(lighthearted upbeat music) - Will you "Consider This"?

You dip your toe in the water, kind of you were coaxed to dip your toe in the water, and you end up not getting out of the water for very long.

Owen Ackerman is a champion swimmer now and started a long time ago.

Before we get to your swimming though, you were born and raised in Peoria.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

- And so, you were born in Central Illinois?

At Methodist.

- At Methodist.

- Okay.

At the same time as some of your, as some of your classmates later on.

- That's correct.

- But you didn't know that then?

Okay, so when was the first time you ever got in the water?

- Oh, probably in those days, maybe when we went on a vacation up in Wisconsin when I was four or five years old.

- Okay.

And that was not necessarily swimming pools.

- No.

(laughs) - That was lakes or streams and that kind of thing.

- That was playing in, on a beach at a lake.

- Yeah, okay.

Well you, so you grew up, you went to Peoria High School, you were growing up, you were ready to go to school, and things start happening in high school.

And what did your mom say to you?

- (laughs) Well, I had intended to go out for basketball and my mother heard about a trip that a friend got to take because he was on the swimming team.

He got to take a bus trip up to New Trier High School, up north of Chicago.

- Okay.

- And she thought that was pretty cool.

And she said, "You know how to swim.

You should go out for swimming."

But I'd never swam a swim race, didn't know anything about swim strokes.

- Okay.

So, what happened?

I mean, so you had to try out, right, to be on the team or in those days, did you have to, did you just show up and everybody was on the team?

- Well, we, in those days, we swam at the old YMCA.

That pool is now under the Civic Center parking lot.

- [Christine] (laughs) Okay.

- And there were probably a dozen freshmen from Peoria High that tried out for swimming.

- Mm hm.

And you made it?

- And I made it.

Two people who became my best friends were teammates.

They both had prior swimming experience because they were, their parents were country club members and they swam in pools there.

- All right.

So they, well, and then they took lessons and they probably competed with the country clubs.

- They had already been competing before high school, yes.

- All right, and these are your best friends, and they are?

- Well, one of 'em is Dick Whittaker, Dr. Whittaker.

Unfortunately, he passed away a couple years ago.

And Bill Forsythe.

Bill left Peoria after college and has not lived here for many years.

- [Christine] But you still stay in touch with him?

- I still stay in touch with him, yes.

- All right, so you got into the water and you knew how to save yourself.

- That's about it.

- (laughs) To begin with.

And then, you started, started swimming competitively, but you perfected the backstroke.

So how did that come about?

I mean, that's, that's a tough one, especially on your shoulders.

- Well, it depends.

For some people it's easy.

And it just came, came natural for me.

- Okay.

I mean, so you just turned over on your back and coach said, "Here, try this."

Or, how did that come about?

- That's almost what happened.

I was swimming, been swimming for about two weeks with the team and not making much progress and struggling freestyle down and back.

And I saw the two backstrokers, who were sophomores and juniors on the team.

I saw them swim and I thought, "I oughta try that."

So I turned over and tried that for a length and it felt good.

- Mm hm.

- So I said to the coach, I said, "Would you watch this and see what you think?"

And, he watched me swim one length.

He says, "You work on that."

- Oh, good.

Well, it's nice that you brought it to his attention 'cause he had too many other things to be watching.

So, what's your trick to really extending your stroke and making it work?

- (laughs) Well, when you do enough of it, your arms become pretty mobile, your arms and shoulders.

I once had a PT giving me a workout, a massage.

She took my arm and started to move it up and she took it up.

She says, "Arms aren't supposed to move this way."

- Ah, that's much good range of motion then.

- Reminder, right.

- Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

So you swam the backstroke mostly, I mean, did you do any freestyle then in high school?

- I never swam any race other than back in high school or college.

- Okay.

Well then let's finish up high school before we head to college.

Amazingly, there were you and Bill, and Dick.

- Dick.

- You were three All-Americans from Peoria High School in, was that in 1955?

- 1955, yes.

- That's incredible.

And how many other people in the state of Illinois, how many other swimmers in the state of Illinois could get to that point?

- Well, the All-American team in those days was the top 20 in each event in the nation.

So, Illinois was a very prominent swimming state.

- Okay.

- So I, I would guess that likely, and this is a pure guess, 20-25% of the All-Americans could have been from Illinois.

The Chicago area schools were very strong in swimming back in the '50s, and still are.

- Well, so did you get to do anything special being an All-American at that point then?

- (laughs) No.

Got a nice certificate for it.

- Okay.

- And a little bit of recognition.

Ben Abrams of "The Journal Star" did a very nice article on the three of us because it was the first time, and to the best of my knowledge, it's the-- - The only time.

- Only time Peoria has had three All-Americans in individual events in the, in one year.

- That's incredible.

What an honor to be able to do that.

- Thank you.

- I mean, a lot of work.

How many hours were you in the pool then in high school in order to do that?

And then how many meets were you in?

- I'm guessing our workouts in high school, Dick and Bill and I were probably in the water an hour and a half.

We would be there in the water more than the other guys.

- And again, that was down at the Y.

- At the old YMCA, 20 yard pool, 20 feet wide, no lane markers.

- Okay.

And then you had to get up to school.

- And, well, this was in the afternoon, we would workout.

- Okay, after school.

- Right, right.

- Okay, and then the three of you, I mean, you were the three amigos, you know, the three Caballeros and you were all headed to college on swimming scholarships?

Did they do that then?

- They, swimming scholarships were not something that was available in those days.

Very, very few of them.

A couple people did.

Illinois did not do much in the way of swim scholarships.

I think they might have given one swim scholarship.

We did not, neither of the three of us got any financial help from the university.

- But you got in the pool.

(laughs) A lot.

- We got in the pool in Champaign, yes.

- Right, and then you did compete at the collegiate level.

- Right.

Right.

- All right, what were some of your best times, or what are your, some of your best memories from those days?

- Well, probably my best college day was my junior year in the Big 10 meet.

I was able to get third, bronze medals, in both the 100 and 200 hundred yard backstroke.

- Wow.

- In the Big 10.

- Wow.

Well, that's good.

- And then my senior year, I did qualify for NCAAs and, and finished sixth in the 200-yard backstroke in the NCAA meet in 1959.

- And where was that held?

- That was at Cornell, out in Ithaca, New York.

- [Christine] Yeah.

Wow.

So that was a bus trip?

- No, that-- - Oh, you got the fly.

- That was an airplane trip.

- All right.

- In fact, my first commercial air flight was when I was a sophomore and we went out to nationals at Raleigh, North Carolina.

- Okay, so you got to see a lot of the country as well as, I mean, you earned it because you had to work for it.

- Well, thank you.

(laughs) - [Christine] And what did you enjoy most about swimming in high school and college?

- Probably the comradery of your teammates.

It's one of those things that you, you focus on what you're doing, you're trying to always improve yourself.

Always trying to work a little harder to get better.

And knowing that, especially in college, knowing that you've got competitors that are doing the same thing.

- Mm hm, yeah.

Putting in the same amount of work.

So then you graduated, what did you major in?

- I was a marketing major at Illinois.

- And then what did you do?

I mean, you know, I mean, it's like what did you wanna do when you grew up?

- Well, I haven't decided yet.

- I'm with you on that, yes.

- I had always intended to get into some type of relational business, sales type of business.

And as a result, when I graduated, I went into the life insurance business, which then transitioned into the financial planning business.

- And of course you met your wife at the U of I.

- At Champaign, yes.

- And then she followed you along with whatever you were doing.

You moved her away from her hometown.

- Well, we got married.

I was in military service at that time and stationed at Fort Ord, California.

So, I came back here in June and we were married and we headed west.

- Oh, right, well, good for you.

Okay, so you got, you were in the military, then you got out of the military and you started into your marketing and insurance business and financial planning.

Did you continue swimming that whole time or did you give it a break?

- I didn't swim anything significant for a number of years then.

We were starting a family, and as you know, that takes a lot of time and effort.

- It does, it does.

- By both mom and dad.

But, I did join the Y when we came back to Peoria in 1962 and would go down there and, and swim maybe a quarter mile, possibly a half mile, maybe three, four times a week.

- But now, you, then you started up, we won't say your exact age, but you're getting up there.

- That's all right.

- Yeah.

(laughs) But you, you told me, we had a little brief conversation on the phone.

You told me that you started about 40 years ago, you started up again just to be competitive or, well, what led you to that?

- Well, I was in my late 40s then, and our, obviously our kids were off doing their things, college or whatever.

And I learned about US Masters and National YMCA meets and decided why don't I give it a try and see what happens and get back into some competition.

- So what was the first one you did?

- First one I did, I think was a YMCA meet in Indianapolis at the IUPUI pool, which was brand new at that time, And still a state-of-the-art pool as far as major events are concerned.

Olympic trials have been held there.

- And were they just recently held there as well or?

- Well, the Olympic trials this year were in a pool that was built inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

- Oh, okay.

That's, that's a big pool.

- That, (laughs) that was a beautiful event to see.

- So you did that.

And how did you do in that first competition then?

Or the one in Indianapolis?

- Back then, back in, that was in the mid-'80s, I'm, you know, I honestly don't remember.

I'm guessing I probably, in my age bracket, which would've been at that time, probably 45 to 49 bracket, I probably finished like eighth, ninth, or 10th or so.

- But then-- - Nothing spectacular.

- But then you got the bug.

Then it's like you were gonna improve yourself and you're gonna improve, improve your time, and go on from there?

- Well, started to work on that.

- Okay.

So how often are you doing that now?

Because, well, you've been in several different, several different competitions, and several different age groups.

So they're all like five, five year increments.

- Five year age brackets, yes.

- All right.

All right.

So, that was your 45 to 50, and then what did you do from 50 to 55?

Or just kept getting better?

- Yes, well, actually it was probably in the late '90s, I swam at a couple YM, maybe it was earlier than that, maybe it was the earlier '90s.

I swam in several YMCA national meets and won a couple titles in those meets.

And, as things go on, as I say to people, as you advance in age brackets, particularly when you advance into the 70s and beyond, and now being in the 85 to 89 age bracket, a lot of how you do depends on who shows up.

- Right.

Okay.

That's good.

So you don't have a whole lot of competition?

- I, well, there are three of us now nationally that are very competitive in the backstroke events.

- And they're all in the 85 to 90-- - In the 85 to 89 bracket, right.

- Whoa.

- There's two other fellows.

One of them and I had become very close friends, and we communicate regularly about issues we're having in workouts and what's happening.

It turns out that our workouts are very similar, both in the number we do a week and what we do during the workouts.

- Well, what's interesting about that is you said that you used to be able to get in the pool absolutely every day.

- Right.

- [Christine] But now you kind of pace yourself.

- Now you have to-- - Recover.

- Handle what you can do at your age, and I need a day of recovery after a hard workout.

It would be extremely difficult to do two hard workouts in a row.

Three would be detrimental.

So, I typically will workout three days a week now.

- And what does your workout consist of?

I mean, what would a hard workout be?

- Well, a hard workout, swim training has changed over the years.

Back in my old days, it was always get your lengths in, get lots of lengths in.

So you'd wanna do 2000, 3000 lengths or whatever.

Young kids, they'd be thinking, "What do you mean, two or 3000?

You do 6,000, 8,000 or 10,000."

- Yeah, wow.

- But nowadays, the training patterns, and I have adapted this over the last three or four years, and I find that it works.

It's more important to do high intense short workouts with very little rest in between with what we would call intervals.

For example, I might do two or three or maybe four 100s with a 30 second rest in between.

And might do some 75s, which would be three lengths, with maybe 25 seconds of rest in between.

Do 50s with 10 to 15 seconds rest in between.

And a series of 25s with 10 to 15 seconds of rest in between.

- So this is something that you just found that works for you?

Or have there been some studies done that this is the best thing for high intensity?

- That's been determined, to the best of my knowledge, as a far more effective workout of doing it that way.

And in total in a workout, I would do somewhere between 500 to 1000 yards of intense work.

- Wow.

Wow.

I'm out of breath just thinking about it.

But so you, interestingly, you had both of your hips replaced, not at the same time, but didn't keep you outta the water for very long and-- - No.

- I mean, didn't keep you outta the water now at in this age bracket?

- No, the hips, I don't even think about the hips.

They do Well.

- Okay.

- Got a knee that is going to need some action and scheduled for later, for November 5th for that.

- How long will that lay you up?

- I don't know.

I would hope that I am back in the water.

January 1st is when I start swim workouts.

- Okay, for your competition.

- My training season starts 1st of January, so I would be hopeful that I'll meet that schedule.

- So tell me a little bit about the US Masters Swimming Organization.

It was started, I think, in like in the early '70s, maybe 1970.

- I don't remember the exact year, that'd be about right, yes.

- And this is for people who wanna stay in shape.

They've been swimming competitively and it's just to, to again, keep your toes in the water?

- Well, it's not necessarily for people who have swim, swam competitively, it's for anybody.

And there are many people that are involved in US Masters.

They're going to meets and they are making their best efforts in these meets, but they're not going to be getting gold, silver, or bronze medals in the meets.

But they are working hard at it, and they are accomplishing for themselves what US Masters is intending to have people do to help themselves to stay healthy.

- And it's by membership?

- Master's membership is, I'm not even positive what it is, $50, $70 a year, something like that.

- Very nominal.

- It's nominal, yes.

- And then, I was also reading something that you sent to me.

You beat a gold medalist in a competition years ago.

You got the gold.

So tell me about that.

- That was, that was up in Minnesota in a long course meet.

- [Christine] And what does that mean?

- A long course is 50 meter pool.

- Okay.

- Short course is 25 yard pool.

Yoshi Oyakawa, who is an Olympic champion, and I had swam with Yoshi in previous meets.

Yoshi is actually, well, when I'm at the bottom of the age bracket, he's at the top.

- All right.

- So he is older than I. I was 80 and he was 84.

(Christine chuckling) And we were competing, both in the 50 meter and the 100 meter backstroke up at the long course meet at the University of Minnesota in August of 19, (laughs) 19.

- 20.

- 2017, probably.

- Okay, 2017.

- And I was able to beat Yoshi, but at that time he was 84 and he is still an incredible individual with talent.

Really do well.

- Really.

Wow.

And you're gonna continue.

Now, you went to Indianapolis this year and you won three silvers in your age bracket?

- Yes, correct.

- All right.

For the 50-- - 50, 100 and 200 yard backstroke.

- All right.

And then you have some Illinois championship title, or am I wrong?

(laughs) - No, you're right.

The Illinois State meet, well, we'll have to lay all the cards on the table.

- Okay.

- There are no other swimmers in my age bracket in my event-- - That's fair, that's very fair, Owen.

- In the state of Illinois.

But I did swim this year and this year I set records for both the 50 and the 100 backstroke-- - For your age bracket?

- For my age bracket.

- All right.

- For the state of Illinois.

- What were those numbers, out of curiosity?

- Oh, golly.

I have to think.

- [Christine] Good and better.

- (laughs) The 50 yard was, I think 43 seconds and change.

I can't remember exactly what.

The 100 was, I don't remember what I did.

1:36 or 1:37.

Now those high school swimmers out here and college swimmers-- - I know.

- I mean, they're gonna clobber that.

- [Christine] Right.

- But I did a little better.

- But let see what they're doing when they're 87 or 88.

- Well, I did a little faster when I was in high school and college.

- Yeah, exactly.

- I haven't gotten the 200 yard record yet for Illinois in the age bracket.

I should have this year.

I should have broken that record when I was at Nationals, but I blew my turn at the 150.

Normally, when I come out of a turn, my first stroke, I'm beyond the flags, which are 15 feet out.

I came outta that turn.

I don't know what happened.

I've watched the film-- - The video.

- The video on it several times.

I can't identify what I did, what happened.

- Maybe it's this bum knee?

- Well, I'm not blaming it on that.

I just got twisted in.

I didn't get a push and it took me three strokes to get to the flags.

- Oh.

- So I missed the state of Illinois record by .3 of a second, and that probably cost me two seconds.

But, next year.

- (laughs) Yeah.

This is your bucket list.

So in January, we're hoping that this knee is all better.

And this is, it's, swimming is easy on your body and on your joints.

And so maybe you'll be able to get there.

When will, and it'll be for nationals next year?

Or it'll be the Illinois State first?

And then will you do nationals again?

- I'm planning to, nationals are at the end of April, down in San Antonio.

Outdoor facility.

I prefer indoor facilities.

- And why is that?

- Well, when you're outdoor swimming backstroke, you look up-- - All of the other elements.

- You look up and you see the sky and clouds.

You don't see a ceiling where you can guide yourself.

And it's easy to get off to the side of your lane.

You don't wanna make contact with the lane lines.

But once in a while you do.

And when you're outdoors in backstroke, that's easy to happen.

- Gosh.

And then really quickly, you didn't get to wear goggles in high school or college.

- Goggles were not invented yet for swimming in high school or college.

No.

- Okay.

- They were not.

- But you wear them now.

- Oh, yes.

- Because you still, probably still have some chlorine in your eyes from all those years ago.

(laughs) - Could be.

It was always fun in college.

You finish practice, your eyes are red, you go home and you have to study.

- Okay.

(laughs) Well, Owen, thanks so much.

What a fun story.

And you keep it up.

And your bucket list is to set a new goal and get to nationals and be the champ in the state again.

Gold and silver, and you're the guy.

- Well, hopefully the good Lord will agree with that objective and we'll, we'll continue to work on it.

And hopefully others will be motivated to do things-- - Join in.

- That maybe they hadn't considered doing to help keep their bodies in shape too.

- Well, keep us posted.

- Okay.

- Will you do that?

Okay.

Thanks for joining us.

Hope you enjoyed hearing all about Owen's story and see you next time.

Be well.

(lighthearted upbeat music)