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Marin Independent Journal (San Rafael, CA)

March 24, 2006
Section: Sports

Marin swim coach returns
Dave Albee

Remember when Don Swartz had had his fill of swimming? He had coached three Olympic medal winners and two world record holders with the Marin Aquatic Club but, at the age of 30, after eight years of turning his local swim program into a national power, Swartz became burned out being around the pool so much. At the peak of his coaching career, he retired in 1976 and he didn't look back with any regret.

Guess where Swartz is this week? He's at the NCAA swimming and diving championships in Atlanta.

Guess where Swartz was at this time last year? He was at the NCAA swimming and diving championships in Minneapolis.

Guess what Swartz is doing now? He's so in love with swimming again that he's coaching it.

"I'm in a perfect place," said Swartz, now a 60-year-old unpaid volunteer coach for North Bay Aquatics. "It's wonderful."

It's phenomenal. When he quit coaching almost 30 years ago, there was the notion that disco music would stage a comeback before Swartz. He moved into the motivational business and co-founded the Creative Athletic Performance Institute then he moved behind the bar, taking over as co-owner of New George's, the once-popular (now closed) San Rafael nightclub.

That clean break from swimming afforded Swartz more time to pursue other interests like running ultra marathons and going wakeboarding. He also opened a check cashing store and invested in real estate and, thanks to a Bel Marin Keys neighbor Norman Boeck, even dallied with stock car racing. Swartz got his competitive juices flowing driving a "pure stock" car on Saturday nights at the Petaluma Speedway.

Now, Swartz is back where he believes he belongs. He's been sucked back to the pool deck with North Bay Aquatics and he's in no hurry to leave.

"I'm in," Swartz said. "This is not something I'm dabbling with."

Swartz is a part-time coach but he is completely serious about his job when he shows up at the College of Marin pool or Tiburon Peninsula Club.

"He's back into swimming as a mode of operation," said his wife Madeline. "He likes to help people reach their goals."

Swartz is hoping to help kids fulfill their dreams. Thirty years ago he had a knack of doing that as perhaps the most successful coach ever in Marin.

"He was right at the top of the food chain as coaches go," said Ken DeMont, president and head coach of North Bay Aquatics.

The impetus for the comeback came last year when former University of Arizona swim coach Bob Davis, a longtime friend of Swartz, invited the former San Rafael Swim Club/Marin Aquatics Club coach to join him at the NCAA meet in Minneapolis. DeMont, who swam for Swartz when he was 16 years old, also happened to be going to Minneapolis for the event. They wound up on the same departing flight.

It was the first time in years that Swartz had attended a swim meet of any kind.

"He just got the bug," DeMont said. "It was like, 'Wow. What have I been missing?!' He was so enthusiastic. He was basically leading cheers. He gets everyone fired up."

The NCAA meet rekindled a spirit within Swartz. He called Madeline at home, his voice hoarse from cheering and yelling, and told her she needed to get on a plane and join him in Minneapolis.

"I was overwhelmed with emotion and an awareness of how important swimming had been to me," he said.

Thus Swartz suddenly had a burning desire to reconnect with a profession that gave him great personal satisfaction and personal growth years ago. The competitive blood was boiling again.

"I owe a huge debt to the learning that took place when I was coaching," Swartz said. "Of course, I didn't realize it at the time."

When Swartz came home to Bel Marin Keys, he plotted a possible comeback. His wife, who met him about 10 years after he first retired from coaching, knew how important it was to him.

"All through our marriage someone always came up to him and told him how he changed their lives," Madeline said. "He never said anything to me (about how he had been a successful coach). He didn't brag. He just got tremendous respect from people he had coached."

Swartz wanted to do it again. He knew DeMont was director of North Bay Aquatics and he figured DeMont might need some part-time help. Finally, last May, Swartz asked DeMont to lunch and offered his services.

"I didn't really have to think about it," DeMont said. "It was like, 'When can you start?'"

Before he left coaching, Swartz coached DeMont and his brother, Rick. In 1972, Rick won the 400 meter freestyle at the Summer Olympics in Munich. Rick was stripped of the gold medal after he failed a drug test due to a mix-up in the asthma medication he was taking.

Swartz later coached Brian Goodell, a 1976 Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the 400- and 1,500-meter freestyle. Swartz quit coaching within a year.

"Marin County swimming went south after that," DeMont said.

With Swartz as a valuable resource, DeMont intends to keep it on the rise. North Bay Aquatics has at its disposal the coach of three Olympic medal winners (Goodell, Rick DeMont and Robin Backhaus), which ought to impress the teenagers and pre-teens he's teaching and talking to in the pool.

"I don't know if they quite understand the depth or the brethren of the resume," Swartz said.

He was once a nationally-reputed coach and a lot has changed since he stood poolside. Swimmers today have more distractions and options. They have other interests, commitments and responsibilities, including more homework.

"It still comes down to here's an athlete with potential and a coach with interest," Swartz said. "My focus is being smart and getting caught up to speed with the science of swimming."

Swartz has taken to teaching tai chi on Tuesdays and is the driving force behind Think Tank Thursdays, where Swartz will indulge his swimmers in the power of positive thinking. They have connected with his comeback and his well-rounded outside-the-box method of coaching.

"It was as much for me as it was for them," Swartz said.

Coaching again also allows Swartz to re-establish friendships and working relationships he had in the '70s. Every meet he attends - from club events in Pacifica to Santa Rosa and to the NCAAs - Swartz runs into someone who remembers him from his hey days.

"Those were some of the better days of my life," Swartz said. "These days I'm having now are the best days of my life."

The swimmers and coaches around him say the same thing. When DeMont nearly died during shoulder surgery three years ago, Swartz, who once suffered a heart attack, was one of the first people to call and encourage him. Soonafter, DeMont learned that he had a benign tumor in his adrenal gland, which contributed to the shoulder surgery going wrong.

Fortunately, everything has worked out for the better. Swartz lent his support to DeMont and DeMont offered Swartz another chance to coach.

"It's the most fun thing that's happened in my life in a long time," DeMont said. "He thanks me more than I really deserve. He says 'This is the best part of my day except for seeing my wife.'"

Or calling her and asking her to come meet him at a swim meet in a swimming pool. Swartz, you see, is in a perfect place now.

Don Swartz (right) coached several Marin swimmers to the Olympics during the 1970s. After years away from the sport, Swartz is back as a volunteer coach with Ken DeMont (left) and North Bay Aquatics. Swartz and DeMont, the team's director who was coached by Swartz, are surrounded by members of the swim team.