Margaret Anne Meuller Swan Forbes: Pioneer of Synchronized Swimming (1919–2010)

Margaret Anne Meuller Swan Forbes, a pioneering synchronized swimming instructor, was born on June 13, 1919, in San Antonio, Texas, to Emil Mueller and Emma Bertha (Schneider) Mueller. She graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio in the mid-1930s and married George Henry Swan, Jr., on March 19, 1938, in Guadalupe County. The two had four children together and subsequently divorced. Margaret Swan earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education from Trinity University and was a longtime professor of physical education at San Antonio College. In the 1960s she was a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin but never completed her dissertation.

Swan first became interested in synchronized swimming after seeing a performance by Joy Cushman and Ernestine Mignone around 1950. At San Antonio College, she was the faculty sponsor and coach of the Marlins Synchronized Swimming Team, one of the first co-ed teams in the United States. She also coached San Antonio’s first competitive synchronized swimming team, the Silver Fins. In 1963 Swan cut ties with the Silver Fins due to “parental interference” and began coaching her own girls’ synchronized swimming team, the San Antonio Cygnets. The team’s name was derived from her own (a cygnet is a young swan). In a 1971 interview with Sports Illustrated, Swan claimed that the Cygnets were “probably the only synchro club… owned and directed by an individual instead of being run by a parents’ governing board or a recreation center.” In 1964 Swan and her husband purchased San Antonio’s historic Perrin Homestead and constructed an in-ground pool on the property for use by the team. Swan coached the Cygnets for fourteen years, during which the team won nine junior national championships and represented the United States in Mexico, Canada, England, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, and Germany. Nicknamed “Mother Duck” and “Mother Swan” by her students, Swan was an exacting coach who demanded the best from her athletes. Former students credited her mentorship and discipline with later successes in life. In 1977 she retired from coaching the Cygnets.

In 1971 Swan managed the United States synchronized swimming team at the Pan American Games in Colombia. In 1973 she organized and coached the Women’s Army Corps synchronized swimming team, which she toured throughout the United States and in Germany. Swan conducted conferences to help organize teams in Canada, Mexico, South America, and Europe. She also coached the United States Olympic Festival South team in 1978, 1979, and 1987. Swan was instrumental in getting synchronized swimming recognized as an Olympic sport (it debuted at the 1984 Summer Olympics). She served for twenty years on the Synchronized Swimming International Olympic Committee, including as secretary and chair, and was a judge for the United States National Team Trials and the United States Olympic Team Trials. She also served as chair for the National Aquatics Council.

In 1979 Swan married New York Post sportswriter Thomas Harold “Harry” Forbes. That same year, she retired as a professor at San Antonio College. One of her students was Olympic swimmer Josh Davis. Margaret Forbes wrote Coaching Synchronized Swimming Effectively (1984), the first teaching manual for the sport, which was used worldwide through the 1990s. She was also central to the development of competitive Team Aerobic Dance for the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Forbes helped develop and write the rules and served as the AAU’s national chair for the sport for its first four years. She was a member of the South Texas AAU and an executive board member of the San Antonio Sports Foundation.

Margaret Swan Forbes, at the age of ninety-one, died on December 18, 2010, and was buried at Mission Burial Park in San Antonio. She had been preceded in death by her second husband in 2003. Forbes received numerous honors throughout her life and career. She was inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation Swimming Hall of Fame in 1972, the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame in 1978, the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1989, and the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 2000 and was posthumously inducted into the Texas Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame in 2015. She was named Sportswoman of the Year by the San Antonio Express and News in 1973 and received the Mae McEwan Award for her contributions to synchronized swimming.