Catie Ball

Early years

Ball was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1951. As a teenager, she swam for the J.E.T.S. swim team in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) competition and attended Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville. In August 1966, she set a new American record of 2:44.8 in the 200-meter breaststroke at the AAU national championships, shattering the previous mark by almost three seconds. In December 1966, she tied the world record of 1:15.7 in the 100-meter breaststroke at the international swim meet at the Hall of Fame pool in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. While swimming for the Lee High School Generals swim team, she won the 1967 Florida 2A state high school championships in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke events, setting Florida state records in both. Her Florida record in the 100-yard breaststroke stood for eleven years.

International swimming career

Ball set a new world record in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Santa Clara invitational swim meet in July 1967. At the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Ball won two individual gold medals in the women's 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke events, and a third in the women's 4×100-meter medley relay in which she swam the breaststroke leg for the winning U.S. team of Kendis Moore, Ball, Ellie Daniel and Wendy Fordyce. In the process, she set new world records in all three events. During 1967, she set world records in all four (two metric, two non-metric) individual breaststroke events as a 15-year-old.

Despite having to overcome mononucleosis and missing several scheduled meets in early 1968, Ball was the favorite to win three gold medals at the 1968 Olympics. She was the reigning world record holder in all four breaststroke distances and bettered her own world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic Trials in August 1968. She arrived at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, however, with a case of influenza. She won her only Olympic medal, a gold, as a member of the winning U.S. 4×100-meter medley relay team by swimming the breaststroke leg of the four-person relay. Sharing the gold medal honors were her relay teammates Kaye Hall (backstroke), Ellie Daniel (butterfly) and Susan Pedersen (freestyle). In the 100-meter breaststroke final, Ball led close to the finish but physical exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she finished fifth. She was too ill to swim in the subsequent preliminary heats of the 200-meter breaststroke and was scratched from the event.

College coaching career

After the Olympics, Ball received a special scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, but effectively dropped out of competition swimming because there were no women's college swim teams at the time and because of her desire to lead a more "normal" life. As an undergraduate senior at the University of Florida, she was hired by athletic director Ray Graves to be the first head coach of the newly organized women's Florida Gators swimming and diving team in Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) competition during the 1972–73 school year. In their first year of intercollegiate competition, Ball's Lady Gators swimmers were undefeated in dual meets and placed second at the AIAW national championship during her single-season tenure.

Ball graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in education in 1973.

Life after swimming

Ball currently resides in Pensacola, Florida. In the time since retiring from competition swimming at the age of 17, she has been a college swim coach, kindergarten teacher, junior swim coach, housewife and interior decorator. Ball and her business partner have operated a successful interior decorating business, "Beside the Point," for the past decade. She and her husband Tom Condon have three children and two grandchildren.

She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1976, and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

World records

Women's 100-meter breaststroke

Women's 200-meter breaststroke

Women's 4×100-meter medley relay

Note: All record times and locations are sourced to USA Swimming's list of world records.