Jack Cody - Swimming and Diving

Jack Cody made a name for himself by coaching swimmers and divers into the Olympic Games for more than three decades at the Multnomah Athletic Club.

Born in 1885, Cody competed at the national level as a swimmer and diver before finding his greatest success as a coach, beginning in 1913 at what was then called the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club. The MAAC had just built a new clubhouse next to Multnomah Field; three years after its previous home had been destroyed by a fire.

Cody immediately helped the MAAC become a competitive force in the pool by developing swimmer Norman Ross as well as divers Thelma Payne, Louis “Hap” Kuehn and Louis Balbach into international-level athletes. All four won medals at the 1920 Antwerp, Belgium, Olympic Summer Games, including gold for Ross and Kuehn. In addition, Constance Meyer and David Fall, were members of the Olympic team, but did not compete.

The club’s swim teams reached a new level of success two decades later when a strong group of girls swimmers, labeled the “Cody Kids,” took to dominating the national level between 1939 and ’49.

Nancy Merki, who won her first AAU Senior national title in 1939 at age 13, Brenda Helser, Joyce Macrae and Suzanne Zimmerman combined to win three national titles for the MAC, 42 individual titles and 16 relay titles. Merki, Helser and Zimmerman all swam in the 1948 London Olympic Summer Games, having missed opportunities to compete in ’40 and ’44 due to World War II. Zimmerman won a silver medal in the backstroke.

Helser, who had moved to Los Angeles, won a gold medal as part of the 4x100 freestyle relay team.

Cody stepped down from his head coaching position after the Cody Kids won their third AAU national title in 1949, which was one year after the first high school state swimming championships began.

Adult swimmers years later still identified themselves as “Cody Kids” from having taken classes taught by Cody.

Cody, who died in 1963 at age 78, was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1990. He is also a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the American Swimming Coaches Association Hall of Fame.