A VOICE for the SPORT: ONE OF A KIND

Swimming World Magazine, Jun 2005 by Whitten, Phillip

On April 18, Al Schoenfield-publisher, editor, marketing director, head of advertising and sales, circulation honcho, production manager and chief bottle washer of Swimming World and Junior Swimmer Magazine from 1960 to 1978, passed away at the good age of 90.

Elsewhere in this issue (page 8), Al's achievements are enumerated, mainly for the benefit of the younger generation, because any swimmer who was a teenager or older between 1960 and 1978 knew of Al and, most likely, knew him personally. So, too, did all the swim parents from that era as well as the officials-from the head of FINA and the AAU (which ran swimming in the days before USA Swimming) down to every starter and stroke and turn judge in meets across the USA.

Al would arrive at a meet-not just nationals, Junior Olympics or sectionals, but virtually any age group meet from the swimming hotbeds of California to Podunkville, North Dakota-and systematically work first the deck, then the stands. He'd start at one end of the pool and introduce himself and Swimming World to every breathing soul he encountered. Then he'd do the same with the parents in the bleachers.

Within a short time, as Swimming World's circulation exploded from an initial 300 to nearly 40,000, he, himself, became an attraction, with swimmers and officials lining up to greet him and parents (including my own) eager to tell him of their children's exploits in the hope that they'd be mentioned in the next issue of Swimming World.

He was that kind of charismatic guy Like the Beach Boys, he got around.

Back then, I was a hotshot age grouper, and my dad was a team and meet official. I remember meeting both Mr. Schoenfield (no one I knew dared call him Al) and Beth Kaufman, the mother of age group swimming. I felt honored.

Years later, when I assumed one of his roles as editor-in-chief of this magazine, I was privileged to make his acquaintance again-and I did call him Al. In Sydney, at the 2000 Olympic Games, Al found himself wheelchair-bound, and we spent quite a bit of time together as I pushed him from the aquatic center to the press center to the bus stop.

It's interesting talking with Al's daughter Nancy and his closest friends, associates and colleagues about this extraordinary man. Many describe him as humble, but at the same time, many also characterize him as fiery, opinionated and cantankerous.

He was all that. He believed in doing what was right, regardless of the cost or consequences. In many respects, Al has been my role model in my years as editor of Swimming World.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Al championed equal rights for women in athletics, eventually testifying before Congress in favor of Title IX. He believed passionately in equal rights for men and women athletes. We spoke at length in Sydney about how, since the early 1990s, Title IX has been subverted and used as a weapon to kill men's Olympic sports teams at the collegiate level. Not surprisingly, he was outraged-equally passionate about the wrong currently being done to male swimmers as he was about the earlier prejudicial treatment of female swimmers.

Truly, in the words of Dick Deal, who acquired the magazine from Al in 1978, he was one of a kind. We shall not see his like again.

PHILLIP WHITTEN, Chief Media Officer