Jon Lederhouse, head swimming coach at Wheaton College, has announced that he will retire at the conclusion of the 2016-17 school year. Entering his 41st season as a head coach at Wheaton, Lederhouse's swim programs have won 48 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) Championships (24 men and 24 women). Additionally, he coached the women's team to four Chicago Metro Conference championships prior to the CCIW adding women's swimming as a conference sport.
Read More About How Wheaton Swimmers Pulled off an All-Time Prank
The NCAA Division III Women's Swimming Co-Coach of the Year in 2000, Lederhouse's women's teams have scored points at the NCAA Championships 32 times, including 10 top-10 finishes. His 2000 women's squad finished fifth at Nationals. Four women have won a total of 11 NCAA Division III individual championships in his lengthy tenure.
Lederhouse's men's program has finished in the top-10 at the NCAA Division III Championships 11 times, including a third-place finish in 1990 and a fourth-place finish in 1991. Wheaton has won five individual NCAA men's swimming Championships from three of Lederhouse's swimmers. Under his guidance the program has scored points 33 times at the NCAA Division III Men's Swimming Championships.
As an undergraduate at Wheaton College, Lederhouse was an All-American swimmer at Wheaton winning the 1971 and 1972 NCAA Division II 100-yard backstroke championships and qualified both seasons for the NCAA Division I National Championships in that event. A 15-time All-American, he was an NCAA All-American in the 200 individual medley (1972-74), 200 backstroke (1971-74), and 100 backstroke (1971-74).
Julie Davis, Wheaton's Director of Athletics says of Lederhouse, "Jon represents the very best of a Wheaton College head coach. Jon is an incredibly successful coach, building the swim program at Wheaton and accumulating numerous conference championships and national top-10 finishes along the way. Equally important, he has been an outstanding Christian leader and mentor to his many student-athletes. His personal devotion to Christ and his commitment to student discipleship has marked hundreds of lives. He will be deeply missed, and I am incredibly grateful for his contributions over the years."
On Reading Day in December 1988 the captains of the swim team (Randy Schmidt and Jonathan Smith) gained access to the office of their coach, Jon Lederhouse, under the guise of creating some team posters. Some time before the team had purchased an old Volkswagon Beetle and sold off the engine. Then using some borrowed tools, they sawed off the roof in order to be able to pass through the doorways of the Chrouser Fitness Center. With the car now in two pieces of a car students on the swim team transported the car to the office. After removing all of the furniture and cabinets to a storage room the team went about reassembling the car. Since they had sawed off the roof they used duct tap to affix the roof back on the chassis. As a final element of the prank one of the team members set up a camcorder inside the front seat of the car and locked up for the night. Early the next morning Randy Schmidt returned to start the camera to capture Coach Lederhouse's expression as he entered his office. A video captures Lederhouse, as well as some of his colleagues, Tony Ladd (Athletic Director) and Glenn Town (Chrouser Fitness Center Director). Coach Lederhouse was photographed in the car in his office as his son Jeremy (class of 2007) looked on.
