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Burt Kanner
Kanner at 21, Occidental College Hall of Fame
Biographical details
Born(1939-07-30)July 30, 1939
Bronx, New York
Alma materOccidental College
Los Angeles
Playing career
1957-1961Occidental College
1961U.S. Swim Team
Maccabiah Games
Position(s)Freestyle swimming
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1959-1962Eagle Rock High L.A.
1963Occidental Col. L.A.
1966-1967L. A. Athletic Club
(Asst. w/Don Gambril)
1966-1973CalTech AAU Club
1970-1982
1985-1991		San Marino High
Taught Math 23 yrs.
1993-1994Albany Aquatics Team
Salem, Oregon
[1]
Head coaching record
OverallDual Meets 211-10-1
.95 Win Pct.
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
4 x South. Cal. Leag. Champions
(Cal Tech AAU Team)

8 x California Interschol. Champions
Class II Pub. School Nat. Champions
19 x Rio Hondo (Regional) Champions
(San Marino High School)[2]
Awards
Region 8 Swim. Coach of the Year
'91 California Coaches Assoc. High School Swim. Coach of the Year
'91 NHSACA Coach of the Year
'91 South. Cal. Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
Medal record
Representing the United States
Maccabiah Games
Gold medal – first place 1961 Israel 4x200 free relay Swimming

Burt Kanner (born July 30, 1939) is an American former swimmer, math teacher, swimming coach, public address announcer, and author. He is best known for coaching the San Marino High School Swim Team for eighteen years from 1970-1982, and 1985-1991 where he led the team to 8 California State (California Interscholastic Federation) Championships and 12 League Championships. His teams had an overall record of 211-10-1, earning an exceptional .95 Winning Percentage.[3]

Education and early swimming

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Born in the Bronx, New York in 1939 to Julius Kanner and Celia Newman, Burt came to Southern California at an early age. He took up swimming early and won his first competitive swim race at the age of ten.[2][4] Kanner attended Verdugo Hills High in Tujunga, California where he graduated in 1957.[5] While at Verdugo, he received a Most Valuable Player Trophy for Swimming in 1956, and received the Varsity Award in June 1957 as a Senior.[6][7]

He later attended Occidental College in Los Angeles where he studied Mathematics, graduating in June 1961. He earned a Masters of Education from Cal State University Los Angeles in 1966.[8] Captaining the Occidental Swim team from 1960–61, Kanner set school records in all freestyle swimming events during his four years of competition from 1957-61. He was named Athlete of the Year at Occidental in July 1961, setting meet and conference records of 2:22.7 in the 200-yard Butterfly and 2:09.2 in the 220-yard freestyle during a meet at CalTech.[9] In 1961, he held the Southern California Interscholastic Athletic Conference (SCIAC) record for the 100-yard freestyle, at 51.3 seconds, a record which held for two years.[10][2]

Competitive swimmer

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Maccabiah games

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He was one of the eighteen member US swim team chosen to compete at the 1961 Maccabiah Games[11] in August in Tel Aviv, Israel. In July, prior to the August Maccabiah Games, Burt trained with the Los Angeles Athletic Club, then under Hall of Fame Head Coach Peter Daland, whom he had met after a college meet, and who would become a friend and mentor. Kanner was particularly challenged by Daland's workouts.[12]

Burt helped win a gold medal as part of the four member 1961 U.S. 800-meter freestyle relay team that took a significant lead over the Israeli and South African teams at Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv District and won the event with a combined team time of 8:46.3. Overall, the American swimming team won all but three of the swimming events.[13][14][15]

U.S. Masters National records

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In 1974, around age 35, he set seven American Masters National records which included the 100, 200, 400, and 1500 meter freestyle events, as well as the 100 and 200-meter butterfly.[16][17]

Continuing to swim into later life, at the Eel Lake Open Water Swim in August, 2004, Kanner placed first in his 65-69 age group in both the 3000 and 1500 meter competitions. He swam in several National meets with Oregon Masters, frequently placing in the top ten in his age group.[18]

Southern California swim coaching

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With all the opportunities in Los Angeles, Kanner was able to gain coaching experience while still attending college at Occidental. He coached the swim team at Eagle Rock High School from 1959-1962, and spent one year as Head Coach for his Alma Mater Occidental in 1963.[4]

From 1966-1967, Kanner was Assistant Coach for the Los Angeles Athletic Club Swim Team. While there, he was mentored by Head Coach Don Gambril, a Hall of Fame inductee, Olympic Coach and long serving coach for the University of Alabama. In different years, both Don and Burt had attended and swam for Occidental College in Los Angeles and had been recognized by Occidental's Aquatic Hall of Fame.[4][19]

Prior to 1966, Kanner was busy obtaining his Master's Degree. One of Kanner's earlier coaching experiences was with Cal Tech's Pasadena AAU team from 1966-1973, where he led the team to four Southern California League Championships. He coached for one year at Pasadena's John Muir High School in 1969, where he served as a math teacher for six years.[4][20]

San Marino High School coach

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Kanner is probably best known for coaching the swim team at San Marino High School for eighteen years from 1970–82, and 1985-1991, taking off the years 83-84.[2][21] At San Marino, he led the team to eight California Interscholastic Federation Championships. He worked as a Math Teacher at San Marino for twenty-three years from around 1969-1992, and served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics.[22]

By 1976, two of his San Marino High School swimmers had broken all of the School records, Mike Elleman, and Ron Kehrmann, a 6' 2" Israeli swimmer who held a National Record in his native country.[20] With swimming the family business, in 1986 Burt's son Michael, who he also coached at San Marino, was the top backstroker in the Public School Division and later, at around 21, set a record for the 200-meter backstroke at the 1989 Maccabiah Games, taking a Silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke. Kanner's son Dan, like his father, was also selected to compete for the U.S. Team at the Maccabiah Games in 1993 where he won the 200 and 400 free events. He had been a member of the 1992 Stanford NCAA championship team. While coached by his father as a High School Senior at San Marino, Daniel was the 500 freestyle National Champion in 1989, when the school was the Class II Public School National Champion.[23][14][24] When Burt retired from coaching swimming at San Marino in 1992, the High School's swimming pool was named the Kanner Pool to recognize his achievements.[3]

Kanner gained additional experience coaching with United States Master's Swim teams, starting the CalTech Masters team around 1970. He later started the Altadena Masters at Altadena Town and Country Club which, during his coaching tenure from 1976-1986, won a number of league championships. When not teaching school and coaching school swim teams during summer break, he could devote time exclusively to coaching Masters swimming.[17]

Move to Salem, Oregon

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In 1992, he and his wife Mona, whom he married in 1986, moved to Salem, Oregon, where he coached the Club Team at the Albany Aquatics Center for a year. He later coached a Master's swim team at the Kroc Center Salem, in Salem, Oregon in 2009. He continued to teach High School Math, at a South Salem High School where he taught a total of around fifteen years. He would later teach part-time at Chemeketa Community College after 2006.[2]

Public address announcer

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Kanner began his career as a public address announcer primarily for swimming competitions in 1976, and continued through 2001. He served as a swimming announcer for the Pacific-10 conference, California junior college championships, the U.S. short and long-course swimming championships, the World University Games and most impressively for the 1984 summer olympics in Los Angeles. He spent 20 years announcing PAC-10 conference meets, and 8 years announcing NCAA Division I meets.[2]

Praised for his announcing skills, and sporting a deep, smooth, velvety voice, admiring observers praised him for keeping the audience aware of each participant's former achievements, while keeping track of who was in the lead, the pace being set, and strategies that might be used by the leaders. He wrote a Handbook on the art of public announcing for swim meets which he submitted to USA Swimming.[25] As a highlight to his career, in 1996 he served as the public address announcer for swimming at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta.[26]

Honors

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Kanner had broad recognition as a swim coach. In 1991, he was awarded the California Coaches Association High School Boys Swimming Coach of the Year.[27] and was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[28]

Kanner was a Region 8 Swimming Coach of the Year, and a 1991 National High School Athletic Coaches Association (NHSACA) Swimming Coach of the Year. In a more recent honor in 2023, Kanner was inducted into the Los Angeles Unified School District's Alumni Hall of Fame.[27][3]

Author

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He published Don Gambril: A Coach with a Heart[29] in 2022, a biography about the long serving University of Alabama Swim Coach, and U.S. Head swim coach for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Kanner was mentored by Gambril, while serving as his Assistant coach at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1966-67.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Daley, Jillian, "Effort to Fund Competitive", Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, pg. 38, 10 April 2007
  2. ^ a b c d e f Lynn, Capi, Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, pg. 11, 8 August 1993
  3. ^ a b c "Los Angeles United School District, Click on Sports, Search for Burt Kanner". Los Angeles United School District. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d "Burt Kanner". Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  5. ^ "Scene of Verdugo Hills High Graduation", Valley Times, North Hollywood, California, pg. 31 18 June 1957
  6. ^ "Pick Wadding, Yerby, Verdugo Hills Best", Valley Times, North Hollywood, California, pg. 47, 5 June 1957
  7. ^ "Pick School Best Athlete", Valley Times, North Hollywood, California, 12 June 1956
  8. ^ "25 From Valley in Occidental Rites", Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, Los Angeles, California, pg. 18, 7 June 1961
  9. ^ "Sunland Resident is Athlete of the Year", Los Angeles, California, pg. 136, 2 July 1961
  10. ^ "Oxy Edges Out Cal Tech", Redlands Daily Facts, Redlands, California, pg. 6, 4 May 1963
  11. ^ "B'nai B'rith Messenger: June 16, 1961". B'nai B'rith Messenger. June 16, 1961. p. 7. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  12. ^ "Mentors, Meeting Peter Daland". burtsmemories.com. August 20, 2017.
  13. ^ "History: The 1960s". Maccabi USA. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
  14. ^ a b Seldner, Deborah (July 1, 1993). "Swimming for gold in Maccabiah a family tradition". The Jewish Review. p. 6. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  15. ^ 800 meter relay time in "U.S. Reaps Harvest of Medals in Maccabiah Games", The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, pg. 3, 4 September 1961
  16. ^ Parsons, Glenn. "Swim-Master: January, 1975" (PDF). AAU Masters Swimming Committee. p. 12. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  17. ^ a b "USMS National Records by Burt Kanner". United States Masters Swimming. January 10, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  18. ^ "30 Swimmers Take to the Waters of Eel Lake", The World, Coos Bay, Oregon, pg. 16, 21 August 2004
  19. ^ "USADA's Gambril Inducted in to Occidental Athletics Hall-of-Fame". www.usada.org. USADA. Retrieved February 13, 2008.
  20. ^ a b Ward, Mike, "2 Record-Holding Swimmers Honored", The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, pg. 180, 15 April 1976
  21. ^ Polin, Mitch (June 13, 1991). "It Was a Season to Remember for San Marino". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  22. ^ "SMHS California Interscholastic Federation Champions". San Marino High School. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  23. ^ "Maccabiah Games", The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, pg. 37, 7 July 1989
  24. ^ Parenti, Jeffrey, "Attention Ads, Coaches" Monrovia News-Post, Monrovia, California, pg. 9, 5 September 1990
  25. ^ Lynn, Capi, "Studious Kanner Makes the Right Calls", Statesman-Journal, Salem, Oregon, pg. 24, 8 August 1993
  26. ^ "Dear Salem", Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, pg. 7, 28 July 1996
  27. ^ a b "Boys Honors of the Year". California Coaches Association. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  28. ^ "Burt Kanner". So Cal Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. 1991. Archived from the original on June 18, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  29. ^ Lohn, John (January 10, 2023). "Don Gambril eBook Provides Comprehensive Look At Legendary Coach's Life". Swimming World Magazine. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
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