When Tom Mitchell’s young grandson wanted to swim in a grandparent/grandchild relay back in the early 1970s, Mitchell wrung out his old swimsuit and dove back into competitive swimming.
Since then, he has won a multitude of local and national medals as an individual competitor and a member of the San Diego Swim Masters team.
Just turned 90, the Laguna Woods resident earned four gold medals in swim events in the recent Village Games. While he swam with others in adjoining lanes, no one was competing in his age category, he said.
“I kept one medal and gave a whole box of others away to a woman who works for the Special Olympics,” said Mitchell, who usually retains only one of each type of medal for his personal collection.
Mitchell can usually be found four afternoons a week swimming laps at the Clubhouse 2 pool.
“I usually swim 71 lengths of the pool, since 70 and one quarter lengths equals a mile,” he said.
He prefers Pool 2, he said, because it has lane lines and is usually available without much of a wait.
Mitchell grew up in Northern California, where he learned to swim at age 10. While working at a pool locker room a few years later, he was asked to teach a children’s class, leading to summer jobs as a swim teacher and lifeguard.
“I even taught my mom and my future wife to swim,” he recalled with a smile. “My mom even dove off the diving board,” he added with a touch of pride.
More recently, Mitchell taught his partner of 20 years, Jackie Sieber, 78, to swim.
“She was a total non-swimmer and now regularly swims 60 lengths of the pool,” he said. She has yet to dive into competitive swimming but is thinking about it, he added.
After graduating college and serving three years as an Air Force pilot, Mitchell enjoyed a 60-year career with Bekins Moving Company, where he worked in residential and commercial sales in Los Angeles. He retired eight years ago at age 82.
Through it all, he has remained competitive in his swimming career, holding world rankings in the butterfly and breast strokes.
In July 2022, his team achieved a U.S Masters World Record in the 4 X 100 meter men’s freestyle relay in the combined age category of 360 to 399 years of age. His teammates’ ages ranged from his own 89 (at the time) to 95.
Competitions are run and judged by FINA, the same organization that tracks Olympic competitions, Mitchell said.
In the 2023 Spring Nationals held in Irvine, he scored five gold medals in breaststroke, freestyle and individual medley, which required one pool length each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. Some 2,500 swimmers ages 18 to 101 entered the competition, he said.
On a more informal level, Mitchell enjoys swimming with his three sons, who all took up the family sport.
“Our pool at home even had lane lines,” he said with a laugh.
Last summer, he swam in a family relay in Mission Viejo that featured four generations, including a great-grandson clinging to his father’s (Mitchell’s grandson’s) chest.
“I have enjoyed swimming since I first learned but like it now especially because I can still do it despite a metal hip and bad knees,” he said. “It’s a sport you can participate in your whole life.”
Passion for swimming leads to clinic at clubhouse pool
Laguna Woods resident Jan Levinrad was forced to learn to swim at age 5 in her native South Africa.
“My parents picnicked at a river and my mom let me go in the water while my father was 30 or 40 feet away,” she recalled with a laugh. She had no choice but to swim to reach him, she said.
Later in life, she became an ardent advocate for the sport of swimming and a competitor who enjoys teaching the basics to others.
“Swimming is so beneficial as we age and as gravity pulls us down,” said Levinrad, 75. “In the water there is no gravity, and if we breathe properly, we can improve our lung capacity.”
Levinrad competed in high school and university in South Africa, along with participating in netball, trampoline, karate and lifeguarding.
“I gave up swimming after college and didn’t do it again for 30 years,” she said.
After coming to the U.S. in 1986, Levinrad learned to snow ski, but when she injured her knee, she found her way back to the swimming pool.
She joined an aquatics club in West Hollywood and for 22 years competed and won international titles in freestyle, backstroke and butterfly in such events as the Gay (Olympic) Games in the U.S., Germany and Australia. She competed in both individual and relay events.
Levinrad moved to the Village in 2017 and started swimming at the Nadadores aquatic center in Mission Viejo. For exercise, she swims there three to four times a week.
In 2022, her relay team broke the national record for the 800-meter women’s freestyle race in their age group and also won the 400-meter women’s freestyle event. She finished first nationally in her age group in the 100-meter butterfly.
In the U.S. Masters Swimming rankings for the years 1993 to 2022, Levinrad was in the top 10 about 99 times for individual events and 49 times for relays.
Most recently, she helped organize the Village Games swim competitions, in which she won four gold medals.
Early on, when Levinrad swam for recreation in the Village, she would often notice people struggling to go a short distance. As a “lifelong educator,” she saw a need that she could fill.
“I started a free clinic five years ago because I enjoy the sport and love sharing,” she said.
At Pool 2 on Tuesdays from noon to 1 p.m. she teaches beginners and from 1 to 2 p.m. she gives instructions to more advanced swimmers. No registration is needed.
If people learn to breathe correctly in the water, they can improve their physical skills and swim longer distances, she said.
“I get a kick out of teaching, and I’m happy when people learn to swim so it’s a win-win situation,” she said.
