Swim team makes a national name for itself

The coming weeks will be devoted to one of this city’s sport’s heroes, coaching legend Benner T. Cummings. Here is the second installation. — M. M. Athey & The Ritzville Swim Club­

Part Four: The Summer of 1956

The first swim meet of the summer for the Ritzville Swim Club was the Washington AAU Open Meet held at Pasco on July 14-15. With only two and a half weeks of training, the local swimmers placed fourth behind Tacoma Swim Club, Multnomah Athletic Club and the Olympia Swim Club but managed to out-swim all other Inland Empire teams. Nearly all Ritzville swim marks set the previous year in this meet were bettered by this year’s local swimmers. Representing Ritzville were Danny Schwisow, Dick and Grayson Hand, Al Vermeeren, Tim and Vern Kiehn and swimmer/coach Benner Cummings.

The Ritzville highlights of the meet were the two 400-meter relays. The 400-meter freestyle relay on Saturday comprised of Vern Kiehn, Benner Cummings, Tim Kiehn and Grayson Hand established a new team record of 4:41.7. On Sunday, the 400-meter medley relay team of Al Vermeeren (backstroke), Dan Schwisow (breaststroke), Vern Kiehn (butterfly) and Grayson Hand (freestyle) also set a new Ritzville record of 5:32.5.

Two weeks later, the Ritzville Swim Club with only five swimmers stunned the Inland Empire AAU Men’s Senior Swim Championships at Comstock Pool in Spokane by edging the Olympia YMCA for first place by one point. Twenty two teams comprised of 120 swimmers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Texas and British Columbia competed in the two-day event.

Incredibly, Ritzville only won one event during the entire meet, the 400-yard individual medley by Al Vermeeren. However, the other team members of Cummings, Hand, Tim and Vern Kiehn added sixteen more second and third place trophies to secure the win.

It was Cummings that provided the most exciting race of the meet in the 440-yard freestyle. He paced himself slowly and steadily throughout the race. At the 200-yard mark he was 25 yards behind the leader. At the 300-yard mark he was 20 yards behind. At the 400-yard mark Cummings was only ten yards back and it was then that he put on a furious charge to the finish. The leader touched Benner out by a tenth of a second at the wall. “One more yard and Benner would have had the win,” commented acting coach Bill DeMastus. “What a fantastic race!”

On the weekend of August 11-12 a four-man swim team from Ritzville ventured into Montana Territory. Miles City to be precise. Over six hundred swim entrants attended the Montana AAU Swim Meet Championships. This was the largest contingent of swimmers our boys had ever competed against. Teams came from Seattle, Spokane, Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake, Butte, the University of Utah, the University of Denver and elsewhere.

The field of competitors was so large that the meet required 63 preliminary heats. Grayson Hand was a literal “Iron Man” having to swim five 100-meter freestyle and five 50-meter freestyle races in two days. Hand’s times of 28.1, 28.5 and 29.5 in three different 50-yard races all cracked Montana AAU Meet records. He ended the meet with three individual firsts and anchored all four relay races to two firsts and two seconds.

Vern Kiehn placed third in the national 100-meter breaststroke garnering him a national AAU medal and his picture in the National AAU Swim Guide for 1957. In all, the Ritzville team set over a dozen new varsity, meet and AAU records.

This was the most formidable competition the Ritzville Swim Club had ever met and they shocked the swimming world by winning the men’s division. The small town boys from eastern Washington conquered the Montana swim competition by winning seven first places and 25 medals.

On the very wet, cold and windy Sunday of August 26, 1956, the home town hosted the Ritzville Junior Chamber of Commerce Relays for junior and senior division teams from Spokane, Moscow and Ritzville. Ritzville senior members included Benner Cummings, Danny Schwisow, Grayson Hand, Tim Kiehn, Vern Kiehn and Al Vermeeren.

Ritzville junior team members included Dick Hand, John Tanner, Jim Bauman, Tom Bauman, Andy Christoff, Armand Ahrendt, Merrol Ferderer, Leon Bafus, Terry Carter, Rick Hanson, Steve Rogel, Max Webb and Miles Athey.

Eleven relay races were run, six for the senior teams and five for the juniors. In addition, the meet held a 1-meter diving competition and a national AAU sanctioned 250-yard breaststroke to establish a new American record.

Our senior team captured three firsts and three seconds while our junior team placed third in all five races.

The junior relay teams were comprised of Tannner, Webb, Hand and Athey for the 300-yard medley. Christoff, Webb and Hand raced the 150-yard butterfly with Rogel, Carter, Ferderer and Ahrendt racing for the 400-yard freestyle.

Hanson, Hand, Christoff and J. Bauman teamed for the 200-yard medley. The 200-yard freestyle relay was entered by Team One of T. Bauman, Athey, Tanner and Webb and Team Two of Rogel, Bafus, Hanson and J. Bauman.

Dan Schwisow held first or second during most of the diving contest. Then during a heavy downpour on his second to last dive he slipped on his approach. This dropped him to fourth in the point totals. His last dive was spectacular, the highest score of the day, but it was not enough to regain his previous position. Danny placed fourth for the meet only a few points from the winner Loren Dewitt of Spokane.

The featured 250-yard breaststroke to establish a new American Record was entered by Vern Kiehn and Al Vermeeren of Ritzville, Chet Hall and Alex Gilbert of the University of Idaho, and Dudley Hatton of Spokane. It was everything that the small rain-soaked crowd had anticipated.

The cold, wet and often windy weather was getting worse so the race was moved up to mid-afternoon to ensure that it would be run. Kiehn had already performed in three vigorous races prior to this one. Moving the race to an earlier time meant that a scheduled two-hour rest period before running the record-setting event was erased. Kiehn and his competition would have to buck up against bad weather and a very short recovery time from previous races.

Vern Kiehn had competed for the team in earlier swim meets this year. However, he was working a full time summer job so his training regimen was limited. When it was learned that Ritzville would be awarded the race to set the American record in the 250-yard breaststroke, Vern began two-a-day workouts only two weeks before the race. Both Kiehn and Coach Cummings knew that he had a long way to go to be ready for this grueling event.

The wily and experienced Cummings had been “down this road” many times before himself. He realized that Vern was going to need a little help during the race against the formidable swimmers of Hall, Gilbert and Hatton. These were all recognized record-holding breaststroke swimmers, so he inserted Al Vermeeren into the event as the “rabbit.”

The breaststroke was not an event that Al normally raced but he was proficient enough to swim the event with a legal leg kick and he was fast enough to be competitive over short distances. The strategy was for Vermeeren to go out quickly and draw the other swimmers into a faster pace than prudent. The logic was that these swimmers would tire more quickly than Kiehn who would restrain himself to a steady pace throughout most of the race until the last fifty yards.

Vermeeren took the lead immediately. Hall and Gilbert “chased the rabbit,” staying right on Al’s heels. After 75 yards, Vermeeren and Gilbert began to falter and Hall took the lead. Hall held the lead over the others until the175-yard mark. At that point in the race, Kiehn moved abreast of him. At the 200-yard wall, Vern Kiehn pushed off with every ounce of strength he had left and in the last 50 yards he moved ahead of Hall to win handily, breaking his own personal best by an astounding 23.9 seconds.

Vern Kiehn now held the American record of 3:51.1 for the 250-yard breaststroke. Cummings said after the race, “I think Vernie would have logged a time of six to seven seconds faster had he not been forced to compete so often earlier this afternoon.”

This was one of the gutsiest athletic performances I’ve ever witnessed. Especially for a young man who had much less preparation and training than his opposition. And, most certainly, much less than anyone would want for attempting a race of this magnitude.

On that blustery day in 1956, the Ritzville Swim Club not only added more swimming laurels to local sports history but they became recognized at the national level. And with all of this came a warning from our mentor, “We can feel proud of what we have accomplished among ourselves but never let it become an anchor for the next race.”