Bruce MacFarlane Furniss was born on May 27,1957 and is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder in four events.
23 Facts About Bruce Furniss
2.
Bruce Furniss was an integral part of USC's NCAA National Collegiate Championship winning teams of 1976 and 1977.
3.
Bruce Furniss is a 1975 graduate of Tustin, California's Foothill High School where he was coached by Tom Delong, California Interscholastic Federation's all-time winningest high school swim coach.
4.
Bruce Furniss-led teams won the CIF-SS Championship Title in 1972,1973 and 1974.
5.
Two of those years, Bruce Furniss teamed with Rod Strachan, whom Bruce Furniss would later swim with at USC and with whom was a teammate on the 1976 US Olympic Men's Swim Team.
6.
Bruce Furniss was a member of the 1976 US Olympic men's swimming team, which was coached by three American swimming giants, Indiana University's Doc Counsilman, Santa Clara Swim Club's George Haines, and the University of Alabama's Don Gambril, all International Swimming Hall of Fame Coaches.
7.
On July 19,1976, the second day of the 1976 Olympic swimming program, Bruce Furniss won the 200-meter freestyle with a winning time of 1:50.29, leading an American sweep finishing ahead of fellow Americans John Naber and Jim Montgomery.
8.
Bruce Furniss garnered two gold and two silver medals in the 1975 World Aquatics Championships in Cali, Colombia and 1978 World Aquatics Championships in West Berlin.
9.
Eleven years later, Bruce Furniss became the twelfth of fourteen Americans in history to break the 200-meter freestyle world record.
10.
Bruce Furniss laid claim to the 200-meter freestyle world record from 1975 to 1979.
11.
Bruce Furniss was twice named World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World Magazine, once in 1975, and again in 1976.
12.
In 1974 and 1975, Furniss was awarded the prestigious Robert J H Kiphuth Award as the country's high point winner at the United States Swimming National Championships.
13.
Bruce Furniss was inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, as an "Honor Swimmer" in the ISHOF in 1987, and the University of Southern California Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.
14.
Bruce Furniss participated in carrying the Olympic flame as a participant of the 1984,1996 and 2004 Olympic Torch Relays in the Los Angeles area.
15.
In January 2004, Bruce Furniss received the NCAA's Silver Anniversary Award.
16.
In February 2016, both Bruce Furniss brothers were selected to the Pac-12 Conference's All-Century Men's Swimming and Diving Team, recognizing them among the Conference's 32 best swimmers in the previous 100 years.
17.
Bruce Furniss was one of four former collegiate athletes inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-American Hall of Fame Class of 2020, one of only 158 Academic All-Americans so recognized since its inception in 1988.
18.
Bruce Furniss graduated in 1979 from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
19.
Since 1985, Bruce Furniss has been self-employed as a commercial real estate broker.
20.
Bruce Furniss is a managing director with Berkadia in Irvine, CA, has transacted over $2.0B in multi-family real estate, and possess a core competency as an affordable housing specialist.
21.
Bruce Furniss is the father of three sons and a daughter, whom like Furniss, each attended USC.
22.
Bruce Furniss is a part time Assistant Senior Coach at SoCal Aquatics in his original hometown of Tustin, CA, a swim club for which he swam as a kid.
23.
On March 29,2020, while asleep at home, Bruce Furniss suffered a cardiac arrest.