After 34 Years, Flaherty Still Has the Drive and Kick to Be a Swim Coach

One lap of the pool, one line of the speech. That's how Joe Flaherty taught Gabriella Brock to memorize a speech Theodore Roosevelt delivered in 1910. Stroke after stroke, followed by the same segment of the speech. Flip-turn and repeat.

The 14-year-old memorized the speech six years ago, when she first began swimming for Flaherty, a longtime coach in the Washington area. She can recall it at a moment's notice, and uses it to motivate her as she swims, practicing swimming motions until they become as innate to her as Roosevelt's words.

Repetition is an important part of Flaherty's coaching. Whether it is repeating a stroke, a turn, or a speech, his swimmers know to practice, practice, practice.

"We [do] the same thing over and over," said Victoria Minkin, a 16-year-old who has been coached by Flaherty for three years. "It can get discouraging, but Coach is always encouraging us, showing us what we did do right. He's really supportive."

Flaherty has devoted his life to supporting his swimmers in and out of the pool. In his 34 years as a coach, he has taught hundreds of swimmers who populate all levels of the Montgomery County Swim League. Dave Crocker, a head coach with the Cedarbrook Swim Team, swam for Flaherty in the 1980s. So did Brian Crilly, an MCSL executive board member. Flaherty has so many former students still involved in swimming he cannot even remember how many remain active within the league, at least without leafing through the MCSL handbook.

Between coaching Manchester Farm Swim Team in Germantown in the summer and his own private club, Joe Flaherty's Dolphins, year-round, Flaherty works 80 hours a week. He oversees 208 swimmers and eight coaches at Manchester Farm, and 70 employees and 1,000 customers at his club team.

With all of those students, it can be difficult to stay positive and encouraging all of the time. But coaching is Flaherty's passion, something he was destined to do.

He first began swimming in 1967 in California. When his family moved to Rockville a year later, he joined the Flower Valley Swim Team. He started coaching to make money while a student at the University of Maryland. But that changed when, while driving to his last final, Flaherty heard "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from "The Sound of Music" on the radio.

"When it gets to the point where it says, 'Find a dream that will need all the love you can give, every day of your life for as long as you live,' I, a 22-year-old man, I mean I had to pull off the road. I think that was God saying to me, 'Go take your final, but I want you to coach the rest of your life.' "

He stayed with Flower Valley for 25 years, and then moved to Manchester Farm in 2000. Since his arrival, Manchester Farm has jumped from the N division of the Montgomery County Swim League (then the lowest division) to the C division, in one of the toughest summer swimming leagues in the region.

"He's very good at teaching strokes to kids, and breaking strokes down into sections," said Ginny Allsop, a mother of four Manchester Farm Dolphins.

When Allsop's youngest son, Robert, 13, struggled on his turns last summer, Flaherty attached a kickboard to the wall, so that Robert would learn a smoother turning motion, rather than pulling up on the wall. The unorthodox teaching method and repetition of the motion helped Robert improve his turn and shave seconds off his time.

Flaherty's coaching philosophy centers on three mantras: Have an impossible dream, dare greatly to achieve it and don't quit until you do. They are borne from sermons delivered by Grant Laman, a local youth pastor, and James Dobson, the renowned child psychologist.

"Dobson was never a swimmer," Flaherty said. "Grant Laman was never a swimmer. But they know, what do kids need growing up in this society? It's tough love."

Flaherty said that he does get tough sometimes, encouraging his swimmers in his gruff, raspy voice. When looking for softer guidance, swimmers often turn to assistant coach Shannon English. English swam for Flaherty as a child in 1978, and then came back to him three years ago. She was reluctant to coach initially, but Flaherty persuaded her first to coach, then to become office manager, and finally to be his second-in-command.

"I always knew I could swim," English said. "But I didn't realize somewhere in the back of my head, that I could break it down to coach. Joe inspired me, like he did when I was 8. Then it was, 'You can swim a whole mile, Shannon!' Now it's, 'You can learn the computer!' "

When Flaherty finally decides to retire, English will take over as head coach. But at 53, Flaherty still has a lot of coaching left in him. "I'm tired sometimes, but I'm never tired of coaching. Since 1975, I haven't been bored coaching."