Dick Kimball
Dick Kimball (born c. 1935) is an American former diving champion and diving coach at the University of Michigan. He was the NCAA springboard champion in 1957 and the Professional World Diving champion in 1963. He coached the University of Michigan diving team from 1958 to 2002 and also coached the U.S. Olympic diving teams in 1964, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992. He has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor. Competitive diving and trampolining A native of Rochester, Minnesota, he was the Minnesota high school diving champion four straight years from 1952 to 1956. In 1956, Kimball helped lead the Rochester Rockets to the Minnesota AAU outdoor swimming championship. After graduating from high school, Kimball spent one year at the University of Oklahoma before transferring to Michigan. Kimball was a member of three NCAA champion swimming and diving teams at Michigan from 1957 to 1959. In 1957, he won the NCAA championships in both the one-meter and three-meter springboard events. Kimball's two first-place finishes accounted for 24 of Michigan's 69 points, and were the key to Michigan's 69–61 victory over Yale in the 1957 NCAA championship held at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Associated Press reported: "Poised, acrobatic Dick Kimball of Michigan won both the low and high board events." Another account noted: Michigan stood at the top of national collegiate swimming teams today thanks to its divers, a great medley relay team and Yale's failure to qualify more men." Kimball received his bachelor's degree from U-M in 1959 and his master's degree in 1960. While at Michigan, Kimball also competed on the gymnastics team under Coach Newt Loken and won the national trampoline title. He won the Professional World Diving championship in 1963. He also finished as the runnerup at the World Acrobatic Diving Championships. Comedy and acrobatic diving shows In the early 1960s, Kimball toured with Hobie Billingsley, also a Big Ten diving coach at the time, in a "comedy and acrobatic show" of diving. In 1960 and again in 1962, Billingsley and Kimball took time off from coaching to serve the U.S. State Department "as goodwill ambassadors" touring the world. They gave over 1,000 performances on their 1962 world tour and also appeared on television shows including Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town, Sports Spectacular and You Asked For It. When Kimball and Billingsley performed at the 1962 Annual Swimming Carnival at Yale, The Bridgeport Post reported: "Two of the world's greatest divers – between them holders of scores of high board championships – will be among the host of talented performers . . . They are Dick Kimball and Hobie Billingsley who have teamed together to form the world's foremost acrobatic and comedy diving team. . . . [Kimball] is regarded as the world's greatest acrobatic diver." A 1960 newspaper account said the Billingsley and Kimball show featured "high diving from atop a 30-foot tower, rhythmic swimming, fancy diving and comedy acts." Diving coach