“Old” SLHS Swimmers (1958-1962) Honor Coach

Back in  June swimming great, Brian Foss and his wife Marcia, coordinated and hosted a reunion of nine swimmers coached by perennial league winning coach Bob Brown during the years 1958- 1962 at San Leandro High School (SLHS) and A.A.U. days with the “RAD LAB” (Lawrence Radiation Lab., Livermore, CA.). Brian was able to locate more than shown below but distance prevented some from attending. Those who were able to attend are pictured below.  (click on any pictures to enlarge and/or if you want to copy)

From left to right: (Year graduated is shown in parenthesis) Roy Childs (‘59), John "Kip" Olney (’60), Jerry Macedo (’61) Frank DePace (’62), coach Bob Brown and Mike Chinn. (’61) Front rowTed Barstad (’62), Morgan Edwards (’62), Jim Perry (’62) and Brian Foss (‘60)

The reunion was held at the Foss home in Santa Cruz, only a few hundred yards from the ocean where we watched breaking waves through their living room window.

Coach Bob Brown, now 80 years old and in fantastic condition, was the focal point of the reunion as all in attendance thanked him for what he did for each of us not only in swim training and competition, but as a friend and counselor guiding his swimmers on to colleges and ultimately being better men. Brian presented coach Brown with a plaque thanking him for all those things he did for us during our teenage years.

During his tenure at SLHS, Coach Brown won the A.C.A.L. Swim Title three years in a row (1958-1960). A number of his swimmers achieved selection to High School All-American. He went on from San Leandro High School to become coach at Chabot College. and continued his career in helping swimmers achieve all that they could.

Colleges and Universities graduated from were Denver University, Univ. of the Pacific,and Univ. of Southern Calif, These nine swimmers have career backgrounds in Port Director (1- Foss) ,insurance (1 -Chinn), law (2 - Morgan and Perry), print shop owner (1- Barstad), univ. professor (1-Childs), swim coach (1- Macedo), wine writer (1-Olney ), and computer graphics designer (1-DePace)

The current home towns of attendees: Santa Cruz (Foss), Parker, CO. (Morgan), Napa (Olney), Almaden-San Jose ( Macedo), Fairfax (DePace), Stockton (Childs), Lafayette (Perry), Diablo-Danville (Barstad), Orinda (Chinn) and Tucson, Az (coach Brown).

Of those attending, Jerry Macedo went on in swimming to coach and manager Almaden Swim and Racquet Club for over 35 years. He also was in the army and coached swimming at the U.S. military academy West Point. John "Kip" Olney while serving as an officer in the Navy coached and swam for the 12th Naval District swim team (1967-68).

The reminiscing, which often took the form of telling some stories about each other back in the day, were refreshing and so worth getting together to share.

Performing the multiple roles of food preparation and servers, picture takers and just plain perfect hostesses were Marcia Foss and Jodie Blackburn. Jodie also was a former swimmer but in the Fresno area.

Marcia and Brian Foss

Brian getting Jodie ready to take picture of the group

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Pictured below are photos extracted from the 1960 San Leandro High School Yearbook. The butterfly swimmer upper right is John “Kip” Olney, to the right is Diver Floyd Plumlee and below them are pictured Coach Brown and group of the swimmers from left to right top row: Dave Leonard, Gary Henning and Larry Pearson and front row: John “Kip” Olney, Jim Foley and Brian Foss.

The second page of photos is labeled appropriately.