Frank Thomas

Notable Sports Figures
Awards and Accomplishments
1979 Wins silver medal at U.S. Olympic Festival
1980 Named Most Valuable Player at U.S. Junior Olympics
1980 Leads her college volleyball team, the USC Trojans to victory
at the AIAW championships
1982 Wins bronze medal on U.S. national team at World
Championships
1983 Wins silver medal on U.S. national team at Pan American
Games
1984 Wins silver medal on U.S. women’s volleyball team at the
Olympics
1984 Named U.S. women’s volleyball MVP of the Olympics
1984 Named USOC Female Volleyball Athlete of the Year
1986 Wins bronze medal on U.S. national team at Goodwill Games
1992 Wins bronze medal on U.S. women’s volleyball team at the
Olympics
1992 Voted MVP of the Olympic Games
1995 Named Japanese pro league’s MVP
1996 Plays on U.S. women’s volleyball team at the Olympics
1998 Inducted into the U.S. Volleyball Hall of Fame
2001 As assistant coach, leads USC women’s volleyball team to
NCAA Championship Semifinal
2001 Leads USC women’s volleyball team to NCAA Regional Finals
of their goal when they were recruited. . . to create a
team as good as the legendary ones of the past.”
Weishoff also serves as the international player representative
for USA Volleyball, the national governing
body for the sport of volleyball in the United States, and
has served as assistant coach for USA Volleyball’s High
Performance programs and the Youth National team.
When asked if she had any advice for young athletes
considering a career in sports, Weisoff offered this: “I
would just say to follow your heart.… Don’t let people
talk you out of it or convince you to do other things if
this is where your heart is.” Most of all, she said, have
fun playing.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Periodicals
Collin, Phil. “All the Pieces Together for a USC Dynasty.”
Daily Breeze, (December 19, 2002).
Dwyre, Bill. “Barcelona ‘92; U.S. Women Regroup for
Bronze.” Houston Chronicle, (August 8, 1992):
Sports, 13.
Powers, John. “Women Grab the Bronze; Summer
Olympics ‘92.” Boston Globe, (August 8, 1992):
Sports, 62.
Other
Additional information was obtained from an interview
with Paula Weishoff on January 29, 2003.
“Paula Weishoff Profile.” USC Trojans. http://
usctrojans.ocsn.com/sports/w-volley/mtt/weishoff_
paula00.html (January 27, 2003).
Sketch by Michael Belfiore
Johnny Weissmuller
1904-1984
American swimmer
Weissmuller
One of the most outstanding swimmers of all time,
Johnny Weissmuller won five Olympic gold medals
and set dozens of national and world records. His stellar
performance as a competitive swimmer helped to focus
the attention of Americans on the health benefits of the
sport. However, he is perhaps best remembered by most
Americans for his portrayals of author Edgar Rice Burroughs’
Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Jim on the screen
from the early 1930s through the mid-1950s. After his
retirement from work in motion pictures and television,
Weissmuller lent his name to a swimming pool company
and became a spokesman for the product.
Born in Austria-Hungary
Not until after his death in 1984 did the full truth
about Weissmuller’s origins emerge. Throughout his
lifetime, he claimed to have been born Peter John Weissmuller,
the son of recent immigrants from Eastern Europe,
on July 2, 1904, in the small Pennsylvania mining
town of Windber, near Johnstown. Olympic historian
David Wallechinsky uncovered credible evidence in the
1980s that Weissmuller had in fact been born in Freidorf,
Austria-Hungary, now a part of Romania, and was
brought to the United States shortly after his birth. Wallechinsky
further contended that Weissmuller’s parents
later switched his identity with that of his Americanborn
brother, Peter, to qualify their older son to compete
on the U.S. Olympic swimming team.
The Weissmullers did not linger long in Windber,
where Johnny’s father toiled in the coal mines to scratch
out an existence for his family. By 1908 they had relocated
to Chicago, where Weissmuller’s father owned and
operated a neighborhood tavern while his mother cooked
in the city’s famous Turn-Verein restaurant. Johnny was
enrolled in St. Michael’s Parochial School. He later attended
Chicago’s Menier Public School but quit after
completing the eighth grade when his father died of tuberculosis,
probably contracted during his years as a coal
miner in Pennsylvania.
To help support his family, Weissmuller worked as a
bellhop and elevator operator at Chicago’s Plaza Hotel.
In his spare time, he and younger brother Peter, both
avid swimmers, joined the Stanton Park pool, where
Johnny won all the junior swim meets in which he competed.
At the age of twelve, he lied about his age to win
a berth on the local YMCA swim team. During the summer,
he spent every spare moment at Chicago’s Oak
Street Beach, where he and Peter pulled twenty people
from the waters of Lake Michigan after a boating accident.
Only eleven of those they rescued survived the
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