Forty-one seasons ago, Tim Glasser, a student-athlete from Ashland, Ohio, a town 41 miles north of Gambier, led the Kenyon Lords to the first NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championship in both the program's and the College's history.
Glasser, a senior co-captain, won three individual events and one relay event, while elevating the Lords to the top of the podium at the 1980 NCAA Championship meet, held at Washington and Jefferson College.
Tim Glasser
Leading up to the meet, there was a clear, but reticent, awareness that this could be the year for the Lords. No one, however, even after clutching the championship trophy, could have predicted the victory was the onset of an NCAA record 31-year reign.
From the deck, Head Coach Jim Steen, in his fifth year at Kenyon, certainly had his program poised. A few weeks prior to the national meet, the Lords captured their 27th consecutive Ohio Athletic Conference Championship, topping second-place Denison University by 275 points. The Kenyon men won 14 of 19 events, including all three relays, during the meet at Oberlin College.
If that wasn't enough steam to power the Lords, the results of the previous four national championship all but paved the way. From a fifth-place finish in 1976 to a runner-up showing in 1979, there was just one more, very probable, step for the team to take.
"Previous years I've always played it down, but I saw no reason to play it down this year," Steen told The Collegian during the aftermath of the 1980 championship. "Not that I was shouting it, I never said once that we were going to win it, boldly, flat out, but I knew we could win it."
Regardless, Steen didn't need to talk. His swimmers did it for him, scoring 323 points at the three-day championship and putting to an
1980 Lords Roster
end the three-year title run of John Hopkins University, a team that Swimming World Magazine dubbed the "absolute czars" of Division III swimming.
Glasser won individual gold in the 500-yard freestyle, as well as the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly races. He also paired with senior co-captain Steve Penn, sophomore Kim Peterson and freshman Chris Shedd to win the 800-yard freestyle relay. At meet's end, Glasser was selected the Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet and Steen took home the Coach of the Year award for the second time in three years.
Also integral to the team victory were sophomore Gregg Parini, who won the 50-yard freestyle title and turned in five All-America swims, and Penn, who cranked out four All-America performances. In all, 15 of the 16 Lords who swam at the national meet came home with at least one All-America award.
And so, the streak was born. From that 1980 Championship through the 2010 Championship the Lords never lost on the national stage. Three more team titles were added over the last decade and the Kenyon men's overall count of 34 championship trophies remains tied with Oklahoma State University wrestling for the most accumulated by any single program across all NCAA divisions.
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Other Kenyon Classics...
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