Wayne State University Athletics

Tomska Papp, a native of Detroit and graduate of Detroit Northeastern HS, is one of Wayne's earliest premiere swimmers. She was a member of Wayne's Griffin Tanksters from 1937-1940. An excellent freestyle swimmer, during her career Tomska won four National Amateur Athletic Union championships and set three national records. Tomska did not receive any varsity letters during her matriculation at Wayne because the Griffin Tanksters were not a varsity team. Prior to the early 1970's, women's athletics were conducted as club teams, or formed as student organizations, at most U.S. colleges and universities. For several decades at Wayne State, women represented the University in sports such as swimming and fencing, and some of these student-athletes are found in the Athletic Hall of Fame today, including two other swimming greats from the 1930's. Doris Shimman (Class of 1985) and Astrid Johannesen (Class of 1988). Tomska was a leading contender for a spot on the United States' women's swimming team for the 1940 Helsinki Summer Olympics, which was canceled by World War II. Tomska's began to show promise on the national swimming scene in 1937, when she finished second in both the 100-yard and 220-yard Freestyle at the NAAU Meet. Her first NAAU titles came in 1938, when she won the 100-yard Freestyle with a national record time of 1:01.2, and the 220-yardd Freestyle with a national record time of 2:32.4. At the 1939 NAAU Meet, Tomska won the 440-yard Freestyle national title with a time of 5:29.5, finished second in the 220-yard Freestyle and 500-yard Freestyle events, and fourth in the 100-yard Freestyle event. With a national record time of 1:01.0 in the 100-yard Freestyle at the 1940 NAAU Meet, Tomska had captured her last national title. She also finished second in the 440-yard Freestyle and third in the 220-yard Freestyle events at the NAAU meet that year. According to historians as the Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Tomska set several American swimming time records in the 75-, 100-, 150-, 200-, 220- and 440-yard Freestyle events. During this time in American swimming, only times kept at an NAAU event were recognized by the Amateur Athletic Union as national records. However, times kept at AAU events, collegiate events, or other similar meets were considered American records. This distinction between national and American records has since been dropped. She was also a member of several relay teams that set three American relay and one world relay records. During her career at Wayne, Tomska won four National Intercollegiate Telegraphic Swim Meet national titles. In the 1930's the NCAA did not sponsor women's national championships, so the WNCAA sanctioned a national meet in which participating schools swam in their own pools on a predetermined date, under championship conditions, and the results were telegraphed to a central location. Times were compared, and the team and individual champions were declared. Tomska won three titles in 1939, taking the 40-yard Crawl event with a time of 0:21.2, 100-yard Crawl in 1:01.0, and the 40-yard Breast in 0:27.5, outshining the NTSM record set by Shimman in 1934 of 0:29.4. Tomska won the 1940 NTSM 40-yard Breast title with a time of 0:28.6. In 1939 she was named the Outstanding Woman Swimmer in the United States by the AAU. The Detroit News cited Tomska as Michigan's Outstanding Woman Swimmer in 1939 and 1940. A two-time Detroit City Champion at Detroit Northeastern, Tomska won several state AAU, Detroit Athletic Club and Detroit Yacht Club freestyle titles. Her brother, Waldemar (Tomski) Thompson, was also an outstanding swimmer, earning three NCAA national championships in the 400-yard Freestyle event from 1937-1939. During his career Michigan won four straight NCAA national titles. When she finished her swimming career she married Fredrick Tullis, and they settled in Monroe, Michigan. The couple had three children, Frederick Jr., Mark and Elizabeth. The family eventually made its way to Scottsdale, Arizona, where Frederick died in 1978. Tomska eventually remarried, and she and Alexander Papp now resided in Green Valley, Arizona.