Swimmer first Cougar on SI cover in ’60
Only 19 at the time, Carin Vanderbush remembers making the short trip into New York City for a handful of studio sessions.
An Olympian and world-class swimmer before she was able to drive, Vanderbush sat still in a chair on five different occasions as artist Aaron Shikler painted a portrait that would land her on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Sixty years ago, on April 18, 1960, Vanderbush — then known as Carin Cone and a swimmer at the University of Houston — was featured on one of sport’s most revered publications. It was the second SI cover appearance for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Vanderbush at the height of a decorated swimming career that included a silver medal at the 1956 Olympics, 16 national championships, seven world records, 24 American records and the title “Queen of the Backstroke.”
A member of the first UH swim team from 1958-60, Vanderbush was the school’s first athlete to be featured on SI’s cover. Elvin Hayes (1968), Andre Ware (1989), David Klingler (1991), Greg Ward Jr. (2016) and Ed Oliver (2018) were the only other athletes featured on the cover while at UH. Ninetime Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis made seven SI appearances after he left school, while Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Fred Couples and Fuzzy Zoeller, among others, were featured as professionals.
About 16 months earlier, Vanderbush made her SI debut when she shared the cover of the Dec. 22, 1958, holiday issue.
“People that set world records and American records made the front page of the newspapers or magazines,” Vanderbush, who celebrated her 80th birthday Saturday, said by phone from her home in Highland Falls, N.Y. “It was the glory days.”
After claiming a silver medal in Melbourne, Vanderbush was among a handful of female athletes recruited by coach Phill Hansel to join about 20-something males on the first UH swim in the late 1950s. While at UH, Vanderbush won two gold medals at the 1959 Pan American Games in Chicago and was a favorite to qualify for the Olympics the following year in Rome.
In between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks from UH during fall 1959, Vanderbush made the short trip from her home in Ridgewood, N.J. to the New York City studio of Shikler, who would go on to paint the official White House portraits of John F. Kennedy and First Ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan.
Vanderbush recalled the artist wanted a “beachy look” that could run sometime in the spring.
“Of course, it was the fall and winter colors,” Vanderbush said. “All they had was winter colors, forest green and maroon. They didn’t have anything light blue. My mother looked and looked and finally found a sweater for me. Then (Shikler) said we need to have something that is another color, too. How about a scarf ?”
Shikler handed Vanderbush the pink scarf he was wearing.
“I never wore pink, but he had a scarf around his neck, so he gave me his scarf,” she said. “He said, ‘Don’t worry I’ll make it match your lipstick so it will be fine.’”
Years went by, and Vanderbush never knew what had become of the original painting. As the story goes, a friend of the Cone family had an appointment at the SI offices and noticed the painting on a wall. The friend informed SI that she knew Vanderbush’s mother, Ruth, and was given the painting to take back to Ridgewood. Today, the 30-by-25 painting hangs on a living room wall.
“I kept it in my mother’s house until I had a nice house to put it in,” said Vanderbush, who was the first woman to be on the SI cover twice.
Vanderbush won her first national title in 1953 and, at age 16, was the first to hold all four American women’s backstroke titles in the 100 and 200 yards and 100 and 200 meters.
Vanderbush unintentionally was part of one of the biggest mysteries in Olympic history. At the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Vanderbush and chief rival, Great Britain’s Judy Grinham, were both declared to have touched in 1 minute, 12.9 seconds in the finals of the 100-meter backstroke, then a world-record time.
At the time, races were handtimed and judged by officials standing on the edge of the pool. The camera was at the 25-meter mark from the finish line.
One judge ruled in favor of Grinham. Another ruled in favor of Vanderbush. After a 20-minute delay, Grinham was awarded the gold medal and Vanderbush took home silver.
Forty years later, Vanderbush saw film of the race, which still was inconclusive.
“It’s OK that it’s still a mystery,” she said.
Sports Illustrated published for the first time in August 1954, and it wasn’t long before Vanderbush became part of the so-called cover jinx.
At the height of her career, Vanderbush was unbeaten in the 100meter backstroke for four years leading up to the 1960 Olympic trials. She finished third and missed making the U.S team.
“I won a lot of national championships between the first time I was on the cover and the second time,” said Vanderbush, who was inducted into UH’s Athletic Hall of Honor in 2004.
So it wasn’t the jinx?
“I’m a very near-sighted backstroker,” she said. “I didn’t know the girl was ahead of me. I thought I was in second place and would make the team. I didn’t swim fast enough, that’s all.”
Vanderbush married Al Vanderbush, a retired colonel and former Army athletic director who played football and baseball at West Point. She dedicated her life to teaching and had a “very movable life,” with stops in Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia and New York. She has two sons, Carl and Bruce Vanderbush, and three grandchildren (Erin, Lindsay and Knut).
Bruce Vanderbush, who lives outside Dallas, said he was exposed to the Olympics at an early age, particularly the swimming competitions.
“That’s when we put some of the pieces together and understood how important it was to her and what an honor it was to compete,” he said.