Master of the Pool

One afternoon in 1918, Yale's swimming coach fell suddenly ill and someone yelled at Bob Kiphuth, a young physical education instructor: "Get up there in a hurry and direct the swimming squad." Robert John Herman Kiphuth, 27, had never coached swimming before, but he got up there and started directing. He has been doing it ever since. In 41 years as coach of the Yale team. Kiphuth has amassed an unparalleled record in sport: 522 victories in dual swimming meets, only twelve defeats.

In his long term at New Haven. Kiphuth produced dozens of topflight swimmers, and many were record breakers. Among them: Alan Ford, John Marshall, Jim McLane and Rex Aubrey in freestyle events. Allen Stack, Junie House and Dick Thoman in the backstroke. Tim Jecko in the butterfly.

Conditioning. Kiphuth's secret is to train his swimmers on dry land. In his early years as coach, he traveled to Sweden and Japan to study bodybuilding methods, incorporated what he observed and what he devised himself into a rigorous physical education program that all Yale swimmers must undergo before they take to the water for serious workouts. Under Kiphuth's direction, they work for weeks on weights and pulleys in Yale's immense Payne Whitney Gymnasium ("the Temple of Sweat").

Kiphuth concentrates on the arm depressors--muscles that pull the arms down. "The arm depressors must be strengthened for best results in pulling at the catch and to push through at the finish of the stroke," he explains. "I'm a great believer in swimming with the arms." For hours on end Yale swimmers rhythmically flail their arms in Payne Whitney exercise rooms, lying on boards in swimming position and struggling with weights.

A stern taskmaster. Kiphuth demands all-out effort, is apt to roar at a swimmer dawdling through his paces: "If you want to take a bath, get a cake of soap." During a hopping exercise, the coach scowled scornfully at a boy who had twisted an ankle, barked: "Get up and hop on the good one." But his swimmers like him. Says one: "A wishy-washy coach who sympathizes with you is no damn good."

Exploded Theory. Because Kiphuth feels he can coach better from poolside than by getting into the water with his boys, the legend for years was that he could not swim a stroke. The little (5 ft. 7 in.) wiry man with the booming voice refuted the story at the Yale swimming carnival of 1948 when he abruptly leaped into the pool, swam its width to resounding cheers. Once he went to the bottom of the pool in a diving helmet for a fish-eye view, quickly corrected a flaw in the stroke of one of his swimmers.

Yale has not been beaten in dual swimming meets since 1945, when a war-depleted team lost to Army. Last week Kiphuth was in his accustomed spot at poolside as his charges walloped Columbia 57-29--Yale's 176th consecutive dual-meet victory, and notable only for the fact that it surpassed Kiphuth's own earlier record of 175 consecutive victories set between 1924 and 1937. But a sadder milestone faces Kiphuth. He has reached Yale's mandatory retirement age of 68, will be forced to retire at the end of this season. Phil Moriarty. a trusted assistant for more than a quarter-century, will succeed him. To Yale swimmers, the Temple of Sweat will never be quite the same again.

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