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Julian "Tex" Robertson (April 23, 1909 – August 27, 2007) was an American swimmer and water polo player and a swimming coach for the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. He invented a flying disk game similar to the
Frisbee A frisbee (pronounced ), also called a flying disc or simply a disc, is a gliding toy or sporting item that is generally made of injection-molded plastic and roughly in diameter with a pronounced lip. It is used recreationally and competitive ...
.


Swimming career

Julian Robertson was born April 23, 1909 in
Sweetwater, Texas Sweetwater is a municipality in and the seat of Nolan County, Texas, United States. It is 123 miles southeast of Lubbock and 40 miles west of Abilene, Texas. Its population was 10,906 at the 2010 census. History The town's name "Sweetwater" is t ...
. He later moved to California receiving the nickname "Tex". When he was thirteen, he learned to swim in a nearby creek and often practiced his technique in a horse trough. The next year he won his first race. He attended the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, where he swam for the
Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving The Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving program has both a men's and women's team. The University of Michigan swimming program is one of the most highly respected college swimming programs in the country. The men's and women's teams, which ha ...
teams in NCAA and Big Ten Conference competition. While attending Michigan, he attended the
1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...
as an alternate member of the U.S. Olympic Water Polo team that won a bronze medal. Between 1934 and 1935 Tex set new collegiate and Amateur Athletic Union records while continuing to win individual and team events for the University of Michigan. Meanwhile he also trained
Adolph Kiefer Adolph Gustav Kiefer (June 27, 1918 – May 5, 2017) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic competitor, the last surviving gold medalist of the 1936 Summer Olympics and former world record-holder. He was the first man in the world to swi ...
for the
1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
where Kiefer won a gold medal in the backstroke. In 1935, Tex founded the swimming team at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. Tex had to convince UT that they needed a coach since the job was previously a student volunteer. Although he did not get paid he made it work being the lifeguard of the university pool, servicing Coke Machines, and working at a camp in Michigan during the summer. He brought attention to the UT swim team by recruiting incredible swimmers that ended up going to the Olympics. While he coached from 1935–1950, the University of Texas swim team won every Southwest Conference Swimming Championship. In 1950 Tex retired as the UT Coach but not before winning the NCAA Coach of the Year. " Tex continued to improve Texas Swimming by creating WETS (Working Exes for Texas Swimming), and TAGS (Texas Age Group Swimming).


Burnet accomplishments

Tex Robertson influenced the Burnet community by bringing accessibility and the importance of swimming to Burnet, TX. For many years he taught the youth how to swim in Inks Lake before creating his summer camp. In 1963, he brought the first public swimming pool to Burnet. For thirty years that swimming pool hosted Burnet's small high school state championships. In 1968, the girls' high school and college state championships were hosted there. He also invented the Blob, a highly used toy in all water based summer camps.


Camp Longhorn

Robertson founded Camp Longhorn with his wife Pat in 1939 on
Inks Lake Inks Lake is a reservoir on the Colorado River in the Texas Hill Country in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1938 by the construction of Inks Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Located near Burnet, Texas, the lake serves ...
in
Burnet, Texas Burnet ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Burnet County, Texas, United States. The population was 6,436 at the 2020 census. Both the city and the county were named for David Gouverneur Burnet, the first (provisional) president of the Repu ...
. The camp's main purpose was to teach children the importance of swimming and encouraged children to make swimming an active role in their lifestyle. He shut the camp down for three years when
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out so he could join the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, where he trained
Underwater Demolition Team Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams. Their primary WWII func ...
s and survival swimming skills. He was stationed in San Diego and then transferred to Fort Pierce, FL where he taught the Underwater Demolition Teams. Tex never quit coaching and led the Navy Swim Team to the National Navy Championships. When he returned, he spent all his time coaching the Texas swimming team and running Camp Longhorn, using his swim athletes as counselors. Many popular camp objects were inspired from World War II including a Vietnam-era, 40-foot long gasoline storage tank that was inflated and children jumped onto it while another flew off, along with ice cream lids children threw back and forth eventually becoming the Frisbee. Vic Malfronte, the World Frisbee champion, gives credit to Tex for creating the earliest organized sailing disc games. Tex grew up throwing metal can lids with neighborhood friends, and then introduced the game of throwing the "Sa-Lo" (which meant "sail it low") when he was a camper at Camp Wolverine in Michigan which is considered the birthplace of organized Frisbee. It was originally intended as a method for swimmers' times to be communicated to officials more quickly. Robertson then introduced the Frisbee to his camp in 1939. Retiring in 1950 as the UT swim coach, Robertson now focused entirely on the camp with his wife Pat. The first year Camp Longhorn opened it only had one camper and sixteen counselors all swimmers from the University of Texas. Today, the camp has spread into three different branches two located on Inks Lake (Camp Longhorn Inks Lake and C3) and the other, which opened in 1975, at Indian Springs, just a few miles east. Inks Lake is fed off the Colorado River and Indian Springs is fed off of two private spring-fed lakes, both are located in the Hill Country. Tex came up with the term and famous slogan, "Attawaytogo" in 1939 to help campers encourage one another and realize that they are "somebody" at Camp Longhorn. The welcoming camp uses the term "Everybody is Somebody!" because Longhorn prides itself in the way each camper acts putting everything and everybody before themselves. Longhorn teaches all campers to love Camp and to be a friend and have friends with the camp's motto "Everybody is somebody at Camp Longhorn." Robertson continued to run the camp until he died at age 98 and passed the camp down to his five children: Nan, Sally, Robby, Bill, and John. Pat Robertson visited both during the camp sessions after Tex died until she died in 2015. Today, Camp Longhorn hosts over 4000 campers every summer and the camp had their 75th anniversary in the summer of 2014.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, Julian 1909 births 2007 deaths American swimming coaches Texas Longhorns swimming coaches Michigan Wolverines men's swimmers People from Sweetwater, Texas Sportspeople from Texas United States Navy personnel of World War II University of Texas at Austin faculty American male water polo players People from Burnet, Texas 20th-century American people