1. Bruce MacFarlane Furniss was born on May 27,1957 and is a former American amateur competition swimmer, Olympic double gold medalist, and ten-time world record-holder in four events.
30 Facts About Bruce Furniss
1. 2.
Bruce Furniss was a proficient and successful individual medley swimmer, however it was his freestyle technique for which he is most often recognized and remembered.
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 he was a teammate on the 1976 US Olympic Men's Swim Team.
6.
Bruce Furniss was an integral part of USC's NCAA National Collegiate Championship winning teams of 1976 and 1977.
7.
All four Bruce Furniss brothers attended, competed and graduated from USC.
8.
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.
9.
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.
10.
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.
11.
Twelve years later, Bruce Furniss became the twelfth of fourteen Americans in history to break the 200-meter freestyle world record.
12.
At the 1975 World Swimming Championships team trials in the Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach, CA, Bruce Furniss accomplished the rare feat of breaking the 200-meter freestyle world record twice on the same day.
13.
Bruce Furniss's fourth crack of the event's world mark occurred in the 1976 Men's 200-meter Freestyle Olympic Final.
14.
Bruce Furniss broke the world record in the Men's 200-meter individual medley at the 1975 AAU Senior National Outdoor Championships in Kansas City, KS.
15.
Bruce Furniss laid claim to the 200-meter freestyle world record from 1975 to 1979 and the 200-meter individual medley world record from 1975 to 1977.
16.
In total Bruce Furniss either broke or was on relay teams that broke ten world records in four different events over a three year period.
17.
Bruce Furniss was twice named World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World Magazine, once in 1975, and again in 1976.
18.
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.
19.
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.
20.
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.
21.
In January 2004, Bruce Furniss received the NCAA's Silver Anniversary Award.
22.
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.
23.
Bruce Furniss was one of four former collegiate athletes inducted into the College Sports Communicators Academic All-American Hall of Fame Class of 2020, one of only 170 Collegiate Academic All-Americans so recognized since its inception in 1988.
24.
Bruce Furniss graduated in 1979 from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
25.
Since 1985, Bruce Furniss has been self-employed as a commercial real estate broker.
26.
Bruce Furniss is a managing director with Berkadia in Irvine, CA.
27.
Bruce Furniss is the father of three sons and a daughter, each of whom, like Furniss, attended USC.
28.
Bruce Furniss is a part time Assistant Senior Coach at SoCal Aquatics in his original hometown of Tustin, CA.
29.
On May 1,1980, Bruce Furniss had his childhood home burglarized.
30.
On March 29,2020, while asleep at home, Bruce Furniss suffered a cardiac arrest.