Rings of honor
John Morgan’s induction into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame will be shown on NBC today from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
His achievements
» 13 gold and two silver medals in the 1984 and 1992 Paralympic games
» Second leading medalist in 1992 with 10 medals
» Has set 14 world disabled records in his swimming career, including five in the B2 (partially blind) classification and nine in the B1 (legally blind) category
» Selected All-American in open water swimming while at University of California-Irvine
Olympians inducted this year
» Beach volleyball player Karch Kiraly
» Basketball player David Robinson
» Figure skaters Brian Boitano and Carol Heiss Jenkins
» Marathoner Joan Benoit Samuelson
» Swimmer Amy Van Dyken
» Wrestler Bruce Baumgartner
John Morgan has run in two marathons. He has hiked the Appalachian Trail. He is planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro this month. He keeps a kayak in his basement. But his true passion is open water swimming.
Morgan, 46, a Southern California native who recently moved to Hyattsville, has been open-water swimming since 1977. He has swum fro m Santa Barbara to Ventura in a relay. He has swum a Los Angeles marathon. In 1991, he returned to Argentina — where he lived between the ages of 13 and 20 — to swim in the 35-mile Santa Fe-Coronda aquatic marathon.
“It was a big deal when I was a kid — you’d get 100,000 spectators watching this thing,” he said. “All along the river, it’s a huge event there.
“I was 29 when I swam the race,” he said. “Gosh, that seems young, but it didn’t seem young at that time.”
He grew up close to the beach in Southern California, and joined a swim team when he was about 9.
“I was basically almost going to the beach every day during the summer. I was a junior lifeguard, so it was natural to be a good swimmer.”
The summer after high school, though, an accident would blind him — only partially at first — and put his swimming career on hiatus.
“I was working out with stretching bands that I had hooked up to the wall,” he said. “They somehow broke and the metal springs hit me right in the eyes. I had bleeding basically on the inside of my eyes, and it scarred my retinas.”
He didn’t completely lose his eyesight for several years, but Morgan — in and out of hospitals for a year before an extended recovery period — didn’t swim for two years, until he enrolled in Golden West junior college for two years before swimming at University of California-Irvine.
By 1992, he had amassed 15 medals in the Paralympic games. He holds nine world records in the International Blind Sports Federation and eight world records with the International Paralympic Committee. And he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in June.
After all his accomplishments, Morgan is now struggling with what would seemingly be a minor difficulty: He can’t find a place to swim. “I’ve been looking for a pool here,” he said. “I’m getting a little desperate.”
He hopes to find transportation to the University of Maryland pool, which is near his house. “From what people tell me, it’s incredible,” he said.
He said he hopes to participate in open-water events in the area, but wants to make sure he’s back in shape first.
“I’m pretty competitive,” he says. “I don’t want to get in there and make a fool of myself.”
After his prolific career, that’s one thing Morgan shouldn’t have to worry about.
Time out with …
John Morgan
Who has inspired you in your career?
“I got involved with the Association of Blind Athletes, California chapter. That was a huge influence. I went to one of their local meets in California. It was mostly that first meet … there were people in worse shape than I was — definitely much worse shape than I was — that were competing. So I was inspired by a bunch of people there.”
How does the testing work for different levels of blindness/disability in the Paralympics?
“Usually, you get there and they do an exam. For the totally blind category, in fact, they thought I was cheating because I had previously been in the middle category. So what they did was they required us to wear blacked-out goggles. I wasn’t used to it — at the world championship, everybody had to wear them, and I’d just keep on losing them. They just came off. And they thought I was cheating. What I did — to make sure there was no doubt — was I took my cap and I put it right over my eyes. All they had to do was shine some light in my eye and they’d see that I literally don’t have retina left.”
Out of all your accomplishments/experiences, what stands out the most?
“The Paralympics [are] huge. You’re in this big stadium with everyone screaming. I think that was probably where the pressure was the biggest. You’re representing your country; there are all these expectations. I did well, but I think the marathon in Argentina was the hardest, and I was probably in the best shape. That was incredible — eight hours and 24 minutes, 35 miles. It’s the kind of race where you start at 7 in the morning, and it was night by the time we got home. That was the highlight of my swimming career. It was probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done.”
How do you stay on course in open-water events?
“There’s someone ahead of me in a kayak, and noodles hang off the back. Every stroke I take, I touch the noodle, so I know where I’m headed. I previously used a walkie-talkie system, but it got wet. Then I used a mechanical piece in my cap that would beep right or left based on what kayaker told me. But that gave me headaches. I’ve tried tethering with other swimmers, but that was too cumbersome — it doesn’t work unless you’re going at exactly the same speeds.
