| THE ASCA HALL OF FAME | ||
| Jack Simon |
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 "Hall of Fame Inductee, Jack Simon" - ASCA World Clinic 2007, Awards Banquet |
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Trains
in Melbourne for Olympic Trials Swimmer follows her coach By Sally Cappon - SPORTS / Tuesday, June 6, 1972 |
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Since the Olympic Trials will be held Aug 1-6 in the 50-meter Portage Park pool outside Chicago, they will be something of a homecoming for Sherry. The Peoria native and competitive swimmer for “eight or nine years,” has swum in the pool “a lot of times,” she said, adding, “It’s very fast.” This time she’ll be seeking a berth on the U.S. Olympic squad which will compete in Munich in late August and early September. Many observers rate the U.S. swimming trials as superior to the Olympics. Coach Simon agrees. “It’ll be the most fantastic meet in the world,” he said. “It’s better than the Olympic Games. World records will be falling all over the place. Nobody has a safe shot at making the Olympic team except maybe Mark Spitz and Gary Hall.” And maybe not even Hall. “Spitz I’d say is in unless he’s sick or dead.” But there are “too many kids” hungry for the team and just now starting to blossom, Simon pointed out. One could be the 5’3” butterflyer with warm dark eyes who shook the water off her dark brown hair as she stood barefoot on the deck of the pine-fringed Eau Gallie Boulevard pool in the early June sunlight. Sherry, who’s been swimming since she was two, has made Nationals twice. She was a member of two relay teams at the 1971 spring short course championships in Washington and swam the 200 meter butterfly in last summer’s long course Nationals at Houston. Two summers ago, she was a finalist in the 100 meter fly in the National Junior Olympics at Knoxville, Tenn. Her time then was 1:15. “She’s really started to come down the last six months,” Simon said. So-called “consideration” time for the Olympic trials in the 100 meter butterfly is 1:09. Currently the high school sophomore swims the three-yard-shorter 100 yard fly in 1:02. In the ticklish business of converting Sherry’s yard time to meters, that gives her around 1:10. In the 200 yard fly, Sherry’s current time is 2:17.6. A 200 meter time of 2:31.42 makes a swimmer eligible for consideration. “I think she’ll qualify for the Trials in both,” Simon predicted. “Just basing on what I’ve seen so far, the kids on this club that definitely have shots at qualifying are Sheri Bush and Sherry Wetchler,” he went on. “Some other kids like Gayle McCaughin are close. Lori Goetz isn’t too far off in the fly.” Sheri’s best chances appear to be in the 800 and 400 meter freestyles and Gayle’s, the 200 meter backstroke and 200 meter individual medley. Gayle is 13, Sheri, 14, and Lori, 15. After the Trials, the “main goal” of Sherry Wetchler is “to go to the Maccabean Games in Israel.” The games are held every four years the year after the Olympics. “They take the top three Jewish swimmers in each event in the nation,” she explained. Sherry, along with the other SBY swimmers, practice twice a day, at the 25-yard Y pool in the morning and 50-meter Cocoa Beach pool afternoons. Sherry spends four hours in the water, swimming about 15,000 yards – almost nine miles. She averages “a good 3,000 to 4,000 meters of fly with the rest free and IM work,” her coach for three years said. But outside the pool, Sherry sounds not like an Olympic hopeful but a normal 14-year-old girl. Asked what she plans to do in her spare time in Florida, she didn’t hesitate. “Go to the beach,” she said, flashing a quick smile. “And the Denaburgs and I will be going to Disney World.” Sherry may be only the
first of “Simon’s Swimmers” to come to Melbourne. A 16-year-old St.
Louis boy “with a 56-plus backstroke” may also train here if housing
can be found, the coach said. |
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Jack’s
Athletes Include: |
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Sherry
Wetchler is a little girl with a big goal. The 14-year-old Peoria,
Ill., swimmer is currently training with the South Brevard YMCA swim
team for the Olympic Trials in August and the Maccabean Games in Israel
next year. Sherry arrived in Brevard Thursday to rejoin her ex-coach
Jack Simon, former coach of the Peoria Parks Swim Club who last week
became SBY swim coach. She is staying with the C.R. Denaburg family
of Indian Harbour Beach. Two Denaburg daughters, Cheri and Lisa, swim
for SBY.