer<\/p><\/div>\n Collegiate swimming was off to a great start. Yale and Harvard formed teams in 1900, while Cornell, the University of Chicago, the Armour Institute and the University of Wisconsin formed teams in 1901. Princeton, Brown, and Washington University of St. Louis were next take up swimming as a sport. But it wasn\u2019t until 1906 that Penn, Princeton and Columbia formed the first swimming league: the \u201cIntercollegiate Swimming Association.\u201d\u00a0 By then, the pools built for the sportsmen\u2019s shows were being used for motor boats and the Championships moved to the exhibition pools at the schools, like Penn\u2019s Weightman Hall, which replaced Houston Hall in 1904, and measured 30 feet wide x 100 feet in length.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy: ISHOF Archive: \u00a0Weightman Pool, University of Pennsylvania<\/p><\/div>\n This was the standard length until Steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie<\/strong> agreed to build what would become the finest swimming pool in America, if not the world.<\/p>\n \u201cYale’s Carnegie Pool\u00a0was conceived and designed with the idea of providing not only a place for students to bathe and perfect themselves in the art of swimming, but also an amphitheater where lovers of aquatics could congregate and witness contests of speed, skill and endurance in swimming, water polo and kindred sports.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"boston1900](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/boston1900-sketch.jpg\")
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