Steve Jackman, American swimmer from the University of Minnesota, once called ‘Fastest man alive’, has died

Steve Jackman enjoyed a lot of respect from his teammates on the University of Minnesota men’s swimming team, but not just for his athletic skills.

“They had confidence he would win,” said teammate and former Gophers men’s swimming coach Dennis Dale. “And he usually won. He was popular, not just because he won, but because he won with joy and glee.”

During his collegiate career, Jackman, who grew up in Rochester, won six Big Ten individual titles and swam on the Big Ten relay twice, while swimming for the Gophers from 1961 to 1963. He also won six NCAA titles — four individually and two on the relay — and was an 11-time All-American.

Dale, who was a freshman on the Gophers when Jackman was a senior, said that despite all of Jackman’s success, “humility was one of his strengths. He was a confident person who liked to have fun. He was known by his teammates as a wild man — in a loving way.”

While with the Gophers, Jackman majored in pre-medicine. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School and had a long, distinguished career as a radiologist.

“As an athlete, you challenge yourself and focus on your goals,” said Dale, who was an All-American for the Gophers in 1967 and coached the Gophers from 1985 to 2014. “It’s the same in the classroom. Steve was very successful in both.”

Jackman died on June 14 in Augusta, Georgia. He was 83.

Jackman was a three-time champion of the Minnesota State High School League’s boys’ state swimming meet in the late 1950s at Rochester High School.

A story in the Minneapolis Star in March 1962 reported that Jackman swam a mile or more every day for 10 months of the year. Jackman told the newspaper, “I’m actually lazy. Swimming helps me keep my mind off it.”

Three days after the story broke, Jackman won the 50-yard freestyle at the NCAA meet in Columbus, Ohio, in an NCAA record time of 21.1 seconds.

Jackman also won the 100-yard freestyle at the 1962 meet, helping the Gophers finish in third place as a team — their best showing at the meet since 1943. The third-place finish is still the best at the NCAA meet in program history.

Jackman told the Minneapolis Tribune: “For me it was a great experience, but more importantly we finished third as a team.”

At that time, the 50-meter freestyle was not an Olympic event and the NCAA champion in the event was called the “fastest man in the world.”

“He was a short-distance specialist,” Dale said. “He was 6’5″ or 6’8″. He was really strong. He was a strong athlete in swimming or whatever sport he chose. I remember him going to swim practice and then he went to an intramural track meet. He won both the discus and the shot put.”

Jackman also won a silver medal at the 1963 Pan American Games in Brazil. In 1964, Jackman trained in California but did not qualify for the U.S. Olympic team that competed in the Tokyo Olympics.

Two of Jackman’s teammates on the 1961 Gophers team commented on a message board below Jackman’s obituary on the website of the Springfield (Illinois) State Journal-Register.

Jay Johnson wrote: “He was truly a unique individual. A remarkable person. … Steve’s nickname at the time was ‘Spider – Spi’, for short. Spi will be missed by all of us.”

“Steve was a loyal friend and teammate,” wrote William Milota. “His sense of humor and zest for life were legendary. He was brilliant as a student and I’m sure he was as an MD.”

After graduating from medical school in 1968, Jackman served with the U.S. Office of Naval Research as a physician for Project Tektite in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The project, a government-industry-university partnership, was the first nationally sponsored scientists-at-sea program in the United States.

Jackman went on to work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois.

During his professional career, he also served as an associate professor of radiology at Southern Illinois University Medical School and worked for the US Public Health Service in Houston, Texas.

Jackman was inducted into the University of Minnesota Aquatics Hall of Fame in 1986 and the university’s “M” Club Hall of Fame in 1991. In 2021, he was named one of the 100 Greatest Swimmers and Divers of the Past Century by the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association.

Jackman is survived by two daughters, two sons and eight grandchildren. His wife of 54 years, Dr. Jane Lloyd Jackman, died in 2023.

A memorial service will be held in Springfield, Illinois on August 31.