Contact:

Farmington Hills, Michigan
ntople@earthlink.net

My Life After Patton:

Michigan State University (BS-1963),U.S. Army (1963-1965), Lawrence Institute of Technology (BS-1971)

Some Things I Remember:

• I was the guy who talked Jack Duffy into joining  the Mackenzie H.S. swim team. He wasn't planning on going out for the team. I had a lot of fun watching him and Gary La Prise compete for fun in the Mackenzie pool. Gary challenged Jack to a 200-yard race once with Mackenzie coach Don Andrews timing them. Neither swimmer wanted to take the lead and be the pacemaker for the other. Coach Andrews stopped the race because he thought that a new pool record was being set for slowness.
• John Lovstedt was a freshman diver and we became good friends. He introduced me to Patton pool and to Jimmy Ottinger. I should say that Jimmy introduced himself to me. (You know Jimmy)
• While I was at Patton Pool, I met many other interesting people. Bob Sanchez was the city champion in diving the year before I started swimming. We graduated from Western H.S. Then there was Ron Jaco from Eastern H.S. Bob came to the pool quite often, but Ron didn't. Bob was a rough diver but had lots of power and a great personality. He ended up selling insurance in Virginia. Ron was a big name U of M freshman diver and he was more interested in trying to recruit John Lovstedt for that school. He didn't talk much to a beginning schmuck like me. I didn't really develop into a decent diver until I went to Michigan State.
• I was a lifeguard in 1960 at the Rouge pools during the summer. I worked out in the morning and during lunch at Rouge Park and then Lovstedt, Ron Syria and I went to Patton Pool in the evening. Because I was a diver, I didn't meet many swimmers at Patton pool. I met more of them as a lifeguard and a diver at Rouge. Mike Reissing  helped me rescue a seriously drowning guy in 1960. I was on the high tower in the deep end and I kept noticing this one individual. The pool was very  crowded during the 4th of July holiday. But I kept noticing this one guy who was just floating face down with his arms out stretched. At first, I thought that he was just swimming there. But I kept coming back to him for some unknown reason. He had his head down for just too long. I took my life in my hands and jumped into a big crowd at the base of that high guard stand. If I could have walked on water I would have. That swimmer had his head down for just too long for a nonprofessional swimmer. I was scared to death that he was dead. Mike Reissing was the lifeguard who took my place on that tower after I jumped in. After we revived that swimmer, Mike stayed with me on the tower until I stopped shaking. I still remember Mike's face when I called for a clearing of the pools to enable John Brown (the head lifeguard) to bring emergency oxygen and first aid to us. I think about that often and remember it like it was yesterday.
• I remember John Dudeck who was a great breaststoker from Western H.S. and later a three time All-American at Michigan State. But most of all, I remember his beautiful bride who was a bronze medalist on the three-meter springboard in the 1956 Olympics. She was a beautiful woman and also went to Mackenzie H.S. Her brother (Fletcher Gilders ) was a diver at Ohio State University and a coach at Bowling Green University. At one time, Fletcher owned the state record for pole vaulting at Northwestern H.S. in Detroit. John Dudeck was the person who recuited me for Michigan State University.
• I remember another time at Rouge Park. I was again on the high tower in the deep end. Some young boys pushed a girl into the water beneath me.  Her girlfriends started yelling at me that she could not swim. I jumped in like a good diver. When I hit bottom and I briefly watched a surreal image of a young girl on the bottom trying to flay herself to the top but going nowhere. She looked like some space odyssey of weightlessness. I turned her around, grabbed her waist from behind and gave a hard push off of the bottom of the pool. She got a 16-foot rocket ride to the surface in less than a second. I bet that she remembers that ride to this day. I know that I do.
• Then there was the time in 1960, just after the olympic trials, when there was an American/Canadian water show held at Brennan Pools. The divers had some comedy routines. One of them was where Ron Syria was to do a dying duck (belly dive) off of the 10-meter platform. On the way down, I was supposed to fire a blank pistol and Ron was supposed to double-up and release a bunch of shredded paper that  was supposed to look like feathers shot off of a duck. Ron jumped off the platform and I squeezed the pistol's trigger, but nothing happened. I kept squeezing the trigger but still nothing happened. Ron really got mad at me because he held the belly dive all the way down. That hurts from the 10-meter tower.
• And finally, just before the above mentioned swim show, we were practicing some dives off of the tower. I was going to do a flying one and a half somersault.  This is where I do a swan dive and then just pike over for the one and a half somersault. A real easy fun dive off of the tower. You just hold the swan dive for as long as you can and watch the world go by. But this time I did something different while jumping off of the platform and I thought that I was going to hit it. So I tucked up and did a one and a half somersault. I came out of the somersault at 10-meters and stretched for the water. At seven-meters up I knew that I was going to land flat on my back. At five-meters I had the ugliest spaghetti dive in the world going. At zero-meters, I bounced off of the water twice without going under the surface. When I came back to the surface, I took a deep breath to replace the air that was knocked out of me. But instead of air I got water. You see, what they did was have a hose spraying water at the surface of the pools water so that diver could see the surface after a dive. That water got into my mouth just as I took a deep breath. I thought that I was going to die. Nobody knew what happened to me. Most thought that I hit the tower. When I got pulled out, I just laid there trying to catch my wind. Then I heard some screaming at the top of my head. I looked up and saw the mayor of Detroit yelling at the pool manager and a bunch of cops standing around. I didn't care how much pain I was in. I got up and pretended to shake everything off. Then I heard the applause. There was a huge crowd standing there watching the mayor yell at the pool manager. They were previously watching some water ballet practices in another pool. (Remember, the stands and the night lights were still up because of the Olympics that year). I was so embarrassed. I looked hard but I could not find a hole to crawl into. The next day, I had two red lines going down my side and the whitest line going down between them. The white line eventually turned to a real dark black and blue line. The center of my chest ached for a long time from it being flattened from hitting the water. I never got a get well card from the mayor.

• Coach Andrews ignited a major spark to my life, but Jimmy threw fuel on that spark for a number of years (1956-1963). I hate to think what I would have become if it weren't for Coach Andrews, Jimmy Ottinger and John Lovstedt. Diving gave me a sense of self-worth and helped me to develop a work ethic and a 'no quit' attitude that has propelled me to a successful life. I never knew what Jimmy did for a living. I do know that he had worked for Chrysler at one time and that he lived on Brush Street in Detroit. I knew so little of a guy who did so much for me. I am sad for that. I owe Coach Andrews major big-time because he was a major player in turning my life around. I was just a drifter in High School. I tried out for the football and track teams, but I was too small and slow to do anything. I tried out for the swim team but could not swim that fast. But I knew a few dives, so I became a diver. We had two divers who made the city finals (John Lovstedt and Gary Kid), so I didn't get any chance to compete, but Coach Andrews said that if I made the top half of divers in the city championships, he would give me a varsity letter. I made the top half and got my letter. That changed my life in a big way. I was given a shot of self-worth among other good things.