I wrote about the Natatorium last month and several readers shared their stories with me about it.

Molokai resident John Weiser told me he had a lot of job opportunities after getting his MBA from Stanford in the mid-1950s.

"But the mind of a 22 year old is not necessarily career-focused," Weiser said. "Mine certainly wasn’t. I craved to train and swim with the best in the world at that time. Nothing else mattered.

"So when I learned that there was this guy named Soichi Sakamoto, who attracted swimmers from all over the globe to train at a 100-meter pool in Hawaii at the foot of Diamond Head, it was a calling I could not resist. Only swimming with Sakamoto mattered.

"For $160, I arrived as a second-class passenger on the cruise ship Matsonia together with my Volkswagen and surfboard. Thank God school was over. Now I could swim at the Natatorium with the best swimmers and the best coach, Soichi Sakamoto."

It was early June, Weiser recalls. "Hawaii was still a U.S. territory. The population was about 500,000. There were absolutely no high rises in Waikiki. Kalakaua Avenue was a two-way street with electric busses and one could find plenty of free parking at the Natatorium.

"As you passed the entrance gate, on the left was the headquarters of the city and county lifeguards, run by Bill Smith. Bill was the gold medal winner at the London Olympics in 1948 in the 400-meter freestyle and the 800-meter freestyle relay. He was in charge of all the lifeguards on Oahu.

"Opposite Bill’s office was the other half of the bleachers, under which were the locker rooms and facilities for ‘Pops’ Kaleikini, who was the live-in custodian and official caretaker of the Natatorium. His extended family literally lived off the harvest of fish and crustaceans they caught every day.

"They would use spears and throw nets to harvest their bounty from the waters just outside the 100-meter pool. Some of them would climb coconut trees and do dances for the tourists at the adjacent Kodak Hula Show, a daily feature for visitors. ‘Pops’ and his family embraced the visiting swimmers with true aloha. After a workout, there would always be something to munch from the simmering barbecue grill.

"With open circulation to the ocean, the Natatorium was home to its own population of fish. Frequently as swimmers would dive in, schools of small fish would leap out of the water ahead of them. And there were a few barracuda of 2 feet or more in length who would shadow swimmers using kick boards, drafting their wake back and forth.

"The Natatorium then was at full bloom. Coach Sakamoto always invited the world’s best swimmers to compete and train with him at the Natatorium. Coach Sakamoto always was the swimming ambassador of excellence and aloha."

Sakamoto often would break his demanding workout schedule with an unexpected treat. "One day, near the close of the morning workout, a large, overweight sixty something man wearing an aloha shirt, shorts and flip flops sidled up to coach.

"Swimmers…may I introduce to you, none other than Johnny Weismuller, who dedicated this pool in 1927 with Duke Kahanamoku. Mr. Weismuller has come to swim this morning, and we are going to time him for a 50-meter sprint.

"Weismuller removed the shirt and shorts, revealing an ancient racing brief, over which his mid-section sagged somewhat gracefully. Coach Sakamoto produced a starting pistol.

"Weismuller assumed a start position on the floating dock. Coach was at the midpoint of the Natatorium, at the huge clock, which never ran. When the gun was fired, the overweight, balding, completely out of character man suddenly was magically transformed into a sleek torpedo that lunged out two body lengths, hit the water and never looked back. The stroke was pure poetry in motion, powering through complete accelerated strokes.

"When you consider it was 1957, and the swimmer was sixty something years old and very over weight, the performance had to be of merit, even by today’s standards. It was not lost on the admiring onlookers. We were all impressed."

In 1927, because of Sakamoto’s influence and talent he was coaching, the U.S. National AAU Outdoor Championships were held in the Natatorium. It was the first national swimming championship held in Hawaii.

"It can be argued that the Natatorium was the catalyst for the rebirth and ultimate dominance of American competitive swimming," Weiser believes.

"Coach Sakamoto applied his own system of training swimmers, which resulted in a period of national and Olympic champions from Hawaii, a feat never repeated."

Weiser came within a 10th of a second of making the 1956 Olympic team in the 100-meter backstroke.

"If it hadn’t been for the Waikiki Natatorium, and the dedicated genius of Coach Sakamoto, the development of modern American swimming dominance would not have happened the way it did. In the 1950s the Waikiki Natatorium was the crown jewel of venues for international swimming competitions.0

"It was Sakamoto’s dedication, skill and expertise," Weiser concludes, "which attracted the swimmers. America’s modern system of training fast swimmers has its roots deeply embedded with Sochi Sakamoto at the Waikiki Natatorium. What he did at there completely changed the landscape of international swimming and my life."

Bob Sigall, author of the "Companies We Keep" books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at sigall@yahoo.com.