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p.1 STANFORD UNIVERSITY PROJECT: Bob Murphy Interviews INTERVIEWEE: Richard Quick Robert W. Murphy: [0:01] Hello again everybody, Bob Murphy here with another chapter, wonderful chapter in the entire history of Stanford Sports, and its a chapter that is quickly, at this point, coming to a conclusion. And a lot of us are unhappy about that but there are family responsibilities and other considerations in life. [0:18] But Richard Quick after one of the all time stays at Stanford and the record that he has accomplished is moving on. And Richard, we always have fun talking anyways [laughing] so we might as well let other people listen into it. [0:33] Lets go back to the beginning, lets go back to the beginning. Women's swimming. Women's Sports. You were coaching at the advert of all this. I remember, gosh, way back in the old days here in the Bay Area, and Curtis and Joyce McCrae, and I mean way back, Charlie Saphon, the Fairmont Hotel and all of that. [0:51] But they had no place in intercollegiate athletics. They do now coach, and you've had a lot to do with it. Richard: [0:59] Quick: I've enjoyed it Bob, but you know title nine changed things for women's athletics. And I was involved in it at the beginning of the real implementation of title nine and, by the way Bob, I just want you to know Stanford has done Title nine right, in that, they've expanded women's sports without dropping men's sports. [1:29] Many universities haven't followed that philosophy and that's sad for me because, after all, I'm a product of men's athletics. Because I swam in college and enjoyed that side of the equation. But you're right, when I first started coaching, in 1965, Spring Branch Memorial High School and Dad's Club in Houston, Texas, there wasn't even high school swimming for girls in the state of Texas. I coached the boys team, and girls would retire p.2 from swimming at 16. They were considered old at 17 or 18. And you know, that whole culture has changed. Murphy: [2:08] Richard, there were, of course there were Olympic Games and you know '64 Tokyo and all over the place. There was swimming, but it just wasn't in schools, it was with clubs, I remember after the war, swimming clubs kind of came along. Not just in California, but in Texas and around. These were the places were kids, maybe, had an opportunity to swim. Quick: [2:31] That's true, Bob, really swimming came out of summer league swimming, and they were boys and girls at that time and very young and everything. And to be honest with you when swimming in general and particularly women's swimming took off was in 1952, the United States got their fanny beat pretty handily in the Olympic Games by the Australians in particular. Shortly after that, we started age group swimming in this country, and that's when women's swimming really took off for a while. [3:07] When I say 'for a while', until a girl got to be 16. Now for men they could go on and swim in college. But there wasn't that opportunity for girls. So girls lived in the club system, and they had one of the all time great clubs in this area, as you know, Santa Clara swim club. Which produced many, many Olympians, all of those people retired at sixteen. Murphy: [3:29] Well I know a fella that preceded you, my dear old friend George Haines had a lot to do with building this program. You picked it up and ran with it. Quick: [3:36] Without a doubt. In my mind, Bob, George Haines is the greatest swimming coach that ever walked the face of the earth. He coached more world record holders, Olympic gold medal winners, National Champions, than anyone. And he did it, men and women, high school kids, I mean he did it with everybody. [3:54] Anybody he touched got faster and achieved at the highest levels. Murphy: [3:59] Boy we had some good ones around here to, Chris von Saltza, I remember Donna De Varona, some of those people, you remember them well. p.3 Quick: [4:04] Oh, without a doubt. They're my heroes. Mark Spitz, Don Schollander, Claudia Kolb Thomas. Also another coach at Stanford, was also another coach at Stanford, one of the greatest of all time. Murphy: [4:17] Steve Clark. Quick: [4:18] Absolutely. You know, I'll never forget, Bob, when I'm a young coach I come out here to the Santa Clara Swim Club to watch George Haines coach. He's coaching Santa Clara High School and Santa Clara Swim Club and I walk out on the deck. I'm just standing there on the deck, watching as a young kid, and I'd ask George if I could and he said "sure". [4:43] Well goggles had just been invented and before that people would swim without goggles, and come out of the pool with chlorine bloodshot eyes. Well, George had this box of new goggles hidden behind the wall. And all the kids took their goggles off and laid them on the end of the pool, because they were doing a kickboard set. And he's walking along, and he's coming this way toward him, he's stepping on all their goggles and breaking them. [laughter] Quick: [5:12] And they're yelling "Coach, what're you doing?! You're wrecking my goggles!" and then he hands them all new ones. Murphy: [5:17] That sounds like George. [laughter] Murphy: [5:20] Always that old smirk. Quick: [5:23] Yeah. But, I've just seen a lot of changes in swimming, and of course goggles is one of them, but yes, George is one of the greatest of all time. Murphy: [5:32] Richard, give the folks a little program from the beginning, how you go to be to were you are now, skipping along the way, obviously SMU and coaching men before women, and once you got to women you didn't leave the women. [5:45] Can you talk about that a little bit? Give them a little chronology of what took place in your life here. p.4 Quick: [5:50] Well, Bob, first of all I wanted to be a swimming coach since I was 12-years-old. Murphy: [5:56] Were you a good swimmer? Quick: [5:57] I was a pretty good high school swimmer and college swimmer, captain of both my teams in high school and college, and you know All-American in those realms. I tried out for the Olympic team in 1960 and it didn't even come close, but I've had some wonderful, wonderful experiences as an athlete in swimming. [6:18] I've wanted to be a swimming coach since I was 12-years-old. I was influenced by a man by the name of Bob Timmons in Wichita, Kansas, I was swimming for the Wichita Swim Club at the time. I swam for him at Wichita East High School all my sophomore year. I've kind of wanted to be like Mr. Timmons ever since, and I'm still trying. But just a little about him, he was the first coach to coach a high school miler to run under four ten (4: [6:38] 10). Then he coached the first high school miler to run under four minutes, a guy named Jim Ryan. Then, he also coached Jeff Farrell who was on the 1960 Olympic team in swimming. [6:58] So this guy can really coach. Great, great guy. Little bit like John Wooden, he never talked about winning or losing, he would tell us all the time, athletics aren't very important, if you're not learning about principles and values that cause you to grow up more effectively. [7:14] Anyway, I started my coaching career after graduating from SMU in 1965 and, actually something a little interesting involving myself, when I moved from Wichita East High School to Highland Park High School in Dallas, between my sophomore and junior year. The swimming coach at Allen Park High School was a football coach, a great guy named Jerry Kolp. Football wasn't too bad down there either, there was a guy named Dope Walker, I remember he graduated from Allen Park. As did Kyle Rope, by the way. [7:48] Anyway, Jerry didn't know anything about swimming, so Jerry Kolp and I used to have lunch together almost every day during the swimming season, and I would help him write out practices for that evening's practice. Then I'd never tell anybody, then he'd run p.5 the practice and he became a very good strategist as far as putting the meets together, and so on. I was actually kind of an assistant coach, to my high school team when I was a junior and senior in high school. [8:21] Then I went to SMU for four years, graduated it 1965 and started my coaching career at the Dad's Club in Houston Texas. When I interviewed for the job, the director said 'Well you're far too young for this job' and he was an executive with Floor Shine Shoes he said that 'if you ever want to sell shoes, I think I could get you a job with Floor Shine'.