University of Georgia Athletics
'96 Games Sparked Swim Surge
August 09, 2016 | Swimming & Diving
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
As hard as it is to imagine now, Jack Bauerle was basically just a spectator at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
The longtime Georgia swimming and diving coach was in the stands proudly watching as three of his former Bulldogs competed, including one of his all-time greats, Sheila Taormina, who won gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay. Bauerle was there, at what is now Georgia Tech's McAuley Aquatic Center, but he wasn't in the thick of things.
Back in the summer of 1996, Bauerle and his staff had a good program at Georgia, with some great individual performers and an increasing depth that made the men and women more and more relevant in the SEC and NCAA. It was not yet the champion and championship producing machine that it has become.
Bauerle said the 1996 Olympics played a big role in the Bulldogs making the leap to elite.
"That gave me a lot of incentive for the next time around," Bauerle said. "I wanted to be more of a part of it, without question. That got me going and I think our best years came right after, and then lo and behold we put a bunch on the team in 2000.
"It was certainly an impetus to push me to be a better coach, wanting to be a real part of what was going on."
The results speak for themselves. Individually, Bauerle was the U.S. women's swimming team's head coach in the 2008 Olympics, he was a U.S. women's assistant coach in 2000 and right now he's in Rio as a U.S. men's team assistant coach. Georgia's diving coach, Dan Laak, is also working in Rio, his third Olympics, as an assistant coach on Brazil's team.
As for Bauerle's program, consider this: Georgia had zero SEC or NCAA women's swimming championships before the Atlanta Games. None. Since the 1996 Olympics, a span of 20 years, the program has won seven NCAA team titles and 12 SEC crowns. The men's team is consistently among the top three in the SEC and top 10 in the nation, placing fifth at the NCAAs in 2016.
Starting in 1997, the women won five straight SEC titles, with many more coming since, including six straight from 2010-15; in 1999, the women began a run of back-to-back-to-back NCAA team championships, and they've added four more since, including in 2016, in Atlanta, in the very same pool used during the 1996 Olympics.
Georgia men's and women's swimmers chase SEC and NCAA championships, but that's not all. Chasing Olympic dreams, even if it's just qualifying for the Olympic Trials, has become an integral part of Bauerle's mission and message to recruits.
"It really changes recruiting because people think, OK, this is a program that year-in, year-out now for four straight Olympics have put a lot of people on the team," Bauerle said.
Recruits want a program that can take them to the top of the sport and coaches like Bauerle want recruits capable of getting there. Track and field coach Petros Kyprianou, who just wrapped up his first season at the helm of Georgia's program, looks at what Bauerle and the swim program have done as a model for his own program.
"I do look at Jack and I want to accomplish half of what he's accomplished here at Georgia," Kyprianou said. "He's the guy that I kind of look up to as a head coach and being an Olympic coach and all that. This is exactly what we're trying to do."
Georgia's track and field program has long produced a lot of Olympians and this year is no exception. There are 11 future, present and past Bulldogs in Rio, and Kyprianou is serving as an assistant coach on the Estonian team — two Dogs competing are Estonian decathletes Maicel Uibo and Karl Saluri.
Overall there were 15 current or former Bulldog athletes that competed in Atlanta, including swimmers Taormina, Allan Murray (Bahamas) and Wan Abdullah (Malaysia). Taormina's gold was the only swimming medal.
Fast way forward to last Saturday night, the very first night of swimming in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, when four Bulldog swimmers (past or present) won medals: rising senior Chase Kalisz won silver in the men's 400-meter individual medley; former Dogs Allison Schmitt and Amanda Weir earned silvers as part of the 4x100-meter relay team, while rising senior Chantal Van Landeghem was on the Canadian squad that won the bronze.
Eight swimmers on the U.S. squad competed for the Bulldogs, the most in program history. Georgia had seven in both 2000 and 2012, highlighted by Schmitt's five medals (three gold) in the London Olympics. Schmitt is now competing in her third Olympics and was named one of the team's captains.
Melanie Margalis didn't come to Georgia to fulfill her dream of being an Olympian. Margalis' dream coming out of high school was just to swim in college, and it was at Georgia that her dreams got bigger and bigger. A 17-time All-American in her career (2011-14), Margalis is in Rio and tonight she'll swim in the finals of the 200-meter individual medley.
"This never was really on my mind, you know, so it's just crazy to be in this spot now," she said after making the Olympic team.
After the 1996 Olympics Bauerle said he decided to "beg, borrow or steal" from the best minds in the sport, figuring out how to improve training programs, like doing a lot more long course training than short course, how to improve recruiting and every other aspect of the program. And the more swimmers you have in the pool that dream of gold medals, training right next to swimmers who might not yet know what they're capable of, the more swimmers you have realizing what they can do and realizing their potential.
"You're just excited for your teammates, and once you see what they can do, you're like, 'wait, I should be able to do that too,' you know?" Margalis said. "You're like, 'we train together and hey, I can do it, too.'"
And time and time again, they're proving that they can.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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