Joseph Stuart Bottom (born April 18, 1955) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic silver medalist, and former world record-holder in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly and 4×100-meter freestyle relay.[1]
Bottom attended the University of Southern California (USC), where he was an All-American swimmer for the USC Trojans swimming and diving team from 1974 to 1977. He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and was a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi.[4][5] In 1977, he was the first swimmer ever to crack 20 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle, at 19.70.[6] He held USC's record for 50-yard freestyle until the 2006–2007 season, and has the third fastest 100-yard freestyle and sixth-fastest 100-yard butterfly times in school history. He won five NCAA individual and 4 relay titles with the Trojans. He was the captain of the 1977 Trojans swim team.[7][8] Known for an easygoing personality, Bottom was a fierce competitor during meets.[6]
On August 27, 1977, at the East Germany-United States dual meet in East Berlin, Bottom broke Mark Spitz's five-year-old 100-meter butterfly world record with a time of 54.18 seconds. The night before the record-setting race, Bottom suffered from insomnia and took a sleeping pill only to oversleep and miss his usual pre-race warmup swim; incredibly, he broke Spitz's record anyway.[6] He was also a part of the team that set the new 4×100-meter freestyle relay world record on September 1, 1974.[7]
In 2007, Bottom was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame; several of his records set at USC remain unbroken.[8] He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2006.[7]
Bottom currently resides in Chico, California, where he is a management consultant and serving as Senior Manager in Accenture's Marketing Sciences Practice within the Retail Products Industry.[5][10] His younger brother, Mike Bottom, also swam at USC where he was a three-time All-American (1975–77); Mike is currently one of the world's top sprint coaches and coaches the University of Michigan swim team.[4][11][12][13]