AUBREY BURER (1939 – 2026)
TRIBUTE BY HIS FRIEND AND TEAMMATE TINY BARNETSON
When I arrived at Pretoria Boys High School in 1955, Aubrey Burer, who was three years ahead of me, had already established himself as a swimming legend, not only at school level, but also provincially and nationally.
Aubrey matriculated in 1956 and took a temporary position with Barclays Bank focussing on his swimming career. Our coach was the formidable Terry Collard, a Springbok swimmer and our physical education teacher. Aubrey was chosen to represent Northern Transvaal at the Currie Cup championships in Bulawayo and Collard asked me if I would like to accompany him to Bulawayo to watch Aubrey. Collard didn’t have a car so he donned his Springbok blazer and he and I hitchhiked to Bulawayo. It took two days and the last thirty miles odd saw us arriving in Bulawayo sitting in some fellow’s fishing boat.
Aubrey was outstanding and the result was that he was chosen to represent South Africa at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales in 1958. In the same year he accepted a scholarship offer to enrol at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas Texas where he was to pursue a four-year undergraduate business degree majoring in accounting.
Needless to say, the scholarship had been offered to him due to his highly successful swimming career and the foundation had been laid on which he was to continue on his route to becoming a sporting legend at SMU.
In 1960, Aubrey returned to South Africa to compete in the swimming trials for the Olympic Games that were to be held in Rome. Due to financial constraints and a decision to send a water polo team, the South African Swimming Union only chose three swimmers to go to the Rome Olympics. The three were Laura Ranwell, Tich McLachlan and Aubrey Burer, all three of whom made the finals with Aubrey’s final involving two highly controversial results.
There were no electronic devices used in swimming at the Rome Olympics, the places being awarded by a judge regardless of the times which were recorded manually by timekeepers. The race for first place in the men’s 100 metres was close with first place awarded to John Devitt from Australia, and second to Lance Larsson from the US. The Americans were furious as it was clear that Larsson touched first. The race for third place was equally controversial with four swimmers including Aubrey, touching almost simultaneously. Whilst the film replays appeared to show Aubrey touching third, the incompetent judge placed him sixth.
I arrived in Dallas to join Aubrey at SMU shortly after the Olympics had finished. The controversial men’s 100 metre freestyle was played over and over on TV. But what interested me most was that although the TV sports commentators criticised the first place finish, they could hardly conceal their fury at what they considered to be huge injustice imposed on Aubrey. It was as though Dallas had adopted him as one of their own despite his representing another country. And this appreciation of Aubrey was to continue until his university swimming career was over.
Aubrey was chosen as an All American Swimmer in all of the years he attended university and he captained SMU to a fourth successive conference championship, a winning streak that was to be extended for an extraordinary twenty-three years.
I was privileged to see the final tribute paid to him. SMU hosted the 1962 Southwest Conference Championships and Aubrey’s last race for his university, and indeed the last race of his swimming career, was the 400 yards freestyle. People had driven up to 400 miles to watch him and as he hit the water the entire audience stood and gave him a standing ovation for the whole race. A wonderful tribute for a true champion.
Whilst at SMU, Aubrey met Alice, an attractive woman who had five lovely blonde daughters and who had recently been divorced. On his last day at SMU, Aubrey and Alice married and he took his new family out to California where he accepted a position with an accounting firm, studied part time and qualified as a Certified Public Accountant.
Aubrey and Alice had three children, Michael, Megan and Karen swelling his number of children to eight. This marriage was not to survive and subsequently he met Judy whom he married and they went on to have two boys, William and Andrew.
Aubrey was generous in the extreme, looking after his large family and assisting his siblings when necessary. He never forgot his old school attending his 40th, 50th and 60th reunions, hosting reunions in the US and repeatedly requesting news not only of the school but also of his many school friends.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 2024 which he fought with great courage. His daughter Megan, a paramedic moved to California to assist Judy in looking after him.
He passed away at home in the company of Judy and many of his children on 13 January 2026 at the age of 86 and is survived by Judy, all his ten children, 56 grandchildren and great grandchildren and his sister Vivienne.
At least we know that in his declining months, he had the comfort of reflecting on a life fully and successfully lived, and of the appreciation of so many to whom he had extended his extraordinary generosity – Tiny Barnetson