Monday, June 23, 2008

The 60s--explosive growth

The 1960s saw the biggest growth in the new league. Thirty-seven pools joined the original 10 charter members--the six from 1958 and the four from 1959. Here they are by year of entry (according to the history I have--if anyone has more information, please send it to me!). If there is a date in parenthesis following a pool's name, that is the last year the team participated in the MCSL. As you can see, most of these early teams are still competing.

1960
Old Georgetown
Parkland

1961
Merrimack
Mohican
North Chevy Chase
Oakview
Park Forest (1993)
Potomac
Twinbrook
Twin Farms

1962
None

1963
Hillandale
West Hillandale
Wildwood Manor
Woodley Gardens

1964
Northwest Branch
Pleasant View (2002)

1965
Forest Knolls
Hungerford-Stoneridge (1990)
North Bethesda (now Seven Locks)
Old Farm
Tilden Woods

1966
Aspen Hill (2004)
Franklin Knolls

1967
Carderock Springs
Damascus
Montgomery Square
Regency Estates

1968
Ashton
Calverton
Kemp Mill
Mill Creek
Potomac Woods
Robin Hood

1969
Flower Valley
Little Falls
Manor Woods
Montgomery Village (became various Village teams)

Stay tuned for the 70s.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the interesting mini-history of MCSL. I swam for the now defunct Hungerford-Stonridge Whales from circa 77-82, and now my kids are swimming for Forest Knolls. Interesting coincidence that they both joined the league in the same year.

A few random memories/comparisons:

I remember when we first replaced our old lane ropes with the fancy new "wave-breakers"...quite an expense at the time (my dad was treasurer for our pool at the time). I wonder what happened to them when the pool was bought-out to develop Wootton Pkwy?

The boy's suits back then were the old "brief" style nylon speedos, with lycra just begining to hit the market...lycra caps were all the rage, but seem to have disappeared from the market. Now all of the boys wear the longer "jammer" style suits. I don't think anyone misses the old nylon briefs (although an old-timer at our pool still works out in one).

I was a lot easier as an 8-year old kid to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday for a meet than it is as a 40 year old man.

On the question of false starts, I can clearly remember some of the older boys on our team intentionally false-starting to "pin the competition" to the blocks. I was somewhat surprised to come back to the league after 20 years to find that starters almost never call false starts (until I learned about the change in rules).

Sally MacKenzie said...

I have a few ribbons from Hungerford-Stoneridge, but sadly I can't remember what the pool looked like. And I have no idea what happened to the lane lines. If anyone knows, please speak up!

Some guys still race in those brief style suits--my 18 year old is one. Except when he's really serious, that is--that's when he puts on his high tech suit--though not one of those VERY expensive,full body suits featured at the Olympic Trials.