A Comeback Love Story And Ice Cream Challenge: Masters Swimming Champion, Joe Wotton, EP 301

Name, Age, Team: Setting The Stage

We are doing an on-deck interview at the beautiful City of Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center at the Fall Classic Short Course Meters Masters Meet, and I'm so excited to be talking with Joe Watton. Joe, you're gonna get the the 10 in 10, not necessarily 10 minutes, but give us your name, your age, and your team.

I'm Joe Watton, 66 years young, and swim Melbourne Masters in Melbourne, Florida. The Mahis.

Early Swimming Roots And High School

Very good. We love the Mahis. Um and give us your swim history and kind of where you started swimming, and then all the way up through Masters and hit the high points.

Rowdy Gaines Memories And Results

Air Force Academy: Dual Sport Leadership

Sprint Highlights And School Records

Coaching Return And The 50 Free Challenge

The Origin Of Nicknames: Stiletto, Squint, Power

Masters Swimming Reignited In Boston

Community Ties And World Record Relays

So I started swimming in Massachusetts. My mom threw me into a YMCA pool and got me to swim. And then we moved down to Florida when I was seven, had a pool in my backyard, so we swam extensively just as part of every day. And then God bless my brother, when he went to high school, he decided that he wanted to play water polo, which happened to be the first aquatic season of the school year because swimming followed that. So he got dragged into water polo by the head coach there, and then I ended up following my brother's footsteps playing water polo and swimming for four years there. And the highlight of that particular era was I got to swim in this very same pool in my state championship high school swim meet in two separate events, the 50 and 100 free with Rowdy Games. Obviously, the only time I was close to Rowdy was at the start because the rest of the time I was looking at his feet. But I finished, I think, fourth and fifth in one of those, both of those events, can't remember which one was which. And uh and then I was fortunate in it wasn't necessarily a swimming accomplishment, but I was the most valuable water polo player in the state of Florida my senior year. Fast forward now to the Air Force Academy, which I was fortunate to get into. I ended up swimming there and playing water polo there for four years. Was the team captain of the water polo team my senior year, uh, most valuable player for water polo my senior year for swimming. I was the national champion in the 50-yard freestyle for the uh national independence, whatever it was at that time. We had University Miami, Southern Illinois, Carbondale, and uh I happened to win the 50-free in my junior year, um, and I set the school record for the 100 freestyle at the Academy my junior year. Unfortunately, it didn't have the same results my senior year, but that was probably the fastest I ever went. I split a 45-5 on the 100-free relay, the 400-free relay, and I think my uh 100-free back in the day for the school record was 46-4-5, which again, looking at today's records, it was really slow, but it was good enough at the time. And then going into my Air Force career, didn't swim very much during my first uh couple of years uh because I was uh married to somebody that didn't necessarily support that. It wasn't until I got recruited to go back and coach at the Air Force Academy for water polo that I got back into swimming, and I would use the 50-free as a motivator for my guys that I was uh coaching in water polo as a means to get fast. I offered them a free pizza and ice cream event at my house if they could beat me in the 50-free, and we would stage that once a year, and um sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but it was it was a fun event, and I got to have a um a fun experience with them. Little side note there too, you you acquire nicknames during the course of your Air Force career. You know, pilots have call signs. Um when I was a cadet, as a freshman, I was so skinny, I was nicknamed Stiletto because I was so skinny. But then when I played water polo, I was nicknamed Squint because I did not have very good vision, had not my had had not had my vision corrected at the time, so I was always squinting. So I had stiletto and squint when I was a cadet. Go back there as a coach, and I'm freshly divorced, skinny as a rail due to the emotional stress, and I'm basically a six foot three weakling, and I'm assigned to help the water polo team lift weights during the off-season. So I'm in there trying to struggle to throw up weights with these other guys who are all buffed out. And one of the gentlemen that I was lifting with, one of the cadets, uh imitated Yoda very well, and as he saw me struggling to push up weights, he was going in his Yoda voice. Oh, very powerful. So my nickname, because they already had a coach that they called coach, was my nickname became power. Facetiously. They were teasing me with power. Again, fast forward to now I'm in my master's career, and I'm swimming at St. Pete Clearwater in that Valentine's Day meet. I have my Air Force warm-up jacket on, and I'm standing at the heat sheet thing, looking at the heat sheet, and a guy comes up to me. This is now a guy that had swam there at the Air Force Academy, had cross-commissioned, and was a Navy SEAL stud, big time stud, had swam the channel. You might even know this guy, John Doolittle. So Do comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder and he goes, Hey, I saw I saw you here. Where are you? Where are you swimming? I don't see your name on the heat sheet. And I go, There I am, Joe Watton. He goes, Watton? I thought your last name was Power. So all those years the cadets have been calling me Power, and certain people thought that was my last name. So that was my other name during the course of my Air Force career was Power. I still walk through airports every so often, and the guys who are pilots they'll be calling, hey Power, and I'll look around like it's gotta be one of my guys. So I'm digressing quite a bit, but um it was uh so so again, my master's career really got into high swing when I my last duty assignment when I was at Hanscom Air Force Base. Um we helped that was in the Boston area, west of Boston. There was a pool there that was covered by a bubble. We my wife and I, um, Debbie co-coached a an age group team, but we also knew had a feeling that a master's team would work pretty well. So the guy who ran the pool said, yeah, why don't we do this? So we co-founded, I didn't necessarily co-found it, but I was one of the founding swimmers, and so I really became more involved in master swimming. The high point of that was I went back and to to a three-month school in Washington, D.C. for a program manager's course, and in that three months proceeded to drop weight, work off, work out tremendously. Came back for one meet where I swam pretty much everything. I was his bell cow for that meet. I think I might have won high point for it in at that. It was a short course yard, short course meters meet. And that was probably the best part of that experience. Then we moved down here after I retired and you know started swimming with BJ and actually BJ started swimming with us up at the Coco Y before they closed that down. But that's how I got to know BJ and and um Ed uh forgetting his last Ed Donner. Ed Donner, who is another triathlete, but Mo Hughes, you know Mo. So Mo and Pat Sargent, we were swimming with them and got to meet you guys there at that pool. So that's that was the genesis of all that. And so over various times I've had some great uh accomplishments with relays. I got to swim on a world record relay with um Cab Kavanaugh, and I'm trying to remember the other two guys' names, but it was at the Rowdy Meet, Short Course Meeters Meet. We were got to set a world record in a 200-free or something like that. And there's a couple other relay events where I've done okay. I can't remember what they were, but um it's just been so much fun getting to see people. Every time I show up to a master's meet, it's it's kind of old home week to get reacquainted with folks and to just encourage each other and see how people are doing.

Favorite Event And Training Routine

So, Joe, what um what is your best or favorite event now?

Right now, I would say my best event is my 53.

That's a good one. That's my favorite event, but not my best. Um, and what is your uh training regimen? Right, like what how do you prep for your races now?

So I try and swim at least four to five times a week. And I also, when I'm in a good routine, I try and lift three times a week as well. Now I intersperse that with uh three rounds of golf, so I'm walking three rounds of golf a week as well, but that's that's normally the routine, and then I'll try and taper that off like at two weeks out where I'm not doing the weights and not going as much. But the the workouts range anywhere from 2500 to 3,000 plus, depending on what is on the agenda.

Okay. Um what about your biggest comeback either in swimming or in life?

Biggest comeback in life is getting back together with my wife, Debbie. I dated her when I was in college, did not know what love looked like or felt like, uh, knew I had a great time with her my junior year over Christmas break, but failed to act in such a way that would have concluded the deal, allowed her to get away from me, and it wasn't until nine years later, after I was divorced and she was divorced, that we found each other again, and now we're 35 years plus happily married, and she's the best accomplishment I've had in my life.

Dream Lunch: The Duke And Legacy

Oh, that is that's a great comeback story. Okay. What um Olympic swimmer, dead or alive, would you want to have lunch with? Could be an old Olympian swimmer or a uh current, but just you get to have lunch with the I'm a historian and and that I love to read about stuff that's happened.

I think Johnny Wisemuller would be a second choice, but I'd like to talk to the Duke. The Duke overcame quite a bit in his career. I'd love to hear what he had to endure, just his life in general, just hearing his experiences as a Hawaiian and what he got to see in Hawaii, but all of that would be fascinating to me to hear about his life.

That's a great one. Okay. Uh, what is one fun fact that we do not know about Joe?

You probably already know this, but we go for a month down to the Keys and hunt lobster. And that's turned into a family event. This last year we were very fortunate of during the month that we were there. We had two weeks where we got to see all of our kids and all of our grandkids and get them in the water and play around and just had a fabulous family time. But we go and we hunt for lobster, and fortunately we're able to give away quite a bit of lobster to people that um we love and care about, so it's a it's a combined family event. I'm uh they call me Max because of the character from the Grinch that stole Christmas, Max the dog, because I'm really kind of happy when I'm down there, and that's the expression they believe I have. But though my alter ego comes out when I'm down there, but that's a wonderful month for us during the year.

How many nicknames do you have, Joe? All right. Um, last thing is just is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to share with the master swimming community?

I'm grateful that we have this community because to me it's it's a another example of joy. Uh I have a lot of gratitude towards the things that I get to have in my life, and masters is probably one of the top activities that I get to do. And so I'm just grateful for the masters community and the joy and and shared appreciation we all have for each other because this is just such an uplifting, positive community, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it.

Beautiful. Thank you, Joe.

Thanks, Kelly. You know I love you.

Right back, hatcha.

Thank you.

Yes, that was great. I'll do I'll do some editing, I'll make it sound great. Whatever, I don't know, but no, I mean I I