Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer (June 13, 1938 – December 30, 2020) was an American swim coach. He coached the AAU Central Jersey Aquatic Club from 1961 to 1988, leading them to an AAU National Championship in 1976. Palmer's Shore Aquatic Club, which he founded in 1961, became known as the Central Jersey Aquatic Club around 1972 when it merged with Rutger's swimming coach Frank Elm's Scarlet Jets, an AAU team. During his long coaching career, which included coaching the Durango Masters after 1996, Palmer coached several American Olympic swimmers including 1968 Olympic team alternate Cathy Corcione, as well as 1976 Olympians Kathy Heddy and gold medalist Wendy Boglioli. South African swimmer Jonty Skinner trained with Palmer at the Central Jersey Aquatic Club before becoming a world record holder in the 100-meter freestyle at the Senior AAU Nationals in Philadelphia in August 1976. His parents operated Marpal Disposal in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he worked between swimming assignments. In college he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a year, but graduated from Monmouth University, where several of his future New Jersey swimmers would compete. In June 1960, as coach of Driftwood Swim Club, Palmer attended the National Indoor Championship at Yale University. In August 1962, Palmer's Driftwood Beach Club Swimming Team soundly won the Quadrangular swimming meet championship at the Surfrider Beach Club for the third straight year, winning 12 of 20 individual events and taking seven of eight relay races. In 1963, Palmer's Driftwood team had eight of ten of the local newspaper Daily Record's All Star Swim team members which included future stars Cathy Corcione and Sue Halfacre.

Central Jersey Aquatic Club He began coaching swimming for his more memorable team, New Jersey's Shore Aquatic Club in 1961 in Monmouth County, New Jersey. A regional power, by 1963 the Shore Aquatic Club was unofficially ranked second among age group clubs in New Jersey behind the Summit YMCA team. In the 1970s the team combined with the Scarlet Jets Club, coached by Frank Elms of Rutgers University, and Palmer continued coaching the new club to be known as Central Jersey Aquatic Club through 1988. For a number of years through the mid-1970's, the team still met in the summers at the Driftwood Beach Club, depending on pool availability. In 1968, and again in 1976, Central Jersey Aquatic Club's Coach Frank Elms served as an Olympic coach. Palmer led the Shore Aquatic Club team then known as the Central Jersey Aquatic Club in August, 1976 to an excellent showing in the National Championship of the American Athletic Union in both the senior women's and the combined categories for men and women. The CJAC women's team placed second nationally and the combined men and women's team placed fourth.

Jonty Skinner, who swam for Central Jersey Aquatic Club under Palmer in 1976, set a World Record at the U.S. Senior National Championships in Philadelphia on August 14, 1976, of 49.44 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle twenty days after the 1976 Montreal Olympics, breaking Olympian gold medalist Jim Montgomery's newly set record of 49.99 seconds in the event. In the Summer of 1979, Skinner served as an assistant coach at Central Jersey Athletic Club, working under Palmer, who had been a former mentor and coach. Skinner would pursue a coaching career at the University of Alabama and with USA Swimming. Corinna Weinkofsky, who took over coaching the Central Jersey Aquatic Club when Palmer left in 1988, also swam for the club under Palmer, and was a seven-time state High School champion and a four-time All American at Arizona State.

Cathy Corcione, who swam for Princeton, was the Shore Swimming Club's first Olympian under Palmer in 1968, ranking first in the world in the 100 freestyle, fifth in the 200 IM, and second in the 200 backstroke, an event in which she broke the American record. As a 15-year old Junior at Long Branch High School, Corcione qualified for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the 400-meter freestyle event as an alternate, but did not get the opportunity to swim in Mexico City due to an overabundance of talent that year. Susan Halfacre, a 1972 Olympic Trial swimmer, swam for the University of Florida and for Palmer as well. Ken Winfield was another outstanding swimmer for Palmer, who attended both the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Trials, swam for Red Bank High School, and Michigan State, and was ranked eighth in the world in the 200 butterfly, but did not swim in the Olympics.

Bill's athletic pursuits included biking, skiing, and triathlons. He participated in nearly 200 triathlons, which included the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii.

Honors Bill was honored as a Coach of the Year by United States Masters Swimming, both with his Central Jersey Aquatic Club team in New Jersey, and his Durango Masters team in Colorado.

Palmer died on December 30, 2020, in Durango, Colorado. He was survived by his wife, Mary Anne Nelson, four children, three girls and a boy, and four grandchildren.