At least one person, though, thought the troops needed a morale boost and decided that a sports competition would be just the thing. So General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the supreme commander of the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, formed the Allied Sports Commission consisting of all branches of the American, French and British forces.

Just two months after the Allied occupation, the first of the athletic events was held in Rome. And Thomas P. O'Neill was one of the young soldiers in the competitive field.

O'Neill participated in the event as a diver in 1944 and again in 1945, and he came away with three gold medals and a silver in the 1-, 3- and 10-meter springboard diving competitions.

The Union Jack newspaper covered the meet and described O'Neill's diving abilities as "the geometrically graceful precision of his top-flight performances."

O'Neill, now a longtime Los Gatos resident, recounts the stories of those days as he's surrounded by carefully put-together scrapbooks filled with photos and faded newspaper clippings. Some of the circumstances, like how he came about being a lifeguard in Italy during the war, seem almost like the makings for a movie.

"How I got there was pure Irish luck," he says.

O'Neill had been working in Detroit for Cadillac, whose plant had been converted to wartime manufacturing. Like so many men, he was anxious to join the war.

"This is a war I could be part of—my friends are all in it," he remembers thinking. So after telling his boss his plans to enlist, he encountered a hitch: Those working in a war plant weren't allowed to join the service. So O'Neill, at the coaching of friends, managed to circumvent the rules by concocting a scheme to get himself fired.

"I'm a bit of a thespian," he admits.

World War II

He shipped out of Virginia in one of the largest convoys leaving the United States, headed for Algiers. Early one evening while playing cards, he remembers looking up in the sky. "Are those our planes?" he asked his buddies. They weren't.

The bombs missed his ship by 50 feet, hitting an oil tanker instead. Their guns were covered in oil and a few of the men were wounded, so they put in at Sicily, where the injured were taken to a hospital.

O'Neill would later be shipped out to what would be his final destination of the war, a town 10 miles north of Bari, Italy, called Santo Spirtu on the Adriatic Sea.

Since there was water, it almost had the makings of a beach, so it was decided to make it a rest camp for the Army Air Corp. Some sand was added, some umbrellas were thrown up, and then someone asked, "Does anyone know how to swim?" And so O'Neill's stint as a lifeguard was born.

In addition to the sea and surf, shows were also put on for a bit of levity. There were bands, comedians and even "strippers."

One burlesque show was particularly popular. While one guy sang a popular song of the time, "My Mom, I Love Her," O'Neill came out dressed in drag. A little bantering ensued and then came the finale: O'Neill doing a backflip—in a skirt—before exiting the stage. The crowd roared.

The early years

O'Neill's winning medals for diving is even more of a feat than it would seem at first, given that he was a self-taught diver at the age of 13. In fact, he didn't learn to swim until he was 11 years old, which would turn out to be an asset when he later taught swimming.

"Mothers would say, 'Mr. O'Neill, you're so patient, I don't know how you can be so patient,' " he says. "But I actually knew what they were going through, and I wasn't going to make it worse."

O'Neill was deathly afraid of the water when he was young, but coming to terms with such obstacles is his trademark—he's had to deal with much adversity in his life.

His mother died when he was 11, and he was on his own at age 17 when his father was institutionalized for alcoholism. Despite his holding down a couple of jobs, that time wasn't easy. "I went without eating a time or two," he recounts matter-of-factly.

After hitchhiking across the country, he ended up in Lake Tahoe teaching swimming and discovered a little more of that "pure Irish luck."

The manager of the hotel where he worked was also in charge of an exclusive inn in Tucson, Ariz., so O'Neill asked him, "How about if I come down and run your swim program?" His boss agreed, and O'Neill hitchhiked his way down to Phoenix. There he met dancer extraordinaire Fred Astaire, whose children's swim instructor had been drafted. The boy's nurse asked O'Neill to fill in.

But then fate stepped in by way of another family vacationing in Tucson, the Brown family from the venerable Ivy League institution Brown University. They, too, wanted O'Neill.

The Browns' offer turned out be a better deal—besides the lighter workload, they promised to get him into Brown University, so he accepted. They gave him train fare and agreed to meet later at their home in Providence, R.I.

In the meantime, O'Neill hitchhiked down to Acapulco with some buddies, did a few fancy dives and was approached by the cliff divers. They wanted him to join them at a higher level, but he declined.

He was reunited with the Brown family in New England. Working for them gave him a glimpse into another world entirely. Their house was said to be the most elaborate in the world and contained such treasures as a hat owned by George Washington.

One day his charge, Nickie, took O'Neill down into the basement where the wine cellar was located. There was no wine, but he did find a door leading to the bay where slaves were smuggled in.

"Mrs. Brown jumped on Nickie for that," he says. "She didn't want to talk about it."

An interest in architecture was sparked when the Browns hired California modern architect Richard Neutra to design their home in Fishers Island, N.Y. O'Neill would drive over with them to see the progress on the house.

The perks weren't bad either; they even let him sail their 90-foot sailing yacht.

Unfortunately, the gig ended when the family went to Newport, R.I., to live with Mr. Brown's mother. "She was from the old guard of New York, the 400 ladies in New York who had grand homes in Newport," he said. "The old lady and I didn't get along."

The offer to attend Brown University never came to fruition, but he did get his degree. After the war ended, he returned to the University of Michigan, where "they threw out the red carpet to returning serviceman." He majored in psychology and was an all-American athlete, an accomplishment he still treasures. He wears his all-American ring today, displaying it with obvious pride.

Out West

After graduation, California beckoned when a coaching friend at Stanford enticed him to move West. Although the coach at Michigan encouraged him to stay and coach divers, it was no contest. "It's too cold here," he told him and was off.

He ran the bowling alley and coached while getting his graduate degree in psychology and physical education from Stanford.

After graduation, he coached a championship water polo team at Menlo-Atherton High School until a teaching position at San José State University was offered to him. Starting in 1956, he taught lifesaving, swimming, water safety, diving and physical education.

Then another skill was added to his resume: ballroom dancing. "You're the best dancer of all the coaches" was how they put it.

The class turned out to be quite a success, despite his initial worries when they passed out evaluations.

"The kids loved him," says San José State University equipment technician Carol Bare. "He's very light on his feet, a very good dancer." His classes were always full.

He retired in 1990, but it didn't last. They wanted him half time the next year, an arrangement proving more lucrative, too. During his last semester he taught seven classes, before retiring at age 76.

Swimming is still very much a part of his life, even at age 88. He swims three times a week now. "He glides through the water beautifully," says Bare.

In addition, he frequents the King's Court Barbershop in Los Gatos, where he's gotten his hair cut for 30 years.

"He's an exceptional man, very interesting," says owner Frank Hibbits. After hearing about all the diving stories over the years, Hibbitts wanted a photo to display in the shop with other memorabilia from his clients—like the huge mounted animals affixed to the wall—for this isn't a salon, it's a real old-fashioned barbershop.

"There's a lot of testosterone here," he laughs.

And also camaraderie, when Thomas O'Neill stops by for a trim and to share a few stories of a time when athletics offered soldiers a respite from the hardships of war.