JOAN DODD
Richard Dunn
Growing up on Balboa Island in the 1940s, freestyle sensation Joan
Dodd didn’t have to travel far to attend daily workouts, swimming
from the island -- then known as a “village” -- to the Balboa
Pavilion and back.
Dodd ( now Joan Dan) would launch at a spot near the Balboa Ferry
and complete the bay voyage “two or three times,” depending on the
day, because the nearest pools were in Los Angeles County.
“In those days, the water was clean,” she said. “You could
actually see the bottom. But now it’s too polluted. I don’t think
anybody could (swim in it) now.”
Dodd, who attended Newport Grammar School and Newport Harbor High
(circa ‘49), played all the sports available to her growing up, and
especially enjoyed tennis and basketball. But Dodd, also a Newport
Harbor song leader, had a penchant for swimming and was encouraged to
pursue it further by then-Sailors swim coach Marge Adams.
Soon, Dodd began pool swimming at a YWCA in Santa Ana, then was
introduced to LA Athletic Club swim coach Alian Allen and her career
started to take off.
At the LA Athletic Club, Dodd swam in Amateur Athletic Union
competitions, earned at least 30 medals -- including one national
gold medal on a relay team -- and tried out for the 1948 U.S. Olympic
swimming team that went to Helsinki. She was 16 at the time.
Dodd, who attended Orange Coast College the second year it was
open (1949-50), didn’t make the U.S. Olympic team, but traveled
regularly with the LA Athletic Club for swimming exhibitions during a
groundbreaking time in Palm Springs, when resorts were sprouting up
with lavish swimming pools and proprietors wanted good-looking bodies
in them.
Dodd, who won her first swimming race at age 5 when kids swam from
Balboa Island to a sea wall and back, would often attend swim
workouts and meets with her father, Marion, who drove her to Los
Angeles and always kept a stopwatch in his pocket. “That made me more
nervous,” she said. “My father wrote everything down and kept track
of all my times. He enjoyed it. I guess I was his boy.”
Dodd had a sister, Dorothy, who was three years older, but wasn’t
interested in sports. Her father owned and operated Dodd’s Malt Shop
on Balboa Island from 1937 to ’49. And, on days when her father
couldn’t drive her to LA, she would walk across Balboa Island, take
the ferry over to the peninsula and catch the red car, which would
eventually drop her off in downtown LA.
“It was probably a two-hour bus ride each way. I probably slept
most of the way coming home,” Dodd said. “I don’t think I’ve been on
a bus since.”
Long before goggles and Speedo swimsuits, Dodd wore the thick
black nylon suits that would cling to your body after getting wet.
“We were always embarrassed -- it would show every ripple of your
body,” she said.
Dodd, who swam the 100-, 200- and 400-yard freestyle events, was a
member of both the Newport Harbor and OCC swim teams, but neither
program realized serious competitions and neither campus had a pool.
“It was tough, as you can see, because there was no place to work
out,” she said. “That one year at Orange Coast, I probably just swam
in the bay ... people don’t realize now that there was no pool (at
Newport Harbor High). They take it for granted. It’s a beautiful pool
now. My grandson swims there.”
She added it was easier to swim in the bay, because the salt water
would help keep her afloat.
“Now, I just swim in a bathtub,” quipped Dodd, the latest honoree
in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame. “Actually, I still swim laps.
I’m just not in a hurry anymore. I enjoy swimming. It’s very good
exercise.”
Dodd, 71, lives in Costa Mesa with her husband, Danny. She has
three grown children -- Deborah, Lori and Bob -- and three
grandchildren. “They like to swim,” she said of her grandchildren,
“but they’re not in as much of a hurry as I was.”
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