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{"id":505148,"date":"2022-05-11T11:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=505148"},"modified":"2022-05-11T11:00:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T18:00:54","slug":"passages-dick-fadgen-ncaa-champion-and-long-time-swim-coach-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/passages-dick-fadgen-ncaa-champion-and-long-time-swim-coach-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Passages: Dick Fadgen, NCAA Champion and Long-Time Swim Coach, 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passages: Dick Fadgen, NCAA Champion and Long-Time Swim Coach, 86<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Dennis \u201cDick\u201d Fadgen<\/strong>, an NCAA champion and American record-holder before a long coaching career, died on May 7 at age 86.<\/p>\n

Born in Rhode Island, Fadgen made a long career in the South, as a distinguished swimmer at NC State, then as a coach at the University of Memphis.<\/p>\n

Fadgen was a six-time All-American at NC State, graduating in 1958. He won NCAA titles in the 200 breast and 200 fly at NCAAs in 1956, just the second and third in program history<\/a>. He\u2019s also one of just 11 Wolfpack swimmers to win American championships, winning seven in total across all sanctioning bodies (NCAA, AAU, etc.).<\/p>\n

Fadgen won eight ACC championships: The 100 breast in 1957 and 1958, plus three-peating in the 200 breast and 200 fly from 1956-58. NC State won the ACC team title in 1956. He was a 1957 nominee for the Sullivan Award as the nation\u2019s top amateur athlete. He set a world record in the men\u2019s 220-yard breaststroke in 1954 at a meet at Yale.<\/p>\n

In the pool, Fadgen came within a tenth of a second of being an Olympian in 1956, officially listed as an alternate for the Melbourne Games. He set an American record in the 200-meter breaststroke in prelims of Olympics Trials in Detroit<\/a> at 2:44.0. But in finals, he finished a tenth of a second behind Robert Hughes<\/strong> in 2:44.5. Only Hughes made the Olympics, \u201cselected as member of three-man group to represent the United State sat Olympic Games, in Breaststroke-Butterfly.\u201d (It\u2019s worth recalling that breaststroke and butterfly were still diverging as strokes in that decade<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Fadgen represented the United State at the 1955 Pan Am Games in Mexico City, finishing eighth in the 200 breast, one of several international delegations he was part of.<\/p>\n

Fadgen touched numerous lives as a coach for decades. A teacher at the University of Memphis starting in 1963, he founded the school\u2019s varsity swimming program in 1970. He spent more than two decades at Memphis before the program was discontinued in the 1990s, though Memphis Tiger Swimming lives on as the YMCA level as a top club in the region. Fadgen previously coached at Appalachian State and High Point North Carolina Swim Club.<\/p>\n

Fadgen was inducted to the Rhode Island Swimming Hall of Fame in 1983<\/a> and the North Carolina Swimming Hall of Fame in 1988<\/a>. The Southeastern Swimming LSC, which encompasses all of Tennessee and Alabama plus part of the Florida panhandle, bestows the Dick Fadgen Coach of the Year Award<\/a>. Memphis is planning to name the pool<\/a> at the new Mike Rose Aquatics Center in Fadgen\u2019s honor.<\/p>\n

Dick Fadgen was predeceased by his wife of 58 years, Polly<\/strong>, in 2018. He is survived by five children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The family is planning a celebration of life<\/a>. In lieu of flowers, the family has established an honorarium through the University of Memphis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"