Steve Clark (swimmer)

Clark attended Yale University, where he swam for coach Philip Moriarty's Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Ivy League competition. During his tenure at Yale, he won five NCAA titles. He also captured six individual and five AAU relay championships while swimming for the Santa Clara Swim Club, under Hall of Fame Coach George Haines. Clark was the Santa Clara Club's first outstanding male swimmer, and the first of many outstanding swimmers mentored by Haines. A sprint specialist with exceptionally efficient flip turns, he set nine world records, but would have set more as short course records were not accepted for world records at the time. As a senior, he was the Yale swim team captain; he graduated from Yale with his bachelor's degree in 1964. In 2005, he donated one of his three Olympic gold medals to his alma mater. == 1960 Olympics ==

At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Clark swam for the first-place U.S. relay teams in the preliminary heats of the men's 4×200-meter freestyle relay and men's 4×100-meter medley relay. Both American relay teams won gold medals, but Clark was ineligible for a medal under the Olympic swimming rules in effect in 1960 because he did not compete in the event finals. He won his first international gold medal at the 1963 Pan American Games in São Paulo, Brazil, winning the men's 100-metre freestyle in a time of 54.7 seconds, and narrowly edging American swimmer Steven Jackman (54.8 seconds). == 1964 Olympics ==

At the 1964, U.S. Olympic trials, Clark had developed tendinitis in his shoulder, and was only able to make the team as a member of relays, though he would meet with great success at the Olympic finals. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1966. ==Depression==

Clark faced depression that he and many Olympians experience when their careers come to an end. The symptoms peak every four years during Winter and Summer Olympic Games. This is called Gold Medal Syndrome. In 2012, in an unpublished essay he wrote he was feeling depressed between 1966 the year he retired and 1996 for 30 years and "faked feeling normal". == Death ==

Clark died from complications of Parkinson's disease on April 14, 2026, at the age of 82, his wife Betsy Clark said == See also ==