Bobb was my swim coach from the time I first showed interest in swimming so many years ago. He guided me through the Pee-wee program, nudged me towards modified, and finally directly coached me in Varsity. He taught me far more than how to swim fast though... he is directly responsible for my sense of dedication, determination, and drive for self improvement. He fostered the growth of my self esteem as I struggled to find my place in high school, and his influence will always be remembered in my life

Bobb was a great teacher, and a better storyteller. He had more stories of misguided adventures and memories that he shared with us than I can count. Every time he gathered us to speak we listened intently, whether it was a story we had never heard before about a fight he had when he was a bouncer, or one of the old favorites like the time he rode a bike across the Adirondacks stopping only to sleep and drink beer. Even the familiar stories were always changing, adding or losing details, but it didn't matter what was said; Bobb had a way of bringing his words to life.

He listened, too. I remember coming to him whenever something was really bothering me, whether it had anything to do with swimming or not. Swimmers were always talking to him, whether they were just joining the modified team, or had graduated several years ago. People just kept coming back to him and that pool deck.

I don't know if he ever saw this picture, if he did, he would have called me a twit and swatted the back of my head

I never took a serious photo with Bobb because I could never imagine not being able to find him down at the pool or in the shop. He was a figure larger than life, with a personality to match. Humble, but fiercely passionate about the things he loved, and there were few things he loved more than his swimmers and that pool. He invented his own religion, Bobbism, in which the first commandment is to make someone smile every day.

I don't know who put it up, or when, but among the wallpaper of newspaper clippings and photos of swimmers (seriously, it covered almost every surface) that coated his office, large printed words read "Here, Bobb is God."

Nothing could be more true. We lived and died to make him proud, nothing went unseen or unheard on that deck by Bobb, and his presence there is truly immortal.

What follows is a paper I once wrote for a college English class. The assignment was a 5 page doublespaced creative nonfiction piece on someone we knew. Bobb was the first person I thought of, and no one else could have been more appropriate.

Here, Bobb is God

             “Here, Bobb is God.” One of the many stickers that share space with the newspaper clippings, postcards, and team pictures that crowd His office walls. And it’s true; here, Bobb is omniscient and omnipotent. No lock stands in His way, no ill deed goes unseen. As the most devout Christian attends church on a Sunday, so do we attend swim practice. But our god demands from us our penance all week. Even when we escape from the green-tiled pool deck and record board looming loftily over head, we are haunted by the stomp of His steel toed boots and jangling keys throughout the week.

At the sound of loose change shaking in a pocket, team members jolt upright in their seats and begin furiously scribbling notes from the blackboard, fearing that their God may be passing. His demands transcend our physical devotion; He expects our best intellectual efforts as well.  Report cards were shown to Him before our parents even got to see them. His never satisfied gaze rests even more squarely on my shoulders: I shovel His parents’ sidewalk. “I heard my father had to break out his snowblower last weekend. Where were you? Skiing?” Utter devotion, that’s what He expects, and to risk injury in silly pastimes like skiing is blasphemy. Walk into the locker room at 3:20 any day of the week and it’s easy to see; Bobb’s reputation precedes Him.

“Shut up! Everyone shut the fuck up!” The Seniors’ urgent whispers are passed through the stale, dim air. In the silence of our held breath, we hear the jangle of keys and heavy, steel-toed boots pass by. Just before they fade away into the distance they halt. The wet floor squeaks beneath the rubber soles. A Jangling of keys, the squeak of the doorknob on the diamond-plated steel door twisting. And finally, the sharp, short whistle that sends a shiver down our spines to our still damp swim trunks. We file out one by one and race through the tunnel of showers to face our coach.

The first day is always terrifying, especially for the freshmen. The upperclassmen never try to help, either.  In the confines of the locker room with the rusting lockers bearing down on us all, horror stories were exchanged. “Remember the time that He was so angry He snapped the clipboard? Or when He screamed at us for half an hour on the bus after the meet at Holland Patent? Or when…” and so it was. The new members got glimpses of Bobb during the shared meets between modified and varsity, but to them, He is a mystery referred to only in whispers. So for them, the first real interaction with Bobb is one characterized by hesitance and reverence. But over the course of the next week they become accustomed to His scrutiny, they become comfortable on the deck and in the pool. This is their first and most egregious error.

I must admit, I also let my guard down. Somewhere between the seemingly infinite parables He relates and the ever-present support during meets, we all lose sight of the truth. “Here, Bobb is God” and He is a wrathful one. Every skipped yard, every loafed lap; they all pass before His judgment. We are given time to atone for our sins, given time to recall His omniscience, but only the wisest of seniors slave away at the miles of yards we are assigned. After our most stunning lack of enthusiasm, His wrath is let loose upon us in a tirade of sprint laps and Pac-Mans.

These are the worst. Pac-Mans pit the fraternity of team-members against one another and drives us to prey on the weak and abandon the sacred brotherhood of teamwork. The team is divided and sent to opposite ends of the pool. Segregated, we await our fate.  After a brief, but effective reprimand, we are instructed to sprint to the other end and back, but as we return, the other half will dive in and chase after us. When they reach our end, they’ll perform a flip turn and sprint away, at which point we are to chase them. And so it will continue, until the retreating team is overrun. One may think it would be simple enough for the retreating team to slow down and allow themselves to be overrun. And one would be correct, except for two critical details. The first, and least important, is that Bobb knows what we are capable of and slacking will be rewarded with more sprints.

More important is the kamikaze sense of honor we all feel we must uphold. This is imperative to us all; it’s the reason we fight the wrestlers in the locker room and sneer at the soccer players that trot by in the halls. We can take any abuse, and we do so without a word. To give up would be to dishonor ourselves and our God. I always rationalize it by telling myself it will pay off during meets when I drop time, but deep down I know it’s only my honor that keeps me reaching for more water while my lungs scream for air and my muscles promise sweet revenge in the morning. We only realize our sense of honor at the hands of Him, our coach who inspires such a pride and tenacity in all that we do.

But more than a God, more than a coach, Bobb is a storyteller. Some practices the entire team gathers around, sitting on kickboards and starting blocks, to listen to Bobb recount the story of how he biked across the Adirondacks one summer stopping at bars to pick fights with members of the Hells Angels for the fiftieth time. It doesn’t matter that we’ve heard the same basic plot before, the details always change, and it’s far better than swimming laps. His fiercely opinionated nature is rampant in His storytelling. He tantalizes His listeners with half-remembered dialogues, detailed descriptions of copious use of alcohol and drugs, and glorious sports victories of long disbanded teams.

He takes us back thirty years to the sunny summer days spent riding bikes and playing tackle football without pads in the park across from my house. In my mind the stories all play back as if through a film of golden syrup, emanating a sweet nostalgia of simpler times. Sepia tone sunlight filters through the window of the family dining room in my mind’s eye. Bobb and His siblings, scraped and dirty, gather around the table. Their father, Ed, sits down at the head of the table and takes off his UVM Athletics cap and places his coaching whistle beside it. June, his wife, places a beer beside his plate and sits next to him. If it weren’t for Bobb’s masterful weaving of detail and characterization, it would be hard to imagine the frail old couple that lives next door ever being young enough to command the respect of so many troublemaking kids.

Bobb was especially troublesome. He experimented with drugs, scorned His father’s alma mater, and failed out of three other universities. He continued to clash with His family as He held various jobs as a bouncer, a bartender, and band member before taking a job at the local high school as a janitor. Shortly afterwards, He began assistant coaching for the varsity swim team and has gone on to claim more victories than any other coach in the league. Despite these mistakes, Bobb is fiercely proud of His past, arguing that the choices He made shaped Him into who He is today.

I’ve never been one to argue with the gods.

Rest in Peace Bobb, I can't thank you enough for your presence in my life...