SCHOLLANDER, Don(ald) Arthur

(b. 30 April 1946 in Charlotte, North Carolina), U.S. Olympic swimming champion who was the first swimmer to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Schollander was the son of Wendell Leslie Schollander, a former all-state high school football player and an insurance company executive, and Martha Perry Schollander, an outstanding swimmer who appeared in a number of the Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller. Schollander's brother, Wendell Leslie, Jr., was an all-state football player in football and later played for the University of Pennsylvaniateam. While still quite young, Schollander moved with his family to Lake Oswego, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.

Schollander learned the basics of swimming as a child at Portland's Aero Club. By the age of ten, he set a national record in his age group for swimming the backstroke. High school presented the young athlete with a critical choice—to try out for the football or the swim team. Don's father suggested that his son try swimming, where he might have an opportunity to achieve quicker success. As a freshman, Don made the varsity, swimming against boys four years his senior. That first year, he won two events at the Oregon state finals, and by his sophomore year, he was beating all comers.

When Schollander and his family realized that he probably had progressed as far as he could as a swimmer in the local high school program, he left Lake Oswego at age 15 and moved to Santa Clara, California. There he joined the famed Santa Clara Swim Club, coached by George Haines. During his years in Santa Clara, he lived with local families and attended Santa Clara High School, graduating in June 1964. When training Schollander for the 1964 Olympic Trials, Haines expressed confidence that he could win any freestyle event for which he trained. Although the swimmer was particularly strong in the middle distances, Haines feared that it would be foolhardy to prepare Schollander for both the 100-meter sprint and the 1,500-meter race at the same time. He chose to focus Schollander's training on the 100-meter event, for which he felt Don had an almost perfect stroke, and Haines felt confident this good stroking would pay off in any come-from-behind challenge. The coach's strategy paid off. At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Schollander handily won both the 100-meter freestyle, setting a new Olympic record, and the 400-meter freestyle, establishing a new world mark. In addition to his two gold medals for these personal events, Schollander took gold as a member of the winning U.S. relay teams in the 4 × 100-meter and 4 × 200-meter freestyle races.

Schollander's first event at the Tokyo Olympics was the 100-meter freestyle. The world record in the event was held by Alain Gottvalies of France, but he did not feature in the medals race. Schollander's main competition in the 100-meter race was Bobby McGregor of Scotland, whom he beat out by only one-tenth of a second, finishing in 53.4 seconds, a new Olympic mark. Next up for Schollander was the 400-meter freestyle, an event dominated in the two previous Olympics by Murray Rose of Australia. Swimming for Australia in 1964 were Alan Wood and Russell Phegan, but neither man could compete against the strength of Schollander, who took the gold medal with a new world record of 4 minutes, 12.2 seconds. In the 4 × 100-meter and 4 × 200-meter freestyle relays, Schollander anchored the U.S. teams to victory, setting a new world record in both events. When it was all over, Schollander had duplicated the feat of Jesse Owens at the memorable Olympics of 1936, winning four gold medals in four events.

As the first swimmer ever to win four gold medals in a single Olympics, Schollander was widely honored back in the United States. The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) awarded him its James E. Sullivan Memorial Award for 1964. The Sullivan Trophy, which made its debut in 1930, is awarded annually to the athlete who "by his or her performance, example, and influence as an amateur, has done the most during the year to advance the cause of sportsmanship." The trophy is named for a former president of the AAU.

In 1965 Schollander was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Swimmer. The program for the induction ceremony contained this tribute: "Nineteen-year-old Don Schollander is the world's most honored active swimmer. No swimmer in any year has received the honor that came to Schollander in 1964." Schollander in 1964 was selected as the top athlete at the Olympic Games and honored as both the U.S. and World Athlete of the Year.

After his victories in Tokyo, Schollander returned to the United States and enrolled at Yale University, where he also competed as a swimmer. Schollander graduated from Yale in 1968. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City he duplicated his winning ways in the 4 × 200-meter freestyle relays, taking the gold, and won a silver medal in the 200-meter freestyle race.

Shortly after his return from Mexico City, Schollander retired from competitive swimming. Deeply disillusioned by the new direction that he felt the Olympic movement was taking, the swimmer spoke out against the growing hypocrisy he saw in sports. In his autobiography Schollander offered this assessment of the state of sports and, more specifically, the Olympic movement: "The fault lies with nearly everyone—officials, national leaders, the athletes themselves who, too often, are concerned only with winning." In his view, a true sportsman plays for love of the game and not solely to win and that preoccupation with winning at any cost somehow perverts the goal of sporting events. In addition to winning five gold medals and one silver medal at the Olympics of 1964 and 1968, Schollander broke twenty-two world records and thirty-seven U.S. records during the course of his swimming career. Schollander was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983.

A true American hero, Schollander once offered these observations about how champions are defined by their ability to confront and conquer their pain in competition: "You learn pain in every practice, and you will know it in every race. As you approach the limit of your endurance, it begins coming on gradually, hitting your stomach first. Then your arms grow heavy and your legs tighten—thighs first, then the knees. You sink lower in the water as though someone was pushing down on your back. You experience perception changes. The sounds of the pool blend together and become a crashing roar in your ears. The water takes on a pinkish tinge. Your stomach feels as though it's going to fall out—every kick hurts like heck—and suddenly you hear a shrill internal scream.… It is right here, at the pain barrier, that the great competitors are separated from the rest."

Schollander provides an excellent profile of his early life and his Olympic victories in his autobiography, Deep Water (1971), written with Duke Savage. For a basic step-by-step guide to competitive swimming techniques from the Olympic champion himself, read Schollander, Inside Swimming (1974), in which he covers the various strokes as well as tips on water safety, training, and strategy. Other books that cover the accomplishments of U.S. swimmers in Olympic competition include Kelly A. Gonsalves, First to the Wall: 100 Years of Olympic Swimming (1999), and P. H. Mullen, Jr., Gold in the Water: The Extraordinary Pursuit of Olympic Glory (2001).

Don Amerman