Swim Legends: Ritzville's pool hosted serious talent

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth in the series of 11 articles. We published installment No. 7 instead of this one last time. Next week we will publish article 8.

Part Six: The Summer of 1958

The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU) was founded in 1888 to establish standards and uniformity in all amateur sports. Its motto is “Sports for All, Forever.”

The AAU serves as the representative of the United States within the international sports arena working closely with the US Olympic Committee and the Olympic Games.

It is divided into 56 districts, which annually sanction 34 sports programs, 250 national championships and over 30,000 age-division events. These events involve over 500,000 participants and over 50,000 volunteers annually.

The Inland Empire Amateur Athletic Union (IEAAU) is the official regional governing body over all amateur competition in our area. The Ritzville Swim Club did participate in a few swim meets that were not sanctioned by the AAU but the drawback was that none of the recorded times were accepted as official records.

Coach Benner Cummings knew his young sharks were record-setting material and he wanted all the recognition he could get for them. So he entered the club in as many sanctioned meets as possible to achieve that purpose. Ritzville would be swimming every week against the best.

That was part of the reason the Ritzville Swim Club became a powerhouse. When you swim with the fastest sharks, you become one. It’s a matter of survival. But this team would not just survive, it would rule.

The IEAAU swim meets for 1958 included: Lions Club meet at Lake Coeur d’Alene on July 18, Junior Olympics at Spokane on July 23-24, Comstock Park Board meet on July 31-Aug. 1, Junior Olympics at Pasco on Aug. 16-17, and the Washington State Outdoor Championships at Ritzville on Aug. 23-24.

The first impressive showing by Benner’s boys was the Junior Olympics at Spokane. Tom Jones was the star taking first place in both the 200-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle. His time of 2:32.1 in the 200 set a new Junior Olympics record. Tom Baumann, Dick Hand, Terry Carter, Andy Christoff, Larry Stanfield and Tom Thomas all placed in the middle distance races.

“Never before in the history of the state Junior Olympics swimming program has one club so completely dominated the middle distance events. Although the Ritzville boys were very small and young in age, people should be proud of the performance the boys did for their home town,” Bob Haworth, President of the IEAAU praised.

On Sunday, July 27, coach Cummings had the team swim an inter-squad warm up competition in preparation for future swim meets of the summer. That afternoon, his junior team of mostly 13-year olds, broke five pool records all previously held by senior team members.

Jim Baumann, Hand, Thomas and Jones smashed the old mile relay record by nearly two minutes.

Jones and Hand both shattered Miles Athey’s old pool record for the 400-yard freestyle by 21 seconds and 13 seconds, respectively.

In the 800-yard relay, Tom and Jim Baumann, Jones and Thomas set a new record by going the distance six seconds faster than the old mark.

Ritzville Mayor Bill Thiel and President of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, John R. Miller, opened the Washington State Outdoor Swimming Championships on Saturday, Aug. 23.

The weather was in the mid-90s for the lighter-than-expected swimmer turnout.

Teams from Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Pullman, Colfax, Tri-Cities, Yakima and Wapato participated in the Ritzville event. The Ritzville Swim Club had prepared well for this summer’s finale, often swimming three miles a day.

Even though many races were very close, Cumming’s team dominated the two-day event setting many new personal, pool, team and AAU records. Ritzville scored 84 points compared to 36 for runner-up Comstock of Spokane in the men’s division. Comstock won the women’s division over Pullman and Colfax.

One of the many highlights for the local club was the 200-yard freestyle relay. Ritzville entered two teams. Team A included Tom Baumann, Cummings, Jones and Del Chase, clearly the most experienced team. Team B was comprised of Thomas, Jim Baumann, Christoff and Hand, the youngest members of the swim club.

The race was exciting from start to finish. Both teams were side-by-side throughout. On the final leg of the relay, Chase and Hand were dead even with only a few more strokes to the finish wall. The 16-year-old Chase narrowly out-touched the 13-year-old Hand at the finish for first place.

It was the fastest 50-yard race Hand had ever recorded, breaking his own personal best for that distance by nearly two seconds, only two tenths of a second slower than his older brother, Grayson’s 1956 pool record.

The Ritzville Swim Club of 1958 gained more strength, endurance and speed with every swim meet throughout the summer. Collectively, they set over 20 new team records, many of which were also new IEAAU records.

By the end of this summer, the junior swimmers of Hand, Jim Baumann, Tom Baumann, Jones, Thomas, Christoff, Stanfield and Carter had proven to the swimming world that with the right coaching, training and personal dedication, you can become a champion in only 10 weeks of every summer.

This should lead one to speculate, “If these boys were swimming all-year around, could they become Olympic Champions?”