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When the practice ended is almost as much of a mystery as why it began. Nude swimming in gym class, it seems, was like what happens in Vegas: It stayed in gym class. Did the school board know it was happening? Did parents?
Your crosstown rival Glenbrook South had nude swimming for us boys up to 1974-75 (my freshman year). After that we were provided navy blue or black nylon swim briefs (some were labeled White Stag) which would be washed after every use. Should have sanitized the locker room floors as some of us got warts on our feet (which got us out of swim class anyway).
I remember swimming nude at the Y, I was just a kid at the time and never thought about it. When I got into High School in the late 60s, we had to swim nude. I hated it . I hated it to the point on swim day I would just cut the class or stay home with a tummy or headache
My husband tells of nude swimming at Lane Tech in Chicago in the 1960s. He was assigned the duty of taking numbers of the boys before they went in. He sat in a chair and one by one they came up and gave their numbers.My millennial friend tells me the high school he attended in upstate NY has nice locker rooms with private showers but no one uses them. They just change after gym class and go back to class. It would seem the younger generation is quite prudish. If you mention nude swimming to them they are shocked.
So many people today do not know about the era of nude swimming. After mentioning swimming naked in High School to people in “you won’t believe me… but” conversations, people thought it was creepy or that the instructors were pedophiles. Records show a few were good, decent men, but the vast majority of the thousands worked with boys as swimming teachers, coaches, or lifeguards. Naked swimming was just the way it was. It was seldom sprung on the class as a surprise. Typically, the students knew from a year or two before that they would swim naked when they reached that point.
