A Legendary Coach, An Even Better Person

Here's a what-if question for you: What if Harvey Humphries had enjoyed his first year of dental school?

"I remember I called my dad right before Christmas that first year, in November, and said, 'I don't think I want to be a dentist,'" Humphries, who announced his retirement in July after more than 35 years on the Georgia swimming and diving coaching staff, said last week over breakfast.

His father was a dentist back in Arkansas, so it wasn't an easy call to make.

"He said, 'What do you want to do?' I said, 'I think I want to be a swim coach,'" Humphries said, recalling a long-ago conversation in 1981 that was life-changing for him, yes, but countless others as well.

"There are a lot of people in this profession that probably don't get recognized like they should, but I can assure you that the swimming lettermen and letterwomen know that Harvey Humphries played a huge role in their development, not only as swimmers and divers but also as productive citizens," J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Greg McGarity said.

How different would Georgia's fortunes have been, especially the past 20 ultra-successful years, if the beloved longtime assistant and associate head coach was filling cavities all day, and saying "open a little wider" a million times, instead of standing poolside stopwatch in hand alongside Jack Bauerle, Georgia's Tom Cousins Swimming and Diving Head Coach?

"Harvey's meant everything and more to our program," said Bauerle, who with Humphries by his side has led the Georgia women to seven NCAA team titles and the men to frequent finishes in the top 10.

"When you think of Georgia swimming, you can't help but think of Harvey. He's been an ... asset is almost too clinical a word and would certainly be an understatement. He's done everything he could and he basically devoted his life to Georgia swimming and diving."

Growing up in Arkansas, Humphries was an eager swimmer, an enthusiastic swimmer, but not a great swimmer. Standing little more than 5-foot-5 and weighing little more than 100 pounds as a high school swimmer (he's grown and filled out a bit since the mid-1970s), most records were safe. Still, he wanted to swim collegiately if he could, and he at the time thought veterinary school was the direction he wanted to go.

Wanting to get away from home for college, Humphries targeted LSU and Georgia as his top destinations — they had vet schools and swim programs, his two priorities.

"My first choice was LSU and I went down to meet with the swim coach, Ted Stickles, who was a former world-record holder," Humphries said. "He said, 'Harvey, I think LSU would be a great school but you're just not big enough to swim in the SEC, you're just too small.'"

That left Georgia and then-coach Pete Scholle (who had a young grad assistant by the name of Bauerle). Humphries came to Athens to check things out and sat down with Scholle, Georgia's coach from 1971-82.

"He said, 'We don't have any distance guys, can you do distance?'" Humphries recalled. "I told him, 'You give me a spot and I'll do anything you want.'"

There was no scholarship, but there was the promise of a chance to make the team. And Humphries made the most of the opportunity. He didn't set any SEC records or make an Olympic team, but he worked and worked and got better and was good enough to make Georgia's travel squad and compete in the conference meet all four years.

Georgia's most improved swimmer award is named for Humphries, as it should be.

"That was because I was the worst guy that ever walked in here — I had nowhere to go but up," Humphries said, laughing.

"Harv was the type that he might have started out as the slowest kid on the team, but he ended up not the slowest kid on the team by far," Bauerle said. "And he ended up a captain his senior year which tells you something about how Harvey was wired."

Almost all serious swimmers are wired a bit differently from the rest of us, especially collegiate swimmers. While so many of their friends are sleeping off a wild, only-in-college night out, the serious swimmer is up before dawn and in the pool for the first of the day's two swim practices. Simple fact: to be really good, to be the best you can be, it's just what every swimmer has to do.

And when the swimmers are in the pool, the coaches are there also, arriving even earlier. So after all these years, Humphries, though now retired, still awakens between "3:38 and 4, pretty much every morning." He said he's always liked being an early riser, getting a cup of coffee and reading the paper before the sun comes up. But when his body now tells him it's time to head to Gabrielsen Natatorium for the morning swim, he can just roll over for another hour or two of shuteye.

"I've actually been told by other coaches that you will eventually get into a normal sleep pattern," he said, but it hasn't happened yet.

By the time Humphries decided that dentistry wasn't for him, Bauerle was Georgia's head coach. "Harv" called him and said he wanted to get into coaching, and a dynamic duo — trio if you include longtime diving coach Dan Laak, who retired in June 2018 — was born.

Georgia swimming and diving has a winning culture now, a super-sized winning culture, as all those NCAA team and individual titles, SEC titles and Olympians clearly demonstrate. Back in the early 1980s, though, when the young coaches were still figuring it all out, the culture was a bit different.

"Jack and the whole culture at that time, it probably wasn't what I would call a culture of winning, but it was a culture of loving Georgia, which might have been more important than anything else," Humphries said.

"We had guys that weren't the most talented guys in the SEC, but they loved Georgia and they were proud to put on the 'G'. No matter who we were going up against, even if it was a team full of Olympians and we knew they were going to trash us, we were going to out-cheer 'em, we were going to race 'em hard — it was a neat time."

As time went on, Georgia's pool was loaded with more and more talent. Some of it was present Wednesday at Humphries' farewell sendoff party, including Olympians Maritza Correia McClendon and Courtney Shealy Hart, as well as Stefanie Williams Moreno, a 28-time All-American, four-time NCAA champion and a Georgia associate head coach.

"His calling was just helping people and trying to get the best out of them, and being a positive role model," Williams Moreno said. "He loved his role of helping kids achieve their dreams, not just in the pool but in life."

Williams Moreno called Humphries "probably the most amazing man that I've ever met because he literally treats everybody the same. I've never seen him angry, I've never seen him raise voice — he is someone you can go and talk to about anything and you know he has your back."

Said Bauerle: "If you don't like Harvey, you don't like anybody."

Humphries' first season as a full-time assistant coach was 1982-83, and it has been an extraordinary ride ever since. He may now be retired from coaching Georgia Bulldog swimmers, but he'll still be around the pool plenty, in part through his role as coach of the Athens Bulldog Swim Club.

"I'm retiring but I haven't stopped being a Bulldog," Humphries said, a big smile spreading across his face.

Humphries has a nice smile, but it's not his smile that lights up the room when he enters. It's the smiles of everyone else in the room when they see him, because for many years now everyone around here has always been happy to see Harvey Humphries.

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.

University of Georgia Athletics

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