Word: bernalls
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...then there was--and is--Joe Bernal. The New Yorker came north in April 1977 to take over as coach and stayed to build a winner. As he said before the start of this year's campaign, "We are witnessing the creation of the Harvard swimming dynasty of the 1980s...
...primary instigator of that "creation" took the same route as Bernal. Following his coach from Fordham Prep in the Bronx, Bobby Hackett came to Harvard in 1977 toting a little more than the usual college freshman paraphenalia--a silver medal from the Montreal Olympics...
While the Harvard swimming story needs much more than Bobby Hackett for an accurate rendition, his arrival began public recognition of the Crimson as a bona-fide national contender. True, Bernal had plenty on which to build. Coach Pete Orscheidt's last batch of recruits-- this year's juniors--people like Mike Coglin and Geoff Seelen--have performed consistantly for three years, and each season Bernal has brought more. Lots more. The new era in Harvard swimming began officially when cushy Blodgett Pool opened Feb. 4, 1978, replacing something called the "Indoor Atheletic Building," an architectual dinosaur still standing...
Unlike many Ivy League coaches Bernal had no doubts about his goals; there is a lot of talk in Ivies, especially at Harvard, about only wanting to be "competitive," and achieving "parity." None of that for Bernal. He says repeatedly that a first-rate academic program and a first-rate athletic program need not be mutually exclusive. "When there's a sport where we can compete with a team like Indiana, we should swim them," Bernal says, "We're not sacrificing anything to be competitive with them...
...What Bernal means is that he insists swimmers stay in touch with their studies as well as their strokes. "Before they come to Harvard, they have the basic intelligence and basic skills. All our swimmers have had this kind of training discipline and have still accomplished the academic discipline that allowed them to get into Harvard," he says...