International Swimming Hall of Fame Honorees By Last Name (G)

He grew up in San Francisco where he was taught to swim by his father at China Beach, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. At Sequoia High School, in Redwood City, he developed into a champion swimmer and water polo player under coach Clyde Devine, who predicted Jim Gaughran would one day be an Olympian.

When Winston Churchill defined success as going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm, he might have been thinking of Mercedes Gleitze.

When this former high school football coach’s daughter, Allison, began competitive diving in 1973, Eldon Godfrey switched allegiance to a whole new sport, and rose to the highest levels of volunteerism. With his organizational skills and insight, within three short years, he was elected president of the Canadian Amateur Diving Association and two years later the Aquatic Federation of Canada on whose committee he remained for 16 years, serving as Canada’s Chef de Mission for the Third FINA World Championships in Berlin.

Before 1973, there were no World Championships, World Diving Cups or Grand Prix Diving series. For divers there was only one chance to test their skills in the international arena every four years and that was at the Olympic Games.

The land-locked state of Iowa had a knack for producing aquatic competitors in the first half of the 20th century. Famous for its swimmers, Olympic champion Wally Ris and coach Dave Armbruster, divers Lyle Draves and Kent Ferguson and synchronized swimmer Beulah Gundling, non the least was Larry Griswold, a 1932 graduate of the University of Iowa and a four-time varsity letterman in diving, wrestling, track and field, and gymnastics.

Growing up in Perth, Western Australia this young lady had a clear and precise goal: She wanted to be an Olympian. The only problem was, she didn’t have a sport. Her first choice was gymnastics but she knew she was going to be too tall. The Bicton pool was just two minutes from her home and her older sister, Danielle, played water polo, so the choice became clear. Even though women’s water polo was not yet on the Olympic program, there were hopes it would be added to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. So she began a career that set the standard for female water polo players around the world.