USMS Athletes Inducted into the Masters International Swimming Hall of Fame (MISHOF)

Recipient:	Walt Reid
Year:	2018
LMSC:	Pacific Northwest

His love of swimming began in the mid-1950’s when he swam for ISHOF Honor Coach, Dick Hannula at the Tacoma Swim Club. Walt Reid then went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in forestry at the University of Washington and Yale University and stopped swimming for 17 years. Having a desk job and needing some exercise, he discovered Masters swimming in 1977.

Walt not only dove into the pool to swim but became an enthusiastic volunteer with the Pacific Northwest LMSC. He volunteered on their newsletter, relay, nominations and ad-hoc computer committees. He also took a special interest in maintaining the association’s Top Ten times as well as their records.

When he began attending USAS/USMS conventions in 1984, Walt offered to help tabulate USMS national records, and three years later, he became the Chair of the Records and Tabulation Committee.

Keeping the national records quickly evolved into Walt’s development of computer programs that could track top ten times both nationally and at the LMSC levels. Then, in 1987 with the formation of Masters Swimming International, Walt developed a program and began compiling a database of Top Ten times from swimmers from around the world.

Walt’s commitment to chronicling the performances of Masters swimmers globally was instrumental in making Masters a truly international endeavor and provided an invaluable resource for federations, national organizations and individual athletes. It also was instrumental in the adoption of Masters Swimming as one of FINA’s seven aquatic disciplines. In 1992, Walt became the official FINA Masters Recorder and developed the procedures, forms and computer programs for processing Masters World Record applications and World Top Ten tabulations. He has served in this volunteer position, as the first and only FINA Masters Recorder since 1992.

Since 2003, Walt has also maintained a database of lifetime achievements that are used as the criteria for selection of Masters swimmers into the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame.

Walt has received many awards and recognitions over the years, but none more memorable than when he received the FINA Silver Pin from Cornel Marculescu, FINA Executive Director and Mustapha Larfaoui, FINA President, at 2006 FINA World Masters Championships in Stanford.