Bill Yorzyk

Bill Yorzyk was the first Olympic champion in a butterfly event, setting a world record in the heats and final of the 200 m fly at Melbourne. He was a fine all-round swimmer and won AAU titles in the fly and IM, as well as a gold medal in the 4×200 metre freestyle relay (with Jimmy McLane, Wayne Moore, and the non-Olympian Martin P. Smith) and a silver medal in 200 m butterfly at the 1955 Pan American Games.

After graduating from Springfield College, Yorzyk attended medical school at the University of Toronto and won the university’s Bickler Prize as the top scholar-athlete in 1958 and 1959. He became an anesthesiologist, later serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force medical corps and as an associate physician to the U.S. Olympic team in 1964. Yorzyk was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1971.