How’s this for a blast from the past?
At the 1987 Men’s NCAA Championships, Matt Biondi put on an absolute clinic, while Pablo Morales led Stanford to its third consecutive national title to wrap up his collegiate career.
A half-hour highlight video, broadcasted on ABC featuring Al Trautwig and swimming great Mark Spitz, is available on YouTube (via the account of Richard Hughes), which you can watch at the bottom of this article.
The video shows Cal’s Biondi set new American Record in the men’s 50 free (19.16), 100 free (41.80) and 200 free (1:33.03), with the 100 free time still being fast enough to score at the 2023 NCAA Championships (would’ve been 12th in both prelims and finals).
Morales is seen winning the 200 fly in a new American Record of 1:42.60, and he also wins in the 100 fly in 46.47 in the video.
We’ve also got victories from Harvard’s David Berkoff (100 back), Army’s John van Salt (200 breast) and Ohio State’s Michael Wantuck (3-meter diving) featured.
There are also some interesting interview sections and behind-the-scenes footage of Biondi and Morales, and at the conclusion of the video, we see the Stanford men celebrate their championship by doing the traditional jump in the pool.
The meet was held at the University of Texas in Austin.
I was there, covering it for The Daily Californian. What legends were at that meet!
Was there and worked as a ‘drug test courier’, where we shepherded finals winners to drug testing. I drew Pablo’s 200 IM, so had a great opportunity to sit with him in the locker room with the nursing staff and I watching him try to down liters of water to finally be able to ‘produce’. It was hilarious watching his teammates come in and give him grief about missing dinner…
Both of these Olympian’s were very good water polo players too. Club coaches frown on water polo to maximize $ and time with locking kids down to one sport. I think it leads to more burn out and less team emphasis. Just an opinion but cross training with other sports can help.
This is awesome, with record-setting swims by BIondi and Morales. But most amusing is the segment on shaving down. The segment is also a reminder that network television used to cover NCAA swimming. I certainly never thought I’d see Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver, covering diving!
It is John VanSant not Van Salt that won the 200 Breast. Great back story to that swim that I have shared with some.
That buzzer will give me nightmares, thanks for changing it in the 21st century
Iowa, Iowa State, and UCLA all still had Men’s Swimming & Diving programs……and they were all pretty good too!
Suits were SO MUCH SMALLER and the “paper suits” were just starting to be developed.
Small suits. When men were MEN!
8 beat kick? mentioned around 15 min mark.