Coach Robert Hazlett

When Larry Griswold (BSPE ’32) returned to The University of Iowa in 1950 to help put on the Dolphin Show, he devised a plan to have a woman seem to accidentally push her baby in a baby buggy off a diving tower and into the pool.

Robert Hazlett, a freshman, (BSPE ‘55, MA ‘61) played the role of the baby.

“The first time we did it, the buggy collapsed right as I got to the end of the diving tower,” he remembered with a chuckle. “I had a heck of a time getting out of that thing—I had on a big white gown and a bonnet.”

Hazlett, who would go on to spend decades performing in a professional trampoline act before finishing his career as a professor of physical education, might have never been a UI student had he not met Griswold and his then-business partner George Nissen.

Nissen met Hazlett in West Virginia, where Hazlett was working in a steel mine and teaching at the local YMCA. After observing him do some tumbling stunts, Nissen encouraged Hazlett to come to Iowa City and join the UI gymnastics squad.

“I hadn’t planned to attend college. I had no direction, so he kind of pointed me,” said Hazlett, who would earn two Big Ten championships in tumbling as well as an NCAA trampoline title.

Post graduation, Hazlett found work performing a two-man trampoline act at the Tommy Bartlett Show in the Wisconsin Dells. One of their signature moves sent Hazlett into a double back somersault landing on his partner’s shoulders.

Hazlett, bottom right, and his 1960 York High School State Gymnastics Champions, Elmhurst, Illinois.

After Hazlett earned his graduate degree, he joined the faculty at New Mexico State University, where he taught physical education courses until his retirement in 1990.

Hazlett, who continued to perform on the side until he was 58, said his experiences in athletics and show business helped him reach his students. “I could demonstrate anything I was teaching. If they could see something, it was much easier for them to learn it,” he said.

Hazlett also brought a part of his UI history with him to New Mexico: he started a version of the Dolphin Show there, called the Aqua Gym Show.

“The thing I’ve always liked to do most is perform and have people enjoy what I am doing,” he said.

Hazlett says of his trampoline partner, Bill Kin (BA ’58, MA’66), “He was my catcher and he never missed me. The act was the best of its kind.”