Head Swimming and Diving Coach Jim Halliburton has a couple things in common with Michael Phelps. The obvious link to swimming aside, few can claim to dominate the pool the way Phelps did last summer in Beijing and the way Halliburton has this past summer in Missouri.
Even fewer can claim to have beaten records set by famed Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz.
People across the globe witnessed Phelps become the first person ever to bring home eight Olympic gold medals. He won every swimming competition in which he competed and surpassed Spitz’s previous mark of seven gold medals.
This summer, Halliburton competed in the St. Louis Senior Olympics. There, Halliburton, in a Phelps-esque performance, went a perfect 11 for 11 in the events he swam.
He set the record in every event as well, besting the previous marks in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter backstroke, the 50- and 100-meter butterfly, the 100- and 200-meter individual medley, and the 50-, 100-, 200- and 500-meter freestyle.
Halliburton did not stop there, though. Just a few weeks later, he participated in the Show-Me State Games in Columbia, Mo. There, he again touched first in every event, adding five more gold medals to his collection.
Halliburton earned a total of 16 gold medals this summer; that’s twice the amount Phelps won last year. Had it not been for work-commitments requiring him to miss the third day of events in Columbia, he probably would have added three more to that number.
Halliburton broke Spitz’ nine-year-old Big-10 conference record for the 100-meter butterfly while attending the University of Indiana. He also owned the American record for the 100-meter butterfly for awhile, and ranked No. 1 in the world for this stroke two different times.
Halliburton was an All-American every year he was at Indiana, and he was on the U.S. National Team from 1978 to 1982. Unfortunately, due to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, he never had the chance to swim for real Olympic gold.
Halliburton claims the butterfly is still his best stroke, but he has enjoyed competing in the other events this past summer.
“Throughout high school, and then even more so into college, you really have to specialize,” he said. “It was a lot of fun to do all these other events this summer, events I haven’t done in nearly 40 years.”
The competitions this summer mark the first time that Halliburton has competed in 15 years. He prepared by trying to swim every day of the week, even if that meant being in the pool by 3 or 4 a.m. in order to adjust to his busy schedule.
Halliburton began coaching the Rockwood Swim Club in 1985. Upon his arrival, the club had a mere 38 swimmers, though by the time he left the program in 2006, the squad consisted of more than 500 swimmers.
In 1999, the Rockwood Swim Club also won a national championship for the ages 18 & under combined group.
“I’d definitely say that ’99 team was one of my proudest moments,” Halliburton said. “For a St. Louis area team to do what it did . . . it was really incredible.”
Halliburton’s coaching résumé also includes three state championships while coaching at Marquette High School in Chesterfield and a conference championship for the Missouri Athletic Club team in 2001. He was also named the U.S. National Team coach on three occasions.
His accolades have granted him acceptance into two separate halls of fame. This March, Halliburton was inducted into both the Ozark Swimming Hall of Fame and the Missouri Athletic Club Hall of Fame. Both of these inductions came before his record-breaking summer this year.
Halliburton took over as the head swimming and diving coach for SLU in 2001, and during his eight seasons has become the university’s winningest coach ever. He has also helped Saint Louis student-athletes garner two College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-America plaudits, seven individual conference titles, two Atlantic 10 Conference Student-Athlete of the Year honors and 11 Academic All-Conference selections.
Halliburton claims that he couldn’t really see himself doing anything else. “I always knew I wanted to coach . I had just been around and enjoyed swimming so much; I wanted to be able to give back to the sport the same way my coaches had given back to me.”