USMS Athletes Inducted into the Masters International Swimming Hall of Fame (MISHOF)

Recipient:	Paul Hutinger
Year:	2004
LMSC:	Florida

Dr. Paul Hutinger has been involved in swimming since the late 1930s when he worked as a swimming leader in the YMCA. He started competing during his freshman year of high school, 1939, in St. Louis, Missouri. He competed through high school, the Navy and into Iowa University,where he lettered all four yearswithHall of Famers Doc Counsilman as the assistant coach and Dave Armbruster as head coach. He has coached age groupers with national records; high school swimmers with All-America status; college teams ranked among the national top five; andMasters with three national team championships and national and world record holders. He received his B.S. andM.A. at Iowa and his Doctorate at Indiana University, with Counsilman chairing his dissertation.

At Indiana University, Hutinger started one of the first fitness swimming programs with several other swimmers and maintained his competitive swimming edge. In the early '70s, he participated in organizational meetings and contributed ideas to help establish the fledgling Masters program. Graduate school in 1970 prevented him from competing in the first National Championships but the next year he swam at the second championships in Amarillo, Texas, sponsored by the American Swimming Coaches Association and John Spannuth. He held the first meet in the Midwest in 1971 and annually for 18 years at Western Illinois University (WIU) where he was a professor of physical education and coach of swimming and water polo for 27 years. His WIU teams placed in the top five university teams for most of those years. He also supported other early meets in Denver, Indiana University, SanMateo and Fort Lauderdale. He has competed in the program every year since 1971.

From 1974-1980 atWIU, he wrote and published "Lane 4," aMasters quarterly swimjournalwith international subscribers. Those same years, he served on the staff of "Aquatic World," published bimonthly, as a special contributor and wrote an "Advice for the Swimmers' Body" column. He also distributed his "Masters Swimming Log and Guide," a daily workbook. In 1982, he published "Journal of Masters Swimming," which he compiled from selected articles from "Lane 4."

Since 1970 and with his expertise in exercise physiology and access to the university lab, Dr. Hutinger compiled an ongoing scientific study of the affects of aging and swimming, from research he gathered on himself. He presented this research to the Canadian Masters Swim Clinic in 1977 and the World Swimming Conference in 1992. By age 70, he had lost only 10%of his performance capabilities compared to a non-trained individual who loses 45%. He received the prestigious Ransom Arthur Award in 1977.

In 1973, Dr. Hutinger formed the Illinois Masters and competed with them for 20 years. After retiring from WIU in 1992, he moved to Florida, and in 1996 he paved the way to organize the Florida Maverick Masters. Since then, his men's team has won three national championships in LCM and one combined championship.

Hutinger has held all three backstroke records in seven age groups (45-49 through 75-79) in all three courses except for the LCM 50 back in the 65-69 age group. In the 45-49 age group, he held records in every SCY event. In the 50-54 age group he held records in every event except for the 100 and 200 free. In the 60-64 age group in SCY he held the 50 fly record for seven years, 50 and 100 back for nine years, and the 100 I.M. for ten years. In LCM– the 50m and 100meter back for seven years; in SCM – the 50m and 100m back for eight years. He is the only Masters swimmer to have achieved a USMS All- American ranking every year since its inception in 1972.

Paul has set 26 FINAMasters World Records in all events except the breaststroke, many of which were held up to eight years. He has won 134 U.S. Masters National Championships and seven MasterWorld Championships having competed in Brisbane (1988) and Munich (2000).