Written By Jim Babcock ’65
Hall of Fame…It sounds like something most of us would only read about online or hear about on some sports podcast. But here we are. This past September 20th, our own Kevin Berry ’65 was (posthumously) inducted into the Indiana University Athletic Hall of Fame, the award was accepted by his daughter, Laura Foo of Sydney, Australia. Kevin was an Aussie, born in Sydney, Australia, the second of seven children. As a boy, he trained under some of Australia’s top coaches, winning championships in the Australian Nationals, British Empire, and Commonwealth games. At age 14, he earned a spot in the 1960 Summer Olympic Games to be held in Rome, Italy. In the 200-metre butterfly, Australia did well, taking the silver medal behind the United States. Kevin finished sixth behind Alan Somers ’60 and Gold medalist Mike Troy ’59. Mike was impressed with this young Australian and, after the games, sent him an autographed postcard and suggested that he would have a chance of winning in the next Olympics. Doc Councilman also took notice, and IU and Phi Psi landed another champion to be.
My allotted word count doesn’t permit me to list the 45+ Phi Kappa Psi, Indiana Beta swimmers, Big Ten and National champions, Olympic team members, World and Olympic record holders, and other Hall of Fame inductees, but the list is nothing short of spectacular. 1963, Kevin matriculated to Indiana Universi- ty and swam for the legendary Doc Councilman. In 1964, Kevin qualified for the Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo, Japan. To qualify, in the preliminaries, he broke the world record in the 100 and 200-metre Butterfly events. In the finals, he again broke the world record and won the Gold Medal and, later, the Bronze Medal in the 4×200 metre Medley Relay.
Champions “run in the family”. In the tradition of the Fraternity “Father and Son” lineage, Indiana Beta has Mike Troy ‘59 (HOF and Olympic Gold Medal winner), whose fraternity son was Fred Schmidt ‘62 (HOF and Olympic Gold Medal winner), whose fraternity son was Kevin Berry ‘65 (HOF and Olympic Gold Medal winner) whose fraternity son was Ron Jacks ‘67 (1964, 1968 and 1972 Olympics). Quite a “family tree.”
In addition to his swimming career, Kevin followed his good friend Jim Lukins (Little 500 champions 1966) as coach of the 1967 and 1968 Phi Kappa Psi Little 500 Bike team (1st place, 1968 with a new track record). It would be remiss not to mention Kevin’s favorite character, the “Phantom”, who, with a little coaxing, would don a cape, mask, and, of course, speedo and display near “superhuman” (in his mind) feats of acrobatics to the delight of Phi Psi party goers. Following college, Kevin eventually returned to Sydney, where he pursued a career in photography and journalism working for the Sydney Morning Herald and later headed ABC Sports, Australia.
In 1980, Kevin was also inducted into the Inter- national Swimming Hall of Fame. World records, Olympic records and gold medals, Little 500 Cycling Championships, prestigious jobs, all things legends are made of. Accomplishments that were often “Front Page News”. We all want to be remembered. I am most honored to have known and remember Kevin Berry as my friend and as my brother.
It is a blessing to all of us as members of Phi Kappa Psi to be able to say about those who we are privi- leged to have lived with, learned from, and grown together that we are brothers. I am profoundly thankful to have had the privilege of having so many lifelong friends…and brothers through Phi Kappa Psi.