Mike Buckley, a beloved infectious disease physician and outstanding leader for many years at Penn Medicine and Pennsylvania Hospital, died on April 9, 2022. Mike was a colleague of mine at Penn in the 1990’s. More recently, we served together on the Board of Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative. Mike was a consummate gentleman and inspiration to all. In tribute, I am posting an article I wrote about Mike 20 years ago, which you can read below.
Mike Buckley: Moriarity’s Gift
“You know, Mr. Buckley, I don’t think this will work out.” A defining moment for young Mike Buckley, a promising Olympic caliber swimmer.
Most young men were jockeying to get out of the Vietnam War in 1968. Not Mike Buckley. He wanted to win a bid to the Mexico City Olympics in the Fall of that year. He would “Go for the Gold” and then return, six weeks late, to begin his first year at Yale Medical School. But, the Medical School Dean would have none of it. Buckley had been an undergraduate English major at Yale. The Dean pointed out that, with only limited scientific training, Buckley would face a tough bio-chemistry course behind the rest of the class. If he enroll at Yale Medical School, the imperious Dean said, Buckley would have to forego his dream of swimming in the Olympics.
Mike Buckley’s road to becoming an Olympic class athlete was not preordained. True, athletics was in his genes. Buckley’s dad played football and basketball in high school. His uncle was a starter on Boston College’s NCAA hockey championship team and was drafted to play professional baseball. Mike played football, basketball and baseball in high school at Malvern Prep. Swimming was secondary. He was only a club swimmer in the summers, and Malvern didn’t even have a pool when Mike entered high school.
Mike’s dad told him after his freshman year at Malvern that he couldn’t afford private school. Mike would have to switch over to public school for his sophomore year. Malvern, not wanting to lose a good athlete and fine student, offered Mike a partial scholarship. That swayed the day. By chance, Mike’s return to Malvern coincided with the school’s decision to construct a new swimming pool. So, Mike joined the Malvern swim team too. Without the scholarship and pool, Mike would never have had an Olympic dream.
The Olympic dream came much later. Buckley was an average breaststroker during most of high school. While he was slowly grewing into his 6 foot plus frame, Malvern had another hot breast stoker, Mark McKee, who drew all the attention. McKee was very short in stature, but Mike noticed his perfect form and replicated it. Finally, during his senior year (‘63-’64), Buckley’s “mediocre” times in December started to drop -- precipitously. On February 4th, he set a National Prep School record in the 100 yard breast stroke (1:03.9 min.), cutting more than 5 seconds off his December time.
But, Buckley’s peak was too late in the season for him to draw any attention from college recruiters. Earlier in the fall Mike and his dad visited Amherst College in Massachusetts, then his first choice. At his dad’s suggestion, they stopped in New Haven on the way home. When Mike saw the Yale pool, he changed his mind and decided to apply to Yale. Mike’s dad wrote Yale’s swim coach, Phil Moriarity. No interest. Then, after Mike’s record-setting time in February, Moriarity called. He wanted Mike to interview at Yale immediately. Moriarity even accompanied Mike to the interview. (Mike recalls that what really sold him on Yale was his Sunday overnight stay with some upper classmen. They played bridge in their cozy room and watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Mike laughingly recalls that he never played bridge again at Yale!)
When he was accepted to Yale that spring, Buckley had no idea that he had been recruited to one of the best assemblages of swimming elite in the nation. Don Schollander won 4 gold medals at the Toyko Olympics in October of 1964. He joined the Yale swim team the following January. Bill Mettler, another 1964 Olympian, matriculated with Schollander. Coming out of nowhere compared to these Yale recruits, Buckley was dubbed “Moriartiy’s Gift”. The Yale team won every meet during Buckley’s 4 year tenure (“except one meet by one point to Army”), including a streak of 120 straight. His senior team came in second in the NCAA Championship (first overall in men’s swimming, but losing out to Inidiana after taking into account the diving events which were then included).
Buckley hit his stride at Yale. He swam in the World University Games in 1967 and then won the silver medal in the 100 yard breast stroke at the NCAA Championships in 1968, losing by just 1/100th of a second. His times in the 100 and 200 yard breast stroke were consistently among the best in the country. Everyone assumed he would make the Olympic team. Everyone except the Dean of the Medical School. He didn’t seem to care.
Mike’s father had wanted to be a doctor. World War II intervened, and when the senior Buckley returned from that war, he could not afford medical school and had to go to work instead. Inspired by his dad, Mike badly wanted to be a doctor from an early age. The Dean’s reaction was devastating. Mike’s lottery number for the Vietnam draft was #35. He could train for the Olympics all summer and go to Mexico City and compete. However, he would most certainly be drafted after the Olympic Games and have to put a hold on his medical career, just as his father had. Or, he could give up his Olympic dream and become a doctor. He chose medicine. After his meeting with the Dean, Buckley walked back to his room, alone, in tears.
It was an agonizing summer. Buckley watched the Olympics from the basement of the Medical School. He watched as his roommate at the World University Games, Carl Robie, won the gold in the butterfly. Robie had lost in the 1964 Olympics, but he dropped out of law school to pursue his dream in 1968. Buckley had beaten all three breast strokers who made the Olympic team during his senior year. He watched as one of them won the gold medal in Mike’s event. It nagged at him. Why hadn’t he pursued his dream?
Dr. Michael Buckley is Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and interim Chief Medical Officer at Pennsylvania Hospital, Vice Chair of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He is regarded as tops in his field of Infectious Diseases. He cuts a tall, handsome figure. He wears a broad, genuine smile. He communicates and listens well. I sat with Mike in his well-appointed, sun-drenched office at Pennsylvania Hospital, looking out his surrounding windows at the exquisitely groomed courtyard which fronts this historic site of the nation’s first hospital. I wondered. Thirty-two years later. This obviously successful, professional gentleman is still talking passionately about the defining moments earlier in this life with a strange mixture of regret and satisfaction.
The moment was not lost on us. The experience of giving up his Olympic dream clearly helped forge Mike Buckley’s approach to his profession. Near the end of that non-Olympic summer of 1968, an article appeared in New Haven about Mike’s choice of medical school over the Olympics. His Medical School adviser, Larry Picket, a former college athlete, was outraged. Why had Mike accepted the Dean’s decision with so much at stake? If it was that important, why hadn’t he pushed harder? Now, the experience permeates Buckley’s management and decision making philosophy. If there is an important decision to be made, Buckley looks at every possible option and “doesn’t take no for an answer” if he knows the answer goes against what “his gut feels is wrong”. He cites his decision to join with the Penn Health system when Pennsylvania Hospital chose Penn as its corporate partner a few years ago and his decision to return to Pennsylvania Hospital as Chairman of the Department of Medicine in 1999 as cases in point.
While perhaps regretful, Mike Buckley is not bitter about the Olympics. Doctor Buckley has been the physician representing U.S. Swim Teams to help prepare for Pan-Pacific, World and Olympic Games. The awards commemorating his stints as U.S. Swim Team physician sit proudly next to his NCAA medal .
Sally, his wife, and their three children, stood proudly next to Mike this past fall at his induction into the Malvern Prep Hall of Fame. A fitting tribute to a great role model for all three children, each one also an athlete. Emily, 26, was captain of the Harvard Women’s Swim Team. Carrie, 23, was a high school swimmer. Brian, 19, now a Penn freshman and three sport star at Malvern Prep, was winner of the Markward Club Award as the Inter-Ac Conference scholar-athlete.
Mike coached his three children to set their athletic goals carefully and realistically. He considers participating at the collegiate varsity level “a rare opportunity” to meet people, travel and enjoy team camaraderie. But, he stressed to his children that not everyone has the talent or opportunity to compete at the collegiate level, and it is important to have other non-athletic goals as well. Mike also promoted the credo that, whatever the goal, “sport teaches preparation” to achieve that goal.
And, as his son, Brian, says, “It seems as if my dad is prepared for everything”.