Jane Barkman-Brown

1968 Mexico City Olympics

  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS COMPETING: 4
  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS IN ALL ROLES: 10
  • NUMBER OF OLYMPIC ALTERNATES: 1

 

Among the four Penn State athletes and the half-dozen Nittany Lions who went to Mexico City in support roles for the 1968 Olympics, only one represented a country other than the United States. Lennart Hedmark, a javelin specialist and decathlete who spent two years in Happy Valley, made his first Olympic appearance after missing a chance to compete in Tokyo in 1964.

Bill Meade served as the manager of the U.S. gymnastics team, while Armando Vega and Eugene Wettstone both traveled as gymnastics judges. Recently graduated Nittany Lions gymnast Steve Cohen made the team, while 1965 alumnus Jim Culhane was selected as an alternate. The biggest splash at the Olympics by anyone affiliated with Penn State, however, happened not in the gymnasium but in the pool.

 

Profile: Jane Barkman Brown

Jane Barkman-Brown
Jane Barkman-Brown (Pennsylvania State University, Intercollegiate Athletics, Athlete and Athletics personnel files)

Former Penn State assistant swimming coach Jane Barkman Brown has spent most of her life in the water. Born outside Philadelphia in Bryn Mawr and raised in Wayne, Barkman joining her first swim team when she was seven. By age 11, she moved to the Vesper Boat Club to train under renowned coach Mary Freeman. While at Vesper, Barkman set her first record time in January 1964 — shaving seven tenths of a second off the 11/12 age category record in the 50-yard freestyle at an AAU meet in Hershey.

Four years later, Barkman was considered a favorite to make the U.S. Olympic team for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City as a four-time AAU champion. While she didn’t qualify in the 100-meter freestyle, an event in which Barkman set the American record in April 1968, the 16-year-old swimmer qualified in the 200-meter freestyle and landed a spot on the 4×100-meter freestyle relay team. Arriving in Mexico shortly after her 17th birthday, Barkman finished with bronze in the 200-meter race and gave the United States an insurmountable lead in her opening leg of the relay as they finished with the gold medal in world-record time by more than three seconds ahead of East Germany.

After Mexico City, Barkman initially retired from the sport. While completing her undergraduate studies at Salem College in North Carolina, though, Barkman got the itch to return to the pool. Failing to qualify in any individual events, she posted a good enough time to make the 4×100-meter relay team for a second time. While in Munich, Barkman was part of another record-setting relay performance. Swimming the third of four legs in the final, Barkman helped the Americans narrowly defeat East Germany by three-tenths of a second. Dared by her teammates to whistle the Star-Spangled Banner on the podium, Barkman managed only a few bars before breaking down in the giddiness of the moment.

Following her second Olympics, Barkman began her coaching career at Old Dominion in 1973 and then moved on to coach the women’s team at Tennessee from 1974 through 1977. After six seasons as the coach of the women’s swim team at Princeton, she moved to State College where she was an assistant coach of the men’s swim team alongside husband Peter Brown from 1984 to 1994. Currently settled in State College, Barkman Brown teaches at an elementary school and offers all-ages swim instruction as well as continuing to support Penn State Ability Athletics in her work with Paralympic swimmers.

 

SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL READING

  • “Barkman Helps U.S. Team Win,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, PA), October 28, 1968, 18.
  • “Five National Marks are Set in AAU Swim Meet at Hershey Club,” Lebanon (PA) Daily News, January 27, 1964, 13.
  • “Jane Barkman an Olympic Favorite,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, PA), August 24, 1968, 10.
  • Sandy Padwe, “Olympic Heroines Practice Quietly,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 4, 1968, 24.
  • Cooper Rollow, “Florida’s McKee Loses to Automation, Not Foe,” Miami Herald, September 1, 1972, 5F.
  • Chris Rosenblum, “Olympic Dreams: Swimmer Recalls Record-Setting 1972 Relay,” Centre Daily Times (State College, PA), August 15, 2008, W1.
  • Chris Rosenblum, “Olympic Gold Medalist Shares Memories with Local Kids,” Centre Daily Times (State College, PA), August 6, 2016
  • “Wayne Girl Helps U.S. Set Olympic Mark,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 31, 1972, 13.