Michael Jay Burton (born July 3, 1947) is an American swimmer who competed for the University of California at Los Angeles, a three-time Olympic champion, and a former world record-holder in two freestyle distance events. He would later have a career as a swimming coach.[1]
In eighth grade, Burton was hit by a furniture truck while riding a bicycle with a friend. He had formerly loved to play football and basketball, but the injuries he sustained from his accident made him abandon contact sports, and left swimming as one of his few fitness options.[2]
He graduated from El Camino High School. Benefitting from his highly competitive club coaching at Arden Hills, Burden won 10 AAU titles while at El Camino.[3]
During his collegiate years, his AAU titles included the 500 Free (1970), 1650 Free (1967, 1968, 1970), and 200 Fly (1970), and he was named an All-American for winning these events.[3]
In conference play, he was a four-time Pac-10 champion at UCLA, and helped lead the Bruins to the Pac-10 Championship Team Title in 1970. He entered the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame as a Charter Member.[6] At the 1967 University Games in Tokyo, Japan, he won a gold medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle, ahead of Russian Semyon Belits-Geiman.[7]
Olympics
Mike Burton, his coach Sherm Chavoor, Debbie Meyer, 1969
Burton won two gold medals in individual events at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City: the 400-meter freestyle where he swam a 4:09.0 and the 1,500-meter freestyle where he swam a 16:38.9. Despite having been sick in Mexico City, Burton won the 400-meter in a close race against Ralph Hutton of Canada. He won the 1,500-meter, finishing 18 seconds ahead of second-place American John Kinsella.[6]
Four years later at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, he became the only American ever to repeat as the 1,500-meter freestyle gold medalist, and recaptured the world record.[6] Burton's repeat proved a stunning win: in the spring of 1972, he had been diagnosed with a vitamin deficiency, and at the U.S. Olympic Trials had barely made the Olympic Team. At the 1972 trials in Chicago, Burton failed to make the Olympic team in the 400 freestyle event and the 200 butterfly, finishing eighth. On the next to the last day of the Trials, he entered the finals of the 1500 where he finished third, qualifying for the U.S. team. to make the team.[8]
At the 1500-meter event at the Munich Games, Burton started fast and was the early leader over Australian star Graham Windeatt, though Windeatt recovered and regained the lead. Burton overtook Windeatt in the closing lengths, touched first, broke Rick DeMont's standing world record and won the gold medal for the U.S. team.[8]
The celebration in Munich of his historic repeat, however, was overshadowed by Mark Spitz's performance at those Games and by the terrorist attack on the Olympic Village, which occurred the day after his race.[8]
Coaching
In one of his earlier positions, he coached the Des Moines Aquatics Club in his hometown around 1979-81, where one of his swimmers was 1988 Seoul 4x200 gold medalist Craig Oppel.[9] He coached at The Evergreen Swim Team in Olympia, WA through 1997, and then at the Seahawks in Billings, Montana,[10][11] at the local YMCA until 2007.[2]
His daughter Loni embarked on her own successful swimming career. She is one of two swimmers in NCAA history to win twelve individual titles. She performed the feat in three years as Division II swimmers are eligible to participate in four individual events versus three in Division I and III.[2]
Honors
He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1977.[2] In 1984, as a five-time NCAA individual champion, he was inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Sacramento Sports Hall of Fame.[5][12]
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