A History of Logger Swimming

The earliest documented varsity swim team appears in the 1957–58 season — the starting point of Doug Hanna’s typed History of Swimming at the University of Puget Sound, 1957–1972. That first squad: Bob Dunbar, Dave Davis, Wendell Clare, Bob Harris, Vic Holme, Jerry Hartley, Keith Helm, Bob Newton, Jack Snavely, Glen Kerrick, and Kimo Streeter.

Don Duncan is hired to run Logger swimming from the program’s very first season — and stays 37 years, through 1993–94. Nearly everything in this archive traces back to the season binders he kept year after year — and it was Duncan who, two decades on, would conjure an entire conference out of thin air (see 1974).

Earl Ellis — a standout Logger swimmer, class of 1959 — goes on to a long run as head swimming coach at the University of Washington, the Division I power just up the road. A UPS man would help shape Northwest swimming from the other bench for decades.

The College of Puget Sound is renamed the University of Puget Sound — the name it still carries. Chartered in 1888 and known as CPS since 1914, the school reclaims university status in 1960, and the Loggers have swum as UPS ever since.

Kimo Streeter — a butterflyer from that first 1957–58 squad — graduates into a coaching career that would span half a century. After stops at Curtis Junior High, Mount Tahoma High School, and the Tacoma Swim Club age-group program, he became Peninsula High School’s first swim coach in 1967 and founded the Peninsula Swim Club; in 1980 he started the Puget Sound Swim Club at South Kitsap. He was inducted into both the Pacific Northwest Swimming and Washington Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Halls of Fame in 2006. Like Earl Ellis before him, a Logger who shaped Northwest swimming from the west side of the Sound.

Through the mid-1960s UPS competed as an NAIA program, and the Evergreen Conference was home — a five-team swimming league of Puget Sound, Central Washington, Western Washington, Eastern Washington and Whitworth. The Loggers owned it, winning the conference meet five years running, 1960 through 1964. Duncan’s own preseason forecast for 1963–64 was characteristically dry about the fifth:

“University of Puget Sound, although losing several key swimmers, will attempt to capture its 5th consecutive league championship. If successful, it will be with far less ease than in the past.”
— Don Duncan, Evergreen Conference College Forecast

They were successful. Central Washington took the next two — and then the Loggers were gone (see 1967).

Byron Stauffer wins the 50 Freestyle at the NAIA Championships in :22.9 — one of the earliest national titles in program history. Tap the medal for the result.

John Jewell wins the 200 Freestyle (1:54.1) and teams with Byron Stauffer, Doug Hanna and Rich Hurst on a national-champion 400 Freestyle Relay (3:23.3) — two NAIA titles in a single meet. Tap the medal for both.

Lyndon Meredith wins the 100 Backstroke at the NAIA Championships in :56.7 — the last of the Loggers’ NAIA-era national titles before the move up to the NCAA College Division. Tap the medal for the result.

UPS steps up from NAIA-only status into the NCAA College Division — what becomes Division II. This is the scholarship era: unlike the Division III years to come, D-II allowed athletic aid, and for a great many Loggers that made all the difference.

The price was the league. On October 14, 1966 the university announced that its teams would compete under the NCAA banner, and that it had already notified the Evergreen Conference of its withdrawal effective January 1, 1967 — ending 18 years in the conference. From here on the Loggers were an athletic independent: national championships to aim for, but no conference meet to call their own.

The swimming coaches had seen it coming. At the NAIA District 1 swimming committee meeting on February 24, 1966, the minutes already note that “UPS swimmers will not be participating in a conference championship meet after January 1st.” That meeting was held at Central Washington during the conference meet itself — what Doug Hanna’s history calls “the last Evergreen Conference Championships for the Loggers as they were moving up to N.C.A.A. competition the next year and were going to go as an independent.” They left the conference with a ten-year record of 48 wins and 6 losses. A 1969 newspaper profile put it more bluntly: UPS had “defected from the Evergreen Conference.”

“The enrollment trend at UPS toward ever increasing numbers of out-of-state students indicates that the athletic future of this university lies in a different direction.”
— Athletic Director John Heinrick, October 14, 1966

Leaving did not end it. In the fall of 1969 the Evergreen Conference invited five independents — Seattle Pacific, UPS, Portland State, Simon Fraser and Southern Oregon — to join, and only Southern Oregon said yes. The league’s answer, disclosed in February 1970, was to stop scheduling Seattle Pacific and Puget Sound altogether: in the Post-Intelligencer’s words, “a pressure move to bring the two NCAA college division independents into the league.”

“We feel the Falcons (and UPS) are benefitting from the existence of our league without having to comply with its restrictions.”
— Central Washington AD Adrian Beamer, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Feb. 16, 1970

Duncan clipped the story, underlined it in red, penciled “and U.P.S.” into the headline “Evco to Boycott Falcon Teams,” and wrote across the page: “Here we go again, folks!!” A coach whose natural rivals would not schedule him was going to need a league of his own.

That same week the Loggers edged Central Washington in what looked like the last meeting between the two. The Trail reported that Duncan called the boycott “unfortunate” — it would “destroy a healthy traditional rivalry between the two schools in swimming” — and then supplied its own verdict:

“The boycott seems to be rooted in the philosophy that if you can’t beat ’em, don’t play ’em.”
— The Trail, Feb. 20, 1970

Fresh off the jump into the NCAA College Division, UPS trades its old maroon and white for green and gold — ratified by a student vote in October 1967 and adopted in 1968. The idea was to rebrand with a winner’s colors, borrowed from the champion Green Bay Packers and the new Seattle SuperSonics. The Loggers would race in green and gold for three decades.

Not every milestone is a national title. In 1972 the Loggers held their first paper airplane contest — because a swim team is also, fundamentally, a room full of competitive people who will race absolutely anything, dry land included.

Now a non-NAIA team, UPS is excluded from the NAIA district championship at Lewis & Clark. In the same weeks Washington State and Alaska drop swimming outright, and the Big Sky Conference drops it as a conference sport — erasing an entire championship meet.

“We have been shut out of the Lewis & Clark meet which we supported at the end of last season. It will be an NAIA district meet only… I don’t want to go into every season swimming or not swimming in the ‘big’ meet at Lewis & Clark at the whim of the NAIA coaches. Some of them feel that another strong team in the meet, especially a non-NAIA team, would further discourage the weaker teams from participating or improving.”
— Don Duncan, The Puget Sound Swimmer, May 23, 1973

On May 9, 1973 — the day the Big Sky dropped swimming — Duncan sends Athletic Director Doug McArthur a four-page memo, “Varsity Swimming — Present and Future Status.” It ranks every Northwest program in four levels (Washington alone at the top; UPS in a third tier with Simon Fraser, Oregon State, PLU, Montana, Southern Oregon, Idaho, Central Washington and Weber State) and then names the real problem:

“A great jumble of affiliations is represented within Northwest college swimming… the Evergreen Conference, Northwest Conference, Big Sky Conference, NAIA District 1 and 2, NCAA University and College Divisions, Canadian intercollegiate, Canadian independent, and U.S. independent.”

His long-range goal: “all the Northwest colleges organized into one group, with a championship meet,” cutting across conference and NAIA/NCAA lines. That same day he had floated the idea to Idaho coach Chet Hall and offered to host the first championship himself. The memo’s last line is the whole plan:

“Eventually, I would like to see other teams ask to join our association, rather than the other way around.”

Duncan writes five coaches — Weber State, Idaho, UBC, Portland State, Montana — proposing an informal “Northwest Intercollegiate Swimming Association” for teams with “no place else to go.” The response, in his own later words, was one reply.

After Oregon State guts its own program, Duncan tries once more — this time to the healthy Northwest small colleges (PLU, Simon Fraser, Central Washington, Southern Oregon, Idaho, UBC, Portland State). He borrows a name from the brand-new North Pacific Baseball League and calls it the North Pacific Swimming Association. His sign-off says everything about the man:

“Please seriously consider this proposal, and let me know before the end of April what you think — even if it’s just a postcard or obscene phone call.”

This time it takes. The first North Pacific Swimming & Diving Championships are held Feb 21–23, 1975 in UPS’s Wallace Pool. The charter field: Central Washington, Idaho, Montana, Simon Fraser, Southern Oregon, Eastern Washington, and Puget Sound. UPS finishes a strong second behind NAIA national champ Simon Fraser.

Dan Seelye wins both backstrokes at the NCAA Division II Championships — the 100 (:52.5) and 200 (1:55.0) — the Loggers’ first individual national titles of the NCAA era. Tap the medal for both.

Vic Swanson wins his first individual national title — the 1650 freestyle. Over the next four years he takes five, in five completely different events: the mile, the 200 and 400 IM, the 100 butterfly, and the 100 freestyle. From the distance grind to a flat-out sprint — a range almost no swimmer ever assembles.

Bob Jackson wins the 100 Breaststroke at the NCAA Division II Championships in :57.45 — the first national title for the breaststroker who would go on to stack up many more. Tap the medal for the result.

The D-II machine is running at full tilt. Bob Jackson takes both breaststrokes (:55.22 / 2:03.42), Vic Swanson wins both individual medleys (1:53.65 / 4:03.42), and the 400 Medley Relay of Mike McGoorty, Jackson, Tom Wick and Swanson wins in 3:26.81 — five national championships. Tap the medal for them all.

Logger Avi Carmel sets an Israeli national record in the 100-meter backstroke (short course) — a UPS swimmer rewriting a country’s record book.

Logger Bob Jackson represents the United States at the World University Games — the breaststroker stacking up NCAA Division II titles at home takes his place among the country’s best. (He’d go on to the third-fastest breaststroke ever swum in 1981 and a U.S. title in 1984.)

Around this time Micki King Hogue takes over the Logger diving program. King was the 1972 Olympic gold medalist in the 3-meter springboard — an Air Force officer stationed at nearby McChord Air Force Base — and she brought that pedigree to the UPS boards, coaching the men and women divers.

The peak of the D-II years. In a single national meet Bob Jackson (100 & 200 breast) and Vic Swanson (100 free & 100 fly) win individual titles and anchor a winning 400 medley relay — five national championships on one weekend. Tap the medal to see them all.

Four more national titles at the NCAA Division II Championships. Bob Jackson repeats in both breaststrokes (:55.40 / 2:05.24), Leo Kosenkranius takes the 200 Backstroke (1:56.79), and the 400 Medley Relay of Trevor Jones, Jackson, Tom Roth and Tom Wick wins in 3:26.23. Tap the medal for them all.

Robb Powers sweeps both breaststrokes at the NCAA Division II Championships — the 100 (:57.65) and 200 (2:05.21) — a two-title weekend that made him a worthy successor to Bob Jackson in the Logger breaststroke line. Tap the medal for both.

A quirk of small-college membership: in a single season UPS sends swimmers to both the NCAA Division II Championships (Orlando) and the NAIA Championships (Whitworth) — six days apart, with no roster overlap — as tighter D-II qualifying pushed some Loggers to the NAIA meet instead.

UPS returns fully to the NAIA. (It’s why the 1987 NCAA D-II results carry zero Loggers — not a missing record, just a team that had moved on.) Through it all, Don Duncan’s meticulous season binders keep the real results coming regardless of affiliation.

Back at the NAIA Championships, David Haynes wins both butterflys — the 100 (:49.79) and 200 (1:51.26) — the first national titles of the NAIA-return era. Tap the medal for both.

Andrew Cukurs takes the 200 Butterfly at the NAIA Championships in 1:51.85 — keeping the Logger butterfly line unbroken. Tap the medal for the result.

Chris Myhre arrives to coach the women’s team — four years before he takes over the whole program from Don Duncan and leads the men to a national title in his very first season at the helm (see 1994–95).

The title haul builds toward the championship years. Roger Woods (100 Back, :52.31), Greg Kabacy (200 Back, 1:51.94) and Ace Blair (1650 Free, 16:05.01) all win at the NAIA Championships. Tap the medal for all three.

On the eve of the championship dynasty, the Loggers finish second at NAIA Nationals behind four titles: Roger Woods (100 Back), Greg Kabacy (200 Back), Rich Butler (200 Breast), and the 200 Medley Relay of Woods, Butler, Kabacy and Marc Kincaid (1:34.04). Tap the medal for them all.

UPS joins the Northwest Conference (then the NCIC) and begins the move to NCAA Division III — the no-scholarship era. The top-end times stay quick; it’s the depth below that thins between divisions.

In UPS’s very first Northwest Conference championship meet (Feb 1997, at Linfield), the Loggers take the title with 780 points — Marc Kincaid co-Outstanding Swimmer of the meet.

Even as UPS moved toward Division III, Ben Johnson won the 100 Backstroke at the NAIA Championships in :50.71 — a national title in the transition years. Tap the medal for the result.

Kyle Sexton wins the 200 Backstroke at the NAIA Championships in 1:51.25 — among the last NAIA national titles before UPS competed fully as a Division III program. Tap the medal for the result.

The transition completes: UPS competes at the NCAA Division III Championships (Emory University), finishing 18th — the Loggers’ arrival on the national D-III stage they still swim on today.

As UPS settles into Division III, it comes home to its founding colors. The Board of Trustees makes it official in May 1998, and in the fall of 1999 the Loggers swim once more in maroon and white — ending the green-and-gold era and restoring the colors the school still wears on Maroon Fridays today.

From the late 2000s on, every meet lives in clean digital results (Northwest Conference and SwimCloud) — the best-documented stretch in program history, and the backbone of this archive’s modern seasons.

Nearly six decades after the Hugh Wallace Memorial Pool first opened in 1957, UPS unveils a new aquatics facility — the Loggers’ home water for the modern era.

Jay Daniels is named head coach of the men’s and women’s programs in May 2022, succeeding Chris Myhre after his 28 years on deck — only the third head coach in program history, after Don Duncan and Myhre. A Kalamazoo College alum, Daniels came to Puget Sound from six seasons as head coach at Kalamazoo, and has since led the Loggers to back-to-back NWC runner-up finishes (2025, 2026), with a Puget Sound first-year winning an NWC title in every one of his seasons.

Seventy years after that first 1957–58 squad, Logger swimming continues in Wallace Pool — a new pool carrying the old name. The line runs through the coaches: Don Duncan trained Kimo Streeter and Earl Ellis, who between them spent the next half-century coaching Northwest swimmers from Peninsula High School to the University of Washington; Duncan handed the deck to Chris Myhre, and Myhre to Jay Daniels — three head coaches in seventy years, and a straight line from Streeter to today.