ELBOW ROOM: Sprague emphasized a form that would let you swim a mile. Courtesy Stanford Archives

“Get those elbows up and reach out!” Myron Sprague, the Lord of the Stanford Swimming Pool, taught the correct way to navigate water.

“How many of you can swim?” the man in the floppy hat bellowed that first session.

The hands went up.

“How many of you can swim a mile?”

The hands came down.

“Anyone can swim a couple of laps. That’s not swimming,” he said. “You could almost walk across the pool that far. In our class you are all going to learn to swim a mile crawl and a mile breaststroke, plus do a one-and-one-half dive off the low board.”

As we struggled through the water, Mr. Sprague would march down the side of the pool, lean over and shout, “Keep those elbows up!” If we didn’t, there would come a reminder: a poke in the ribs with a bamboo stick he carried expressly for that purpose.

He taught us to breathe properly by just rolling the head, keeping as much of it as possible in the water at all times, letting the water “carry” the weight. “The head is the densest part of the body,” he used to say. (He had that right.)

Sprague taught well, and eventually the miles came easily.

A scant three years later, I found myself near Monterey, lined up with seven other draftees at the huge Fort Ord swimming pool. In the middle, squatting in a canoe much too small for him, was a giant of a man. “Just what is he doing out there?” I mused.

On the command “Go,” I dived in and headed for the opposite shore. Using all my Sprague teachings, I easily outdistanced my competitors. Some of them were in the process of being plucked out of the drink by the Canoe Giant before they drowned.

In the 40 years since, I have been a high school and college coach and teacher, and I still rate Mr. Sprague as the best teacher I’ve known. He of the floppy hat, the commanding voice and that damn bamboo stick.