When he was a young boy, his father moved the family from Pennsylvania to Chicago, where Weissmuller joined the YMCA when he was 14. At age 15, he joined the Illinois Athletic Club. The coach there, Bill Bachrach, said, "Swear that you'll work a year with me without question and I'll take you on. You won't swim against anybody. You'll just be a slave and you'll hate my guts, but in the end you just might break every record there is," according to Ralph Hickok in
A Who's Who of Sports Champions. In Biographical Dictionary of American Sports, James D. Whalen wrote, "Bachrach, a gruff individual weighing 350 pounds, yelled at the exhausted Weissmuller during workouts, 'Form! Never swim for speed-always for form!'" His advice paid off. Weissmuller trained for over a year, then attended his first competition, the 1921 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) outdoor championship. He won the 220-yard freestyle swim. The only event he lost, the 440-yard freestyle, would be the only race, of any distance, that he ever lost during his entire swimming career.
In 1922, Weissmuller set world records in the 150-yard backstroke and the 300-meter freestyle. He also won national championships in the outdoors 100-, 220-, and 440-yard freestyle events and in the indoor 100- and 220-yard events.
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