For over 50 years, Jack Connelly has exhibited a competitive spirit of excellence. His drive and achievement have been evident in the pool as a backstroke standout with NCAA talent, as a state champion water polo coach, and as a community leader, volunteer and benefactor. 

Aside from his own athletically gifted younger days, Jack has contributed to the fabric of our sports community as a member of the ownership group of the Tacoma Rainiers, owner of the Highlands Golf Course, Tacoma Athletic Commission supporter and Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Museum board member. He is also a past president of the Pacific Harbors Council of the Scouts of America. 

Jack began his athletic career in Lakewood with age group tennis matches and swimming when his family became charter members of the Lakewood Raquet Club. After joining the club’s first ever swim team he discovered he was fast in the water. One thing led to another and Jack put down his tennis racket. He started swimming in the winter with Kimo Streeter and the Tacoma Swim Club at Mt. Tahoma, moved on to age group swimming with Gary Dyer at Fircrest’s Amateur Swim Team (FAST) and then to Titlow with Dick Hannula’s Tacoma Swim Club (TSC). His times continued to drop and Jack moved up to Hannula’s senior group and then to the TSC national team.  Jack credits his parents for driving him in from Lakewood twice a day for the two-hour TSC workouts at Titlow, Wilson and UPS. When it came time for the high school season, Jack elected to stay in Lakewood and swim for the new team at Lakes High coached by Hannula protégé Mike Stauffer.  

Jack became a six-time state finalist and the school’s first high school All-American, earning honors in his junior and senior year in the 100-yard backstroke. Jack led the Lancers to a second-place state meet finish during the period when the Hannula-led Wilson teams were unbeatable.  During summers, he continued to swim on Hannula’s national team. Jack also played water-polo for the Lancers and was named to Washington’s All-State Water Polo first team. 

A leg injury followed by two surgeries nearly ended his swimming career, but Jack worked his way back, went down to Stanford and became a backstroker on the Cardinal swim team which placed sixth nationally.  Jack became the Cardinal’s top back-stroker earning NCAA All-American relay team honors in 1976 and 1977.  Jack is always quick to add that the fact that there were two Olympians on the relay, John Hencken – gold medal in the 100 breaststroke; Dave Fairbanks – gold medal 400 free relay, were major reasons for these honors.) 

Jack graduated from Stanford in 1978.  He coached age group swimming with the Lakewood Swim Club and then in Palo Alto Hills before entering law school in San Francisco. While a law student, he continued to coach at Palo Alto Hills and served as the announcer for the Stanford swim meets.  After law school he returned to Washington and coached the Lakes High School water polo team breaking Puyallup High School’s 10-year winning streak and leading the Lancers to the state championship in 1983. He then joined prior Tacoma Swim Club teammate Chris Myhre at Wilson High School, coaching the Ram water-polo team to a second-place state finish. Jack rounded out his water-polo and coaching career serving as player-coach of the Titlow “Octopus” masters water polo club. 

Jack turned to full-time lawyering and has been honored as Washington’s top trial lawyer four times. In 2006, he started his own law firm which now has offices in Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane. In 2002 it appeared that the Tacoma Rainiers were going to be sold and possibly leaving Tacoma. Jack joined Brad Cheney and Jeff Lyon to form the Tacoma Baseball Foundation to keep Triple-A baseball in Tacoma. He and Cheney eventually became members of theBaseball Club of Tacoma, which currently owns the Tacoma Rainiers. 

In 2019, former University of Puget Sound athletic director Doug McArthur was given 30 days to find a buyer to help save Tacoma’s Highlands Golf Course which was going to be sold and replaced with condominiums. Jack and his wife Angela purchased the Highlands Golf Course, renovated it, and built McDuff’s Café to make Highlands a community asset. The renovations helped boost the annual rounds played from 16,000 in 2019 to over 41,000 in 2024. The course has now received state and national honors as a top par-3 course.  It includes a First Tee franchise bringing underprivileged youth to the sport of golf. For the past three years, the course has hosted the annual Washington State Par-3 state tournament. Doug McArthur’s “Attaway” award for the Highlands was greatly appreciated. A permanent memorial to Doug, complete with his Highlands poetry, was recently placed at the course next to the “McArthur’s Court” patio. 

Jack served as Board President of the Pacific Harbors Council of the Scouts of America with six of his sons achieving the rank of Eagle Scout. Jack and Angela have nine children. He credits the success he has had to outstanding coaches and working with people who loved sports and cared about youth and the community.  

Jack recognizes sports as a lifetime pursuit. Whether kayaking down the Yukon, riding the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride, master’s swimming, attending Army-Navy football games with his son Peter – a West Point cadet (Go Army beat Navy!), watching his sons compete in the Ironman, cheering for his daughters’ cross country, lacrosse or flag football teams, playing golf with his sons or getting grandkids ready for Bellarmine Lions athletics, he continues tolove and be active with sports.