timid novices into smooth, confident strokemakers, and honed the technique of champions." Legacy Laughlin's Total Immersion clinics taught thousands of swimmers and certified hundreds of instructors to run their own clinics, spreading the discipline globally. His wife, Alice, who founded Total Immersion with him said there are more than 350 certified Total Immersion instructors operating in more than 30 countries as of 2017. His lifelong passion for swimming involved multiple roles—student, athlete, coach, teacher, technician, author and producer—while his career took him all over the world, from Hawaii to Thailand to the Caribbean. Although he trained national-level swimmers as well as top-ranked triathletes, Laughlin found much satisfaction in teaching people who were afraid of water — who were 20, 30, 40, even 90 years old, who had never learned to swim. While he improved swimming for thousands, Laughlin also paused to focus the individual. "He never dismissed an honest inquiry with a curt response and would spend hours each day returning emails," wrote his longtime Master's Swimming lane mate David Barra. "Terry always sought new ways to quantify and communicate the relationship between effort and efficiency in terms accessible to the novice and expert alike. He did so with a contagious enthusiasm." Further reading References External links http://www.totalimmersion.net/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TSkgdy7jI American swimming coaches People from Williston Park, New York St. John's University (New York City) alumni 1951 births 2017 deaths