Biography

Call 1.800.966.1380 to contact John Naber booking agent, publicist, manager, pr firm, representative and management company if you would like to hire John Naber for a speaker appearance, autograph signing, endorsement deal or corporate event. Here you can find speaker fees, booking fees, costs, availability and schedule information. Olympic gold medalist, John Naber, was born on January 20, 1956 in Evanston, Illinois. Naber is a USA swimmer who won four gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, each in world-record time. One of his gold medals was for the first 200-meter backstroke under 2 minutes, with his 1 minute 59.19 second win setting a world record which stood for seven years. His gold medal winning 55.49 second world record in the 100 meter backstroke lasted seven years as well. He won the James E. Sullivan Award, given to America's top amateur athlete, in 1977.

After his retirement from swimming, Naber quickly entered the broadcasting field, serving as expert analyst for his sport at local, national and International events. In 1986, Naber was promoted to the role of play-by-play announcer, where he has covered over 35 different sports filing reports from eight different Olympic Games.

John Naber earned four gold medals. Now he teaches others how to think and act like an Olympic Champion.

For over a quarter century, John Naber has delighted audiences with his stories of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary results in the area of life that is most important to them. Standing ovations attest to his ability to customize his remarks with humor, personal anecdotes and “Power Paragraphs” appropriate for each occasion. Naber consistently receives “gold medal reviews” from each of his clients.

John Naber has created a “mock-Olympics” that puts fun back on the meeting agenda, with a collection of competitive activities that do not require athletic skill, but do teach attributes like teamwork, tenacity, lateral thinking, problem solving skills, performance under pressure, risk-taking and resource allocation. Local Olympic athletes join the fun as your team builds a level of trust and understanding, to increase productivity at the office, and for the rest of their life.

John Naber has been a life-long advocate for ethics and character education in sports. Active in student government, he served as the Volunteer Head Swimming Coach for the International Special Olympics, and was instrumental in raising over $6,000,000 to build an aquatics facility that provides free swimming lessons to all the Pasadena area school children, and scholarships for participation on the swim and dive teams.

In 1973, after not contesting his disqualification (over a meaningless infraction) during the US national swimming championships and World Team Trials (that denied him a likely gold medal at the 1973 World Championships), he was awarded the UNESCO/Pierre DeCoubertain Fair Play Trophy, for his strict adherence to the rules and devotion to the spirit of friendly and fair competition.

Naber often took time during international meets to befriend his competition, as well as to encourage his teammates (in spite of his hefty competition schedule). His relationships with many of his competitors continue to this day, and he is currently serving as the President of the US Olympic Alumni Association where he pioneered an Olympians speaking workshop to mentor many of America’s Olympians on how to better present themselves as ambassadors of the Olympic ideals, through their various public appearances.

Naber also oversaw the creation of the “Olympians for Olympians Relief Fund” a non-profit foundation that distributes funds to America’s Olympians who happen to find themselves in distressed conditions, following their Olympic exploits.

After going through specialized training (conducted by Michael Josephson at the Josephson Institute of Ethics), Naber was appointed as Chairman of “Character Counts! Sports.”

His talk, “Character Driven Accomplishment” features the introduction of “The “Six Pillars of Character” and discusses the temptations which lead most people to justify their less than laudable behavior on the field of play, and the simple means to correct this behavior.

John Naber is a featured author in the book “The Power of Character” (1998, Jossey-Bass Inc. Publishers) where prominent Americans talk about life, family, work, values, and more.