Victory for the Flail

At schools as small as State University Teachers College at Cortland, N.Y. (enrollment 1,800), coaches of any sport are happy to settle for so-so teams. They may dream of training champions, but they make do with what they have. Cortland's Swimming Coach Dr. James E. Counsilman was even willing to work with a sandy-haired freshman named George E. Breen, whose best effort for the 440-yd. freestyle was a dismally slow 7:30. "He looked as though he might drown," says Counsilman, remembering that sad performance in the fall of 1952. Breen thought the coach was kidding when Counsilman took him aside and said:

"George, you have a chance to become an Olympic swimmer."

Breen was a physical education student, but he had already decided that he had "very little athletic ability." ("I'm not well coordinated," he explains.) So he was doubly surprised to find that Counsilman, who was a national breaststroke champion in 1948 when he was a student at Ohio State, meant what he said. The coach had seen something "intangible" in Breen's awkward splashing, and the boy seemed just the one to help Counsilman test some of his unorthodox theories about swimming styles.

No Rest. Daily Breen drove himself through a strenuous routine of bodybuilding exercises and some three miles of practice in the pool. The stroke Counsilman taught him was a choppy, continuous flailing, with no graceful, resting glides between pulls, not even after turns.

Since watching the Japanese use it with remarkable success in the 1932 Olympics, most coaches have taught the glide stroke. "The logic of it sounds terrific," Coach Counsilman concedes. "Each arm gets a chance to rest up front until the other arm swings forward." But for all its attraction, the glide stroke seemed to Counsilman as time-wasting as stop-and-go driving. He preferred the continuous pace of his own windmill style, went so far as to work its advantages into a Ph.D. thesis. Counsilman found that Subject Breen's kick was relatively weak, but instead of beefing up Breen's legs, Counsilman taught him to slow them down and barely flutter them during part of the stroke. "If he kicked more," explains Counsilman, "it would act as a drag. It would be something like an automobile whose front wheels are going 30 miles an hour and the back wheels only 20."

No Limit. By the end of Breen's first year of competitive swimming Counsilman's counsel was paying off. Breen could churn the 440 in 4:56. Last year he was fast enough to win the Eastern Intercollegiate and A.A.U. 1,500-meter championship. In June Coach Counsilman took off on a leave from Cortland to be physical fitness director of Philadelphia's Broadwood Health Institute, but he kept control of Breen's training by telephone and letter, nursed and egged him on to this year's Eastern Intercollegiate 1,500-meter title. Then he went to New Haven to watch his protege perform in U.S. swimming's two big meets, the N.C.A.A. championships and the A.A.U. meet.

Trained to a split second, Breen did just what Counsilman expected of him. In Yale's 50-meter "long-course" pool last fortnight he flailed through each 100-meter segment of his 1,500-meter grind in almost identical times--never under 1:13, never over 1:13.9. He touched the finish line in 18:05.9, an eye-bugging 13.1 seconds under the world mark (TIME, April 9) held since 1949 by Japan's Hironoshin Furuhashi, became the first American ever to hold that long-distance record.

Last week, in the same pool, he clocked 18:20.2 for 1,500 meters to win the A.A.U. title. The slower time was intentional--Breen kept on going until he had finished a full mile in the water, finished in 19:40.4, a new world record. Another Counsilman protege, Frankie Brunnell, 17, of Philadelphia's Vesper Swim Club, finished second in the 1,500-meter with a commendable 19:38.2. Later in the week, Breen won another title with a fast 4:30.1 in the 440--just two seconds slower than the world record.

As his Olympic prediction came closer to the truth. Coach Counsilman gave all the credit to his energetic, good-looking young (20) pupil. "George worked hard," he said. "And he sets no psychological limit on what he will do." Said Ohio State Coach Mike Peppe, who is probably still wondering how a swimmer like Breen ever got away from him: "Breen's record is comparable to a 3:52 mile in track. He's undoubtedly the greatest long-distance freestyler this country has ever had."

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