UT Swim Facility, Once Home To Champion Teams, Turns 50

  • Friday, March 10, 2017
  • John Shearer
One of the more interesting looking buildings on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville campus is the blue-colored and mid-century modern Student Aquatic Center, which turns 50 years old this year.
 
But also quite interesting about the building is what cannot be seen. Primarily, it is all the stories about what has taken place there, including when it was home of the University of Tennessee men’s swimming and diving team under coach Ray Bussard.
 
Coach Bussard coached multiple sports at Chattanooga City and Red Bank high schools, including football and track, and also ran the pool at Warner Park during the summers before moving to Knoxville to help run the facility and coach the men’s swim team.
 
He quickly became a Vol coaching legend, leading the Vols to Southeastern Conference titles in 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978 and an NCAA title in 1978.
 
The university-wide celebration back at that swim facility after the NCAA title resulted in football coach and attendee Johnny Majors getting thrown into the pool, and coach Bussard getting his head shaved as a promise to the team.
 
The Vols have won only two SEC men’s titles since coach Bussard retired in 1988.
Those occurred in 1989 and 1996 under coach and former star Vol swimmer John Trembley, who kept the program competitive until being fired in early 2012 for what were later revealed as indiscretions in his personal life.
 
Both the men and women have in recent years also been among the top teams in the SEC under combined head coach Matt Kredich, despite the lack of conference titles.
 
As a result of all that early success, the Student Aquatic Center enjoyed many of its exciting moments during its first decade while it was used for team training and home meets as well as for general student and faculty recreational swimming.
 
Coach Bussard – who was known for his intense coaching style -- made the facility have a definite home-pool advantage with crowds cheering in big meets against rivals like Florida. At those times, the building was often raucous.
 
“He had people excited,” remembered his wife, Ruth Bussard, as she recently revisited the pool along with Roland Julian, the retired Knoxville News Sentinel sports writer who covered coach Bussard’s teams for years. In fact, they remember a window getting broken simply from all the loud cheering.
 
Now that the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center next door has been open for nine years and serves as the training and meet facility for the UT varsity men’s and women’s teams, the Student Aquatic Center is much quieter these days.
 
During a recent visit, it had only minimal use, although both it and the outdoor pool adjoining it – which also opened in 1967 – are still considered important parts of the university’s recreation offerings for students and faculty.
 
But the stories of old still came forward with reverberation from Mrs. Bussard and Mr. Julian as they walked around the facility.
 
There were tales of when Florida and Olympic swimmer Tim McKee angrily smashed a garbage can after losing a race against Tennessee there, and of when Sports Illustrated magazine did a story on the talented and free-spirited Olympic swimmer Dave Edgar of Tennessee. There were also anecdotes of the NCAA meet being held there in 1973 and the stands being placed right up to and maybe even over the water, or of the three times the Olympic teams trained there.
 
The great Mark Spitz – the most decorated U.S. Olympic male swimmer other than Michael Phelps – evidently never swam there, although he did compete against Coach Bussard’s teams elsewhere and reportedly dated a UT student at one time.
 
There were also stories about quirks regarding the building’s construction, despite its 1960s style that has drawn praises in the eyes of architectural historians. The terrace where the Timette female student timers sat on the north side of the pool was just above the starting blocks, causing a few heads to be hit occasionally by tall swimmers.
 
When the 10-meter diving tower was installed in 1992-93, the ceiling was raised. Lighting issues in the diving pool also resulted in clear windows replacing colored ones.
 
Also memorable was the fact that the Vols would take a bottle of water from the Student Aquatic Center and pour into the meet where they were competing. They also began wearing coonskin caps on the pool deck during meets beginning in 1971 at Southern Methodist University, after coach Ray Bussard gave them a pep talk about Tennesseans of old serving in Texas at the Alamo. He distributed the hats for the first time before they broke the Mustangs’ 11-year home win streak.
 
Another unforgettable event there was when the great swimmer and Tarzan movie star Johnny Weissmuller visited the facility. “Johnny Weissmuller came here that first year promoting a brand of swimming pool,” Mr. Julian remembered. “Ray (Bussard) walked him around the pool area. At the time he said it was the best swimming complex he had ever seen.”
 
Ms. Bussard echoed those sentiments about the pool in its early days. “It was state of the art when it was finished,” she said.
 
She added that her husband, who died in 2010, ideally wanted the pool deeper than six feet, a shallow depth by today’s standards. But Mr. Julian pointed out that SEC records were still being broken there well into the 2000s.
 
At the time that the pool was constructed, UT did not have a varsity intercollegiate men’s program, although a program had formerly existed, including under engineering professor Karl Bahret for a few years in the 1950s.
 
Mr. Julian remembered that longtime News Sentinel sports editor Tom Siler pointed out that UT was hindered in competing for the SEC all-sports title during the 1960s, so a push was on to increase UT men’s teams.
 
Successful UT recruiter and track/cross country coach Chuck Rohe had become acquainted with coach Bussard while recruiting in Chattanooga, and he recommended him to athletic director Bob Woodruff to help run the pool and get a swim team restarted. According to an older UT swim media guide, coach Bussard had actually previously applied to be the head UT track coach and to restart the swim program, but was initially turned down.
 
Ms. Bussard jokingly recalled that Mr. Woodruff likely thought he was getting a lower-key personality, which was probably appropriate at the time for a minor sport.  “Woodruff was not looking for anyone of a controlling nature, but alas,” she said.
 
Coach Bussard came up and began working at UT in 1966 while construction on the pool was still being completed.
 
According to a plaque on the east outside wall of the building, the pool was uniquely named in honor of all the UT students following a contest. The official name of Student Aquatic Center was derived from a suggestion by students James Dearman, William Griffin, and Warren Scott, the plaque said.
 
Students had also contributed to the construction cost of the facility, which was designed by the Knoxville architectural firm, Lindsay and Maples.
 
Years later, the pool part of the facility was named in honor of coach Bussard. A small and almost inconspicuous plaque recognizes that today.
 
Mr. Julian said the first event at the pool was a junior national diving competition in the outdoor part of the facility in the summer of 1967, when the pool had just two smaller springboards and not the towers that were later built there. Unfortunately, some of the kinks were still being worked out, as the diving boards were not completely safe and secured, despite the fact a former standout diver from the Knoxville area had served as a construction consultant.
 
“A couple of divers hit their faces against the diving board,” Mr. Julian said. “One had a pretty bad mouth injury.”
 
When the pool opened, Col. Ira Sliger, a World War II military veteran, managed the overall facility, while coach Bussard oversaw the recreational use of the pool or water and coached the team.
 
Mr. Julian remembered that Col. Sliger, who just died on Feb. 26 at the age of 95, kept the place immaculate and neat during those early years. “You could almost eat off the floors here,” he recalled.
 
Coach Bussard, meanwhile, soon had teams feasting on championships with his intense style that he patterned from his track-coaching days of using challenging workouts. He took a freshmen-laden team in 1967-68 and finished second in the SEC and was soon on his way to success.
 
Ms. Bussard believes her husband’s self-confidence and determination helped quickly make UT into a swimming power and quickly drew attention to his program. “Without nerve and without ego, I don’t think he would have flown here,” she said.
 
Coach Bussard, who admired tough-minded people like college basketball coach Bob Knight, with whom he became acquainted, was a unique, no-nonsense person who commanded respect among his swimmers, Mr. Julian recalled.
 
“Ray was like Donald Trump in a way,” he said. “He spoke his mind and you could bank on what he told you as the truth.”   
 
He also believes coach Bussard was ahead of his time as a swim coach.
 
Ms. Bussard pointed out that Mr. Julian also helped the program through his longtime coverage of the lower-profile sport while working for the News Sentinel.
 
Besides the stories of coach Bussard and all the success there, the building is also defined by its unique mid-century architecture.
 
During another recent tour conducted by UT recreation sports official Katy Locke, many 1960s-era features stood out.
 
These include cross-shaped brick patterns on the walls, blue tile brick on the outside as well as unusually configured windows, which, as mentioned, replaced some original colored ones of the same shape. Both of those features seem to be saying “1960s,” at least in a figurative sense, as does the cantilevered terrace overlooking the pool.
 
Other details that are just interesting regardless of style are some circular windows in the pools originally used for lights, a spiral staircase going down to the lower level, and an old basement maintenance board and clock that mentions the building architect.
 
Ms. Bussard said the UT men’s team would sometimes meet in the lower level, particularly after a meet in which the team had not done as well as coach Bussard thought it should have.
 
She also said that the tiles on the pool deck were actually added in later years.
 
Some UT insignias that were in the mezzanine railings were removed in recent years when the rails were made safer and more to code in an updating.
 
Also eye catching are the little-changed old locker rooms from the days when the varsity men’s and women’s swim teams trained and competed there.
 
“At the time, it was the best and brightest,” said Ms. Locke of the naturally well-lighted building, adding that people regularly stop by and say they grew up swimming there.
 
Her glass-covered office is the one once occupied by the late noted former UT men’s coach Ray Bussard, who led the Vols to numerous Southeastern Conference championships and one national championship in the building.
 
His shadow obviously still looms large in this building.
 
His wife has an idea what her late husband might have said about the building turning 50 years old this year.
 
“If he were alive, he would go around looking to see what all should be done with it,” she said with a laugh, pointing out his attention to detail. “The things that didn’t make much difference show up in the long run.”
 
Many others might simply say the unique-looking building on its golden anniversary is a place where coach Bussard and others helped plenty of UT swimmers gain Olympic, NCAA and SEC gold.
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
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