When the United States won silver in team artistic swimming Aug. 7 in Paris for just its third Olympic medal, it was cause for celebration in the synchronized swimming community.
It was also an emotional moment for Kathleen Sacha, whose mother Judith McGowan was a pivotal figure in the sport’s foothold in the country.
“I’m glad I watched it, but of course I sat there and cried because I thought of my mom,” she said. “But I’m so happy they finally medaled.”
After a 16-year absence from Olympic competition, the Americans medaled for the first time since capturing bronze in 2004 in Athens, Greece. That would have delighted McGowan, a Baltimore native and Lutherville resident who died March 10 because of a stroke at the age of 82.
McGowan was founding president of U.S. Synchronized Swimming in 1977 and led the organization until 1988 before serving as president again from 2012 to 2016. She was instrumental in ushering the sport to debut at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
McGowan was also a judge at several international championships — including the 1984 and 2000 Olympics — an editor and primary author in 1979 of the First International Training Manual for Synchronized Swimming Judges and in 1988 of the first International Federation of Swimming Judging Manual, and the first female appointee to chair the global body’s Technical Synchronized Swimming Committee in 1984.
“She was a tremendous force in getting us to be an Olympic sport,” said Virginia Jasontek, former USA Artistic Swimming president and former vice-chair of the World Aquatics International Technical Committee. “You couldn’t look at today’s medals and not think that while many people contribute to the success of a team in any given year, just the word Olympics brings up the devotion and the endless energy that Judy put into making those Games a reality.”
As a child in Baltimore, McGowan discovered what was then called “water ballet” and began competing at the age of 12 at a YWCA. She was coached by 1912 Olympic gold medalist Belle Moore Cameron of England.
“She fell in love with the sport,” Sacha said of her mother, who admired swimmer and actress Esther Williams. “Just being at the pools brought her peace.”
McGowan began coaching when she was 26 and found her calling in 1974 when she was the U.S. delegate to the First International Conference on Synchronized Swimming in Ottawa. She was then elected to chair the International Judges Study Group from 1974 to 1984, which opened the door to her work in establishing the sport in the United States and at the Olympics.
Jasontek has known Judith McGowan since 1962 when Jasontek and her team from New Jersey traveled to Baltimore to compete against McGowan and her team. When she turned to coaching in 1970, Jasontek reconnected with McGowan at national conventions. She was there when McGowan became the national organization’s first president in 1977 and then re-upped in 2012.
“Judy gave everything she had to this sport. She never said no,” Jasontek said. “She worked endlessly both internationally and within the United States to further this sport that she loved.”
As president of U.S. Synchronized Swimming, McGowan planted the seeds for what is now the U.S. Artistic Swimming Foundation, which is tasked with raising funds to support national teams. Sandra Mahoney, the foundation’s board of trustees president and former national team director, joked that McGowan was so adept at convincing donors that she “could sell sand in the Sahara.”
“She always had a saying, ‘Why not us?’” Mahoney said. “We are a little bit of a fringe sport, especially back in those days. But she definitely believed in the power of the sport, the power that it gave young women.”
McGowan’s work ethic was legendary. She frequently ended her day as a teacher within the Baltimore City public schools system to craft new regulations or revise current ones and then call peers like Jasontek and Mahoney late at night to gauge their reactions.
“She was always at a typewriter,” Sacha said. “It was definitely her passion.”
McGowan’s work took her to 30 international clinics, including three in Australia and Colombia and two in Canada, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and South Korea. Sacha said she accompanied her mother to the World Aquatics Championships in Perth, Australia, in 1991 and the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992.
“Because she traveled to other countries and went to world championships and World Cups and the Pan-American Games, she was an ambassador for the sport,” Jasontek said. “We’d show up at a national event and we’d have a team from Japan. She was building the base.”
McGowan fell ill before the United States finished third at the World Aquatics Championships on Feb. 9 in Doha, Qatar, and earned a berth in the Olympics for the first time since 2008 in Beijing. Before that meet, McGowan promised the swimmers she would get a tattoo if they qualified.
“She was always engaging with the young athletes, and she was motivational,” her daughter said. “She was really good at speaking to them. She was just the biggest cheerleader for everybody.”
Mahoney said McGowan’s absence at the Olympics was noticeable.
“In Paris, I saw a couple people that I know from Spain, and they said that Judy was smiling down today because they know how hard she fought to get us in the Games and they know how hard she fought to keep us in the Games,” she said. “Every four years, we would hear, ‘These sports are on the chopping block,’ and she would mobilize and make sure that it wasn’t us.”
The tributes to McGowan flowed freely after her death. Sacha said the praise has been particularly meaningful.
“I know it would make her feel good because of all her hard work,” she said. “She was a stay-at-home mom, but it was almost like she was a career woman. … There were times when I wished she wasn’t gone as much, but at the same time, that was her passion, and that was basically her career. And when she was home, she was at every sporting event I ever did and was my biggest cheerleader and loved being a mom.”