August 11 -- Bill Mulliken

We were sorry to hear, by way of his obituary today, of the passing of Bill Mulliken this past July. Besides being an Olympic gold medalist, Bill was a long time Masters swimmer and leader of masters swimming in Illinois. One of his accomplishments was the big Big Shoulders swim. After one of the early Big Shoulders, since they had not gotten participation awards to hand out, Bill brought out a shoe box of various medals he had won in Masters and gave one to any swimmer who wanted one. I took a participation medal from the 1989 Pan Pacific Masters Aquatics games which I still have in my collection.

Although I always looked up to Bill as a senior statesman in Illinois Masters Swimming, he was actually only one age group ahead of me although his times belonged to several age groups below me. He swam a number of Park Ridge 1500's and was always a delightful and positive person to have around. As Bill has limited his swimming activities in recent years we have missed him and we will continue to miss him in the future.