Cal swimming & diving Head Coach Emeritus Nort Thornton has been hospitalized in a California intensive care unit due to complications with his heart.
The 87-year old Thornton retired as head coach of the Cal men’s swimming program in July 2007 after 33 years. During that tenure, Cal athletes won 48 individual and relay NCAA Championships and 108 Pac-10 individual and relay championships. He led the Cal men to back-to-back Pac 10 titles in 1980 and 1981 and back-to-back NCAA titles in 1979 and 1980.
A Facebook group has been started where family, friends, and former athletes can leave memories of Thornton.
Cal finished the season ranked in the top 10 in national polls in 28 of the 33 years where he was the program’s head coach. He was twice named National Coach of the Year and four times named Pac 10 Coach of the Year.
Among the swimmers who came out of the program under his watch were World Record holder Matt Biondi, Olympic gold medalist Anthony Ervin, and Olympic silver medalist Duje Daganja – all among the best sprinters of their eras.
In total, 48 Cal athletes competed at the Olympics winning 29 medals (14 gold, 10 silver, and 5 bronze) while Thornton was head coach. That doesn’t include the exploits of swimmers like Milorad Cavic and Nathan Adrian, who Thornton recruited to Cal and was the early collegiate coach of, but who won their Olympic medals after his retirement.
Thornton was the head coach of a United States World Cup team in 1979, and the U.S. World University Games team in 1981. He served as an assistant at the 1983 Pan American Games, the 1986 World Championships, and the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships.
Thornton was also a president of the American Swimming Coaches Association.
Working with Dick Hannula, Thornton was also the co-author of the Swim Coaching Bible (in two volumes), which is one of the most prominent and best-selling books ever written on the topic of competitive swimming.
After retirement, Thornton remained active as a volunteer coach with the program, saying in a 2011 interview that this was his dream job.
“Now, I just go practice,” Thornton said of his post-retirement role. “They come on the pool deck and I coach and I go home. I don’t have meetings, I don’t have any budgets, I don’t have any recruiting and I basically died and went to heaven.”
Nort was my swimming and water polo coach at Los Altos High School 1960-1962. A wonderful mix of coaching excellence and humanity! Best wishes for a quick and complete recovery, Nort!
Sending BEAR strength and love to his entire family and all that swam for him. After just losing a loved one; this is something I feel compelled to do.
I met Nort in 2009 at a CSCAA convention. He received a lifetime achievement award at that convention. I introduced myself to him after he received the award, said I was a young college coach, and had read an article he had written about breaststroke. I asked him if I could ask him a few questions about the article. He said sure and we talked for the next hour about breaststroke. Everyone had left the conference room and he still stayed there talking breaststroke with me. I think his wife was there and she eventually left to leave the two of alone to talk.
He gave me his cell phone number and would call me every month or so… Read more »
That’s what a real coach is about. As long as there are swimmers that need to be coached, you give your all, no matter the affiliation or personal vendettas, or crap like that. We are all here for the love our our sport and the pursuit of excellence in this sport.
Nort has been a great friend since our high school days together- a long time ago, I hope you get better soon, Nort.
Besides being a great coach, one good human.
Great coach and lecturer. I remember after one of his ASCA talks about body position, I went out to a toy store right away and 10 other coaches beat me there and had bought out all the Toypedos in the store!!
Interesting story that I heard in one of his talks…he was originally a Water Polo Coach and Pete Cutino was originally the Swimming Coach…they both became legends in their “other” sport!!!!
For those of us who were lucky enough to have swam under him, Nort embodied calm in the face of pressure, reassurance when you had doubt and fatherly guidance when he saw you stray. He also had a knack of cracking a great joke right before you were supposed to push off the wall for a set!
He’s one of the few coaches I know that had a world record holder in every stroke, but it was never mentioned.
You’re in our hearts and prayers for a speedy recovery Nort!