North Central College Athletics

James D. Hartzell is one of the most decorated swimmers from an era when North Central College dominated the sport. Hartzell won 10 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) swimming titles as a Cardinal and was a member of the 1962 and 1963 NAIA Championship squads. He is the only NAIA swimmer ever to win the 200-yard backstroke in four consecutive years (1962-65), and one of only three athletes to win the 100-yard backstroke three times (1963-65). 

Hartzell claimed the national titles in both the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard backstroke in 1964.

He was a member of the third-place team at the NAIA finals, swam for another fifth-place NAIA finishing team, and was the only swimmer in NAIA history to win events for four consecutive years.

He was a key member of the back-to-back-to-back 400-yard medley relay squads that captured national titles for North Central (1962-64) and set numerous NAIA records along the way. Hartzell was also a two-time captain for the Cardinals. At the conference level, Hartzell was a three-time CCI Champion in the 200-yard backstroke and as part of the 400-yard medley relay, a two-time winner in the 400-yard backstroke, and a one-time victor in the 200-yard freestyle and as part of the 400-yard freestyle relay. 

Hartzell finished his career with sixth-place and seventh-place rankings in the national championships.

After graduating from North Central with a degree in mathematics, Hartzell lived around the world, serving as a U.S. Air Force officer in Europe in the late '60s, establishing a string of businesses in Kalamazoo, Mich., and starting computer dealerships, HMS Computers, in Santa Fe and Espanola, N.M.