Robert Lynn CLOTWORTHY

After graduating from Ohio State, Bob Clotworthy competed for the New York AC. He was NCAA springboard champion in 1952 and won three AAU outdoor titles and two indoors. He later became an outstanding coach and produced winning teams at West Point, Dartmouth, Princeton, Arizona State and Texas. Clotworthy married Cynthia Gill, whom he met at the 1955 Pan American Games where she won a bronze medal in the 100 m backstroke, while he won silver in platform and bronze in the 3 m springboard at the same Games. Shortly after their marriage, in March of 1958 Bob Clotworthy was selected by the International Educational Exchange Service, a branch of the State Department, to make a goodwill tour, to give swimming and diving exhibitions in Japan, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Ceylon, Egypt, Morocco and a 10-day visit to the World’s Fair in Brussels, Belgium. The trip took from June until September and the Clotworthy’s dubbed their government-funded honeymoon “Around The World in 107 Days.”

After coaching at Princeton, Clotworthy joined the Peace Corps in 1970, and was stationed in Caracas, Venezuela, where he taught diving to Venezuelan coaches. He later coached at Arizona State and then retired to Taos, New Mexico, where he taught and coached at Albuquerque Academy. In his later years, Clotworthy was the best known American historian of diving and was preparing a large history of the sport when he passed. The week before his death, his children asked him what was on his bucket list, and with a huge smile, he formed a big zero with his hands.