Swimming finals offer surprises
Unpredictable—at least halfway unpredictable—would be the description of varied stroke events in this weekend's Big Eight Swimming and Diving Championships in Columbia.
The events are hard to predict because the breast- butterfly- and back-stroke events aren't swum in dual meet competition at 100-yards.
"DUAL MEETS ARE long enough as they are with 12 events," said coach Dick Reamon. "If a boy is a back-stroker at one distance he will be a back-stroker at another distance."
The times and performances of 200 - yard competitors therefore correlate well with the swimmer's ability at 100-yards, Reaon added.
An example of such comparability is Bill Griffith, Kansas' junior breast-stroker. Last year he came from nowhere to take fourth in Big Eight 100 and sixth in the 200.
"GRIFFITH WAS A real surprise last year," assistant coach Joe Henderson said. "This year he's beaten Oklahoma's Les Mason at 200-yards."
Mason was last year's runner-up in the longer event and champion in the 100. A former Wichita star, he holds down the second-best time recorded in the conference this year.
Leading Mason by 2.4 seconds in the 200 is K-Stater Bob Duenkel who Reamon says can hurt the three teams contending for the title: Oklahoma, Iowa State and Kansas.
"I THINK K-STATE has a couple of boys that could turn out to be spoilers for the leading teams." Reamon said. "One of these is Duenkel in the breast-stroke."
Duenkel won the 200-yarder last year by five seconds.
K-State's other potential "ruiner" is Dick Rivera in the back-stroke events. He leads defending champion Chuck Schobed of OU by 2.5 seconds in the 200.
HOWEVER. THESE two will have to contend with two Jayhawkers: the experienced Jim Coughenour and the versatile Hugh Miner. They will make the OU and KSU swimmers earn their present one-two rankings.
"Coughhenous comes on strong at the end of the season." Henderson said, "He usually has a few good races during the season."
Miner tends to follow the same pattern of coming through in the big, end-of-season meets as occurred last year.
"MINER HADN'T SWUM the back-stroke in a meet before last year's conference meet," Henderson said. "He won the 100 in a meet record."
In the process he turned back Schober and Coughenour and then placed third in the 100-butterfly.
But this year Miner trails sophomore Jim Kent who leads conference "fly-men" over 200-yards and defending champ of Iowa State Jim Cotsworth by four seconds.
AS COACH REAMON points out, competition should be rugged as "each team has the potential individual winners plus back-up men. But one more thing, KU is at least as well-conditioned as any other team in the meet."
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