Robert Clotworthy (USA)

Honor Diver (1980)

The information on this page was written the year of their induction.

FOR THE RECORD:  OLYMPIC GAMES: 1952 bronze (springboard); 1956 gold (springboard); NATIONAL AAU Diving Titles: 5 (1m, 3m springboard); NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1 (3m springboard); PAN AMERICAN GAMES: 1955 silver (platform), bronze (springboard); BIG TEN CONFERENCE Titles: 5 (1m, 3m springboard).

After 11 Big Ten, NCAA, and National AAU Championships at Ohio State Bob Clotworthy out of  New Jersey capped it all off with an Olympic gold medal at Melbourne in 1956.  In between he won a bronze in Helsinki (1952) and another bronze at the Pan Am Games (1955).  These were all as a springboard diver but he added a silver from the tower at the Pan Ams just to prove his versatility.  Clotworthy was the last in a long line of divers turned swim coaches in the tradition of Ernst Brandsten, Karl Michael, Dick Papenguth, Clarence Pinkston and Mike Peppe. He produced Olympic medalists Jed Graef (gold in 1964) and Ross Wales (bronze in 1968).  Clotworthy’s swimmers won almost as many national titles as he had won diving — five by Graef, Wales and Gardiner Green to their coach’s six.  Clotworthy was a winning coach at West Point (1955-56), Dartmouth (1958), Princeton (1958-70), Arizona State (1970-71) and Texas (1972-76).  His Princeton team won the Eastern Seaboard Championships in 1962.  His diving has taken him abroad 41 times.  He made a goodwill tour of the world for the State Department in 1958 and to Venezuela as a Peace Corps coach in 1972.  He is married to Pan American bronze medal backstroker Cynthia Gill whom he met at the 1955 Pan Am Games.