Hobie Billingsley – Hobie was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania and became one the most important and influential personalities in the history of diving, first as a competitor/performer, then as a coach. He was an NCAA Champion on the one- and three-meter boards at Ohio State, and for fifteen years he toured the USA and foreign lands putting on water and trampoline shows, first with the late Bruce Harlan, then with Dick Kimball. In 1964 he retired from the water shows to start a diving camp at Indiana University, where he became the second person hired as a diving coach on the college level. His camp was active for 25 years. Although he was a wonderful performer, Hobie earned his lasting reputation as one of the greatest diving coaches in history. He was always a student of the sport and for more than four decades, Hobie has traveled the world lecturing, presenting clinics, and conducting camps for coaches and divers. Hobie arrived at Indiana University in 1959 and carried the swimming tradition over to diving. Throughout his 30-year stint as head diving coach, his divers won 115 national titles. Twenty-one of his divers were on Olympic teams, winning three gold and three bronze medals. Hobie’s divers also won five Pan American gold medals, 28 NCAA titles, and 25 Big Ten championships. Among his great divers are Cynthia Potter, a bronze medal Olympian who holds the women’s record for American national championships at 28; Olympic gold medallists Lesley Bush, Kenny Sitzberger, and Mark Lenzi; bronze medallists Win Young and Jim Henry; and his first national champion, 1968 Olympian Rick Gilbert. Hobie has been named the National Diving Coach of the Year by the American Swimming Coaches Association, was the first recipient of the NCAA Coach of the Year in 1988, and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1983. He was a 1987 recipient of the Bill Orwig award, and in 1994 he was presented with the Sammy Lee Award, the most prestigious award in the world for contributions to the sport of diving. Hobie was a five-time Olympic coach and had the honor of reciting the Olympic Oath at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta before a packed stadium and several billion-television viewers. He has written three books and numerous articles about diving.
Andrew Strenk – Andrew represented the United States at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.He swam for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
Prior to the 1968 Olympics, Strenk was a member of the U.S. national team assembled for the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, where he won a bronze medal in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle with a time of 17:03.43.After the Olympics, he was a gold medalist in the men’s 400-meter freestyle, 1,500-meter freestyle, and 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the 1970 World University Games held in Turin, Italy.
Strenk attended the University of Southern California, where he swam for the USC Trojans swimming and diving team. He graduated from Southern Cal with his bachelor’s degree and Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1971 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Würzburg in 1975. He later returned to Southern Cal and completed his doctorate in European history, and served as a lecturer at his alma mater.
Andrew has lectured and written on the impact of international sports on politics and international relations.He served as the historian of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics.He now works as an international business and development consultant and is a principal in Strategic Planning Concepts International.
Brenda Borgh – Brenda swam at the 1976 Olympics while in high school near Philadelphia, representing the Suburban Swim Club. She would swim at the University of Florida, where she made All-American, but she would graduate from Auburn University. She later obtained a masters’ degree in therapy at the University of Delaware and worked in cardiac rehabilitation in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Borgh, later Brenda Bartlett, also competed in triathlons throughout the 1980s.
Jim Ellis – For nearly 50 years, Coach Ellis’ leadership has provided and developed competitive swimming opportunities to a diverse and inclusive community of children, challenging them to meet their potential and bringing to fruition in them his acronym for what once was known as the Philadelphia Department of Recreation and translate it into his values of PRIDE, DETERMINATION AND RESILIENCE. As the movie Pride recounts, Ellis took a job in an impoverished neighborhood and founded the P.D.R. (Philadelphia Department of Recreation) Swim Team, based at the Marcus Foster Recreation Center in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia, in 1971. Over the past 36 years, Ellis has been introducing competitive swimming to inner-city youth and their families. His coaching and mentoring have provided a healthy and stimulating environment in which young athletes can grow and compete. Through travel to various competitions, the program exposes swimmers to other parts of the country and different lifestyles. Today, P.D.R. is a nationally recognized competitive swim team, the nation’s best predominately African-American team, and has become a model for urban swim programs around the country. Over a hundred of his swimmers have attended college on swimming scholarships.
Erika Hansen-Stebbins – A distance freestyler and medley swimmer, Erika Hansen started in college at the University of Georgia but transferred to the University of Texas. At Texas, she won the NCAA title in the 500 free in 1991, after winning the 1,650-yard freestyle for Georgia in 1989. She was an 11-time All-American during her college career. Hansen swam at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, swimming three individual events in 1992, just missing the podium in the 400 free with a fourth-place finish. Hansen was a five-time US Champion, winning 400 IM titles in 1984-85 and 1990, and the 200 butterfly in 1984 and 1991. Hansen’s greatest international meet came at the 1985 Pan Pacific Meet in Tokyo, where she won gold in the 400 IM, silver in the 200 butterfly, and bronze in the 200 IM. She later went into coaching, starting as a graduate assistant at the University of Florida from 1994-96, where she earned a masters’ degree in sports management. She was later an assistant coach at Southern California (1997-2003), Maryland (2004-05), and then at UCLA, starting in 2007. In 2008 she married UCLA diving coach Tom Stebbins. She eventually became head coach of UCLA Recreational classes, and also competed in masters swimming events. A Barbara Jordan Scholarship Award recipient in 1992, Hansen-Stebbins earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Texas in 1993 and went on to receive her master’s degree in sport management from the University of Florida in 1995. She worked as a graduate assistant at Florida (1994-96) and as an assistant coach at USC (1997-2003), Maryland (2004-05), and UCLA (2005-08). Erika Hansen-Stebbins has coached the Bruin Masters Swim Club on UCLA’s campus since 2010 and was named the 2017 Coach of the Year by Southern Pacific Masters Swimming. She is married to Tim Stebbins, the head diving coach at UCLA, and the couple has two children, daughter Reilly and son Owen.
Charlie Kennedy – Charlie has spent 35 years as the head coach of the Suburban Seahawks in suburban Philadelphia and more than 20 years leading Swarthmore College. He’s turned SSC into a national powerhouse and been recognized as one of the nation’s top age-group coaches. Charlie Kennedy, a Marple Newtown High School graduate, excelled as a nationally ranked athlete at Suburban Swim Center and the University of Iowa. At the University of Iowa, he was named a captain for 3 of his 4 years. While swimming at the University of Iowa, he set 5 individual event records. He earned a B.A. with concentrations in music and Russian while also becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1980, while Kennedy was swimming for the University of Iowa, president Jimmy Carter imposed an American boycott on the Olympics. Kennedy, therefore, never got a chance to compete at the Olympic trials or Olympics. Kennedy’s Olympic experiences have arrived through coaching. Kennedy has followed up a strong tradition of highly competitive swimmers at Suburban Swim Center. Prior to Kennedy, Suburban Swim Center was started by long-time USC Trojans coach Peter Daland. Before Kennedy, Suburban Swim Center had built a legacy of Olympic and nationally ranked swimmers such as Tim McKee, Carl Robie, and Brenda Borgh. Since beginning coaching at Suburban Swim Center, Charlie Kennedy has trained many swimmers. He began coaching the Suburban Seahawks in the fall of 1982 with a total of 25 swimmers. Today he is coaching over 200 swimmers of all ages. Over the years, Kennedy’s swimmers, both current and former, have been honored with championships, rankings, and awards. These range from high school champions, Jr. National’s qualifiers and champions, Sr. National qualifiers and champions, U.S. Open champions, World Rankings, World Champions, Olympic Trials qualifiers, World record-holders, and Olympic Champions. Kennedy takes pride in developing and “molding” young swimmers. He bases his entire program on proper technique. Kennedy was named the head coach for the USA Swimming Boy’s National Select Camp in 2006. Kennedy is best known for his training of Olympic champion and world record-holder Brendan Hansen. Kennedy has also trained notables such as U.S. national champion Grace Cornelius, South African Olympian Eugene Botes, and Olympic trial qualifiers Ian Clark, Corrie Clark, Kelly Nelson, Jaffrey Clark, Mike Grube, Stephanie Yoshimura, and Christina Leander among others.
Karin LaBerge Swenson – Karin is a 1982 graduate of Central Bucks West High School where she was a 4-year letter winner and record holder in 5 events. She was the District I Champion in the 200 and 500-yard freestyles earning PIAA State Gold twice in the 500, while also breaking and setting the state record 3 times. In addition, she earned Gold once in the 200 Individual Medley, while also earning a Bronze medal in the 200 Freestyle. However, during her high school years, she also competed internationally in the Netherlands and France, all the while earning a spot on the 1980 USA Olympic Team in the 800-meter freestyle. After CB West, Karin attended the University of Southern California where she earned All-American honors in 1984, 85, and 86. She furthered her athletic prowess by utilizing her swimming acumen and becoming a world-class triathlete and “IronWoman” participating in the world-renowned Kona Ironman Competition multiple times.
Andrew Strenk – Andrew represented the United States at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.He swam for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
Prior to the 1968 Olympics, Strenk was a member of the U.S. national team assembled for the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, where he won a bronze medal in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle with a time of 17:03.43.After the Olympics, he was a gold medalist in the men’s 400-meter freestyle, 1,500-meter freestyle, and 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the 1970 World University Games held in Turin, Italy.
Strenk attended the University of Southern California, where he swam for the USC Trojans swimming and diving team. He graduated from Southern Cal with his bachelor’s degree and Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1971 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Würzburg in 1975. He later returned to Southern Cal and completed his doctorate in European history, and served as a lecturer at his alma mater.
Andrew has lectured and written on the impact of international sports on politics and international relations.He served as the historian of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics.He now works as an international business and development consultant and is a principal in Strategic Planning Concepts International.