Jane Fauntz(1910-1989)
Champion diver and swimmer Jane Fauntz was born on December 19, 1910 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Fauntz grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended Hyde Park Academy High School and competed as a teenager for the Illinois Women's Athletic Club swimming and diving teams. Jane set new world records in both the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-meter breaststroke at a dual meet against a Canadian team in March, 1928. Fauntz subsequently placed fifth in the women's 200-meter breaststroke at the 1928 Olympics and won the bronze medal in women's springboard diving at the 1932 Olympics. Moreover, Jane won both the one-meter springboard and 100-meter breaststroke events at the Amateur Athletic Union swimming indoor national championships in Chicago in 1929.
In addition, Fauntz not only used her Olympic success to eke out a career in modeling (she was one of the first female athletes to be featured on Wheaties cereal boxes and worked as a model for the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue), marketing, and professional aquatic exhibitions, but also was an artist with a Bachelor's Degree in art education from the University of Illinois who specialized in paintings and sculptures. Jane was married to professional football player Edgar "Eggs" Manske, who she met in 1933 while appearing in exhibitions at the Chicago World's Fair and eventually wed in 1936. Fauntz taught high school art classes as well as was a boys' diving team coach at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, California for twenty years. Jane died at age 78 from leukemia on May 30, 1989 in Escondido, California. She was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1991.
In addition, Fauntz not only used her Olympic success to eke out a career in modeling (she was one of the first female athletes to be featured on Wheaties cereal boxes and worked as a model for the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue), marketing, and professional aquatic exhibitions, but also was an artist with a Bachelor's Degree in art education from the University of Illinois who specialized in paintings and sculptures. Jane was married to professional football player Edgar "Eggs" Manske, who she met in 1933 while appearing in exhibitions at the Chicago World's Fair and eventually wed in 1936. Fauntz taught high school art classes as well as was a boys' diving team coach at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, California for twenty years. Jane died at age 78 from leukemia on May 30, 1989 in Escondido, California. She was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1991.