My swimming career really started when I was about twelve or thirteen. I would spend all summer at the Colton Plunge, going down around 6:00 AM to help the grounds keeper with his watering. I would coil his hoses when he finished and bring them back to the shed, and he would give me a free pass to go swimming. Jack Spragins was the lifeguard and an old-time swimmer. He took an interest in me and saw my potential and started to train me. We established the Colton Aquatic Club and swam against other teams in the area in the Inland Aquatic League. Johnny Elliot swam for a Riverside team. He was a year older than I and beat me in my first year of competition by just edging me out in most races. That was the last time, however. Those who associated with me around the Colton Plunge were: Bernie and Dot Ahman, Jack Woolven, Boyd White, Tommy Cole, Bill Dodder, Guyman Bailey, Bud Roach (diver), Weldon Draper (his brother Foy Draper was the USC Track Captain), Joe Hubbs, Jessie & Bobby Cline, and many others.
I entered my first ocean (rough water) swim when I was fifteen years old on Labor Day in 1933. It was the Casa de Manana one mile and a quarter swim. It started on the beach near the Scripps Institute of Oceanography pier and ended at the "Cove" in La Jolla. I entered as a Junior in the Boys Division... Jack Spragins and I went down to the beach the day before and asked some of the old timers around the beach which way the tide would be running at the time of the race. They said it would be coming in. Jack's strategy was for me to attempt to swim in a kind of arc rather than a straight line and allow the tide to pull me in line. We had the gold dome of a building in La Jolla to sight on while swimming and I proceeded to swim to the outside of it. Even thought the monitors in the boats attempted to get me back on the line I ignored them and followed Jack's instructions. I was told afterward that as I was nearing the end of the distance they announced that it looked like someone was going to swim all the way to San Diego. I finished 22nd in the race out of over 100 entrants and 2nd in my division. I must have swam a quarter of a mile further than anyone else and was almost backtracking as I came into the cove. If I had stayed in line with the others I would have probably been first in my division. Instead of coming in the tide was going out and it was a good lesson to both Jack and myself to use a little more common sense. I did receive a fine bronze trophy for my efforts that I still have today. Most of my subsequent trophies have been discarded for lack of space and their deterioration. I swam in several rough water ocean swims in the following few years. A half mile swim at Oceanside was always a good one. We started on the beach and ran into the water and swam around the Oceanside pier. Starting on the north side and finishing on the south side, three buoys that we had to swim around marked the minimum distance (one-half mile). In one swim I was doing quite well as I rounded the middle buoy off the end of the pier. I was in about 5th or 6th position. Suddenly I swam right into a patch of seaweed about ten feet in diameter. I had seen it from the pier before the race and thought nothing of it, but when you hit something like that it is quite a shock and you think of octopus, sharks, etc. It spurred me on if only to get out of the seaweed. The waves were breaking well and I caught a good breaker, passing 4 or 5 other swimmers, and made it to the shore and finish line. I was in undisputed second place for the swim. However, Herb Barthels, a huge and powerful swimmer, had rounded the pier well ahead of me and then chose to allow the riptide to carry him through the pier pilings and he came out of the water on the north side of the pier and then ran south on the shore to the finish line. He did all this and still finished ahead of me. The judges were disputing the routing Herb had taken and were trying to decide whether to give him first place or to disqualify him and give it to me. I was lying on my back in the sand quite exhausted from the swim when Herb came over and said: "Clarke, there is some disputation over the race, would you like to swim it over?" I looked up at him and said: "No, you swam further than I did and you're entitled to the win." I wouldn't have swam it over for anything. The judges finally ruled Herb the winner and I received a nice trophy for second place. At another swim at San Pedro that was around the breakwater for a mile swim, I was going quite well and Jack was following me walking along the breakwater encouraging me and letting me know my position with the other swimmers. When I reached shallow water I was in first place and I stood up to run in the water to the finish line on the shore. Raising my legs high to run in the water cramped my leg muscles and I fell down, allowing one other swimmer to pass me and beat me to the finish line. Another 2nd. In all the ocean swims I entered I never won a 1st place, but I received many trophies for placing 2nd through 10th. In a Santa Monica swim I took tenth place and received a silver cup trophy that was larger than many of my 2nd place ones. Jack's wife, Mabel, loved to dance but Jack's sole interest seemed to be swimming. Harp Gough and I used to take Mabel dancing occasionally. She also liked to play tennis and finally started playing regularly with a man about her age. Eventually she divorced Jack and married the guy. Jack, Mabel, and I used to go to the beach and camp in a tent beside the surf for perhaps a week before I had an ocean swim scheduled. Then I could train in the ocean water. In those days there was hardly anyone on the beach and Jack and I would get up in the morning and go swimming in the nude. Mabel, not to be outdone, would go a 100 yards or so up the beach and strip down and swim in the nude too. At Stanford I played freshman water polo as "Sprint." I was second string and the freshman coach, Jack Murrietta, told me that if I could learn to play a bit rougher I could play on the first team. He took me in the water for a couple of hours after one day's workout and taught me every dirty trick in the book. From then on I played first string and had the reputation for being the dirtiest player of the Pacific Coast Conference freshman teams. When I got to Stanford, Coach Nort Thornton needed sprinters and he timed me in practice in a 100 yard race when I was pushing the lead man, Jack Vibert. I swam it in 55 seconds flat and Nort decided I would swim the 50, 100 and four man relay. I swam those races for three years, earning my letter each year and a Block "S" my senior year. Besides having meets between California, USC and UCLA we swam against San Jose State, Santa Clara, the Athens Club of San Francisco, and others. Some of our meets were held in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and we also entered the Hayward Relays. One night, after winning a gold medal at the Fairmont Hotel, I phoned DeVonne to tell her about my winning and the medal. Swimming was a minor sport then and the Block "S" was awarded for major sports only on a yearly basis. In the minor sports one had to win his letter for all three years to receive one final Block "S" letter. In 1938 I was high point winner for the Stanford team, receiving a total of more points in each meet than any other swimmer. I usually won the 50 yard & 100 yard freestyle races and swam on the winning 400 yard relay team that always netted me a total of 15 points for each meet. My best times were for the 50 yards: 23.8 seconds, and for the 100 yards: 54.0 seconds. Today most high school swimmers can beat that. However, they use starting blocks that give them a greater advantage over the ones we used. They also work out with weights to build up their muscles. In my day, the thought of lifting weights was taboo for swimmers. We were to keep our muscles soft and relaxed. Once I was hitting a punching bag and my coach saw me and read the riot act to me. Some of my teammates in swimming at Stanford were: John Lamb, Roy Vitousek, Hal Weatherbe, John Brahtz, Dave Duncan, Bill Weeden, Bill Hatch`, Win Needham, Roy Winkleman (diver), Jack Vibert, Mason Latteau, and Dave Rider.