79. Chuck Sharpe
Swimming / Omaha / Born: 1958
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Omaha Westside High and Indiana Hoosiers
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: Jay Merritt from Lincoln Southeast. "He was an excellent 100 and 200 man. There were so many great swimmers but he was the one nippin' at my heels. There were a lot that came before me and I looked up to the Roy Smiths of the world."
Best moment as an athlete: At the 1981 Big Ten Championship in Waukesha, Wis., Sharpe had barely made the 200 finals but ended up beating Iowa's Graeme Brewer, the 1980 Olympic bronze medalist in the 200, to win the event. Another big moment was placing sixth in the 500 freestyle his freshman year.
The swimming world has changed drastically since Chuck Sharpe's record-setting career at Omaha Westside where he honed his skill under legendary coach Cal Bentz. It's not just the athletes getting stronger, but technological advances have shaved the times down considerably over the past three decades.
Yet Sharpe's 1977 time of 1 minute, 39.24 seconds in the 200 freestyle is still the fastest, and the longest-standing, swimming record in state history. That time was good enough for second place in the nation his senior year, as he capped his prep career as the first Nebraskan to win nine state swimming titles -- a feat all the more impressive considering ninth-graders didn't compete at the high school level and swimmers were limited to only two individual events at the time.
After his three-year sweep of the 200, a 1975 win in the distance freestyle and back-to-back wins in the 100, Sharpe went on to star at Indiana, where the self-proclaimed "skinny kid from Omaha" was a four-time All-American, capturing 12 Big Ten titles.
-- Kristin Donovan
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Omaha Westside High and Indiana Hoosiers
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: Jay Merritt from Lincoln Southeast. "He was an excellent 100 and 200 man. There were so many great swimmers but he was the one nippin' at my heels. There were a lot that came before me and I looked up to the Roy Smiths of the world."
Best moment as an athlete: At the 1981 Big Ten Championship in Waukesha, Wis., Sharpe had barely made the 200 finals but ended up beating Iowa's Graeme Brewer, the 1980 Olympic bronze medalist in the 200, to win the event. Another big moment was placing sixth in the 500 freestyle his freshman year.
