Education
University of Iowa.
University of Iowa.
Stassforth was an eight-time All-American in swimming at the University of Iowa. Over the course of his career, he set 16 national breaststroke records in distances from 200 yards to 500 yards and one world record in the 200-yard breaststroke in 1952. Bowen was also Iowa Amateur Athletic Union Athlete of the Year in 1952.
In his early life, Bowen had an intense fear of water, which was the result of having his head put under water by the family maid.
In August 1944, while still in high school, Bowen joined the United States. Navy. During his service in the Navy, he taught swimming and water survival skills to enlisted sailors on North Island in San Diego.
Bowen swam in the era when the accepted arm motion of the breaststroke was optional with either the underwater breaststroke as we know it today or the over the water arm motion now known as the butterfly. The leg movement was the frog kick.
In 1954, the stroke was bifurcated into the breaststroke and the butterfly using a dolphin kick as commonly known today.
As a result, any records he held were subsequently wiped off the record books At his first Amateur Athletic Union National Championship meet in 1945, he placed second in the 200-meter breaststroke. He enrolled at the University of Iowa in 1948, but was not allowed to compete as a freshman due to National Collegiate Athletic Association eligibility rules at that time.
He did however participate in the United States. Olympic Trials in July 1948 placing seventh in the 200-meter breaststroke.
Bowen earned numerous medals in Big Ten, National Collegiate Athletic Association and Amateur Athletic Union championship meets over the course of his career. He finished his career later that year as the Amateur Athletic Union National Champion and the American record holder in the 220-yard breaststroke.
Bowen was inducted into the University of Iowa Hall of Fame in 1996.
He swam on the 1949 Big Ten Conference and National Collegiate Athletic Association Champion 300-yard medley relay team for Iowa. In 1951, he won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke and a gold in the medley relay at the 1951 Pan American Games in Buenos Aires. Charles Roeser, the chairman of the United States. Olympic men’s swimming committee, called him “one of the most cooperative athletes I have ever known in thirty years of teaching and coaching.” He also called him “America’s greatest breaststroke champion, but more than that, a real American and gentleman whose conduct is a worthy example for others to follow.”.
