Boston College Athletics
Get To Know Coach Groden
May 08, 2000 | Swimming
December 17, 1999
By Mark Vernazza
From the December issue of Eagle Action:
When the Flynn Recreation Complex swimming pool finally opened on St. Patrick's Day of 1971, BC junior Tom Groden was the first to dive in. The water was too cold, so he swam one lap and climbed out. Never could he have predicted how much time he would spend by that pool.
After Groden graduated in 1972 and had trouble finding work as a teacher, legendary hockey coach Snooks Kelly got him a temporary job as Summer Pool Director. Now, some 28 years later, Groden is the only head swimming coach BC has ever seen.
"I was sitting in [Athletic Director] Bill Flynn's office in maybe the third week of that August and Bill looks at me and says 'So, Tom, are you going to be with us in the fall?'" remembered Groden, sitting in his office on the deck above the pool he christened. "So I said to Bill 'Sure' and that was my contract for the next 19 years -- but that was as good as on paper with Bill Flynn."
Flynn didn't exactly have swimming in mind, seeing as BC didn't have a program. Groden, who played soccer as an undergraduate at BC, spent his first season coaching women's volleyball and men's water polo, stretching thin his time, knowledge and energy. Oh yeah -- he started a swimming club that year, too.
But those were simpler times. "Things made a little more sense back then," said Groden. "Fall sports ended before winter sports started, and those ended before spring sports. There wasn't the incredible overlap like there is today. It was sort of like sports they way they were when you were 12 years old."
Now, in the age of massive NCAA bureaucracy, Groden still likes to keep things simple for the more than 60 swimmers and divers on his men's and women's teams.
"My main priority is academics -- that the kids do well in school more than anything else," said Groden, whose teams rank very low in the conference in terms of scholarship funding. "I was thinking the other night as I was driving home what a novel idea it would be if NCAA sports were actually played by college students. By that I mean that the way it used to be was kids that played football or whatever went to school first and foremost and played a sport as something they did there."
Groden's teams have apparently taken well to his message of academics. For the university as a whole, 44% of athletes earned a 3.0 grade point average or better in 1998-99 -- a number the athletic department is quite proud of. According to Groden, that number is nearly doubled among his swimmers. Last year, 89% of the women and 81% of the men pulled in a 3.0 or better -- numbers that Groden says are in the top ten among swimming programs in the country.
Groden's decision to coach swimming was an easy one. He had always liked swimming, he swam in high school and swam whenever he could in college -- although until he was a junior, he had no pool to swim in. In 1972, during Groden's year as a coaching chameleon, he went 0-8 on the volleyball court and 8-3 with his women's swimming club, so he decided to stick with the water.
But the early years weren't exactly high-profile ones for the BC swimming club either.
"On the women's side it was pretty easy [to start the club] because so many teams were new. We swam 11 meets that year and probably three quarters of them were against teams in their first year. So it was just sort of the birth of women's sports."
Groden decided to take the fledgling women to the New England Championships that first year. They scored no points and finished dead last. Now they have more New England Championships than any other team. The women went varsity after two years and the men followed two years later.
But as much as times have changed "more so than can even be described" for Groden, one thing has remained absent: big-time scholarship money. The men's team is currently a non-scholarship team and the women's team doesn't exactly blow the competitors out of the water with scholarships dollars, either. Groden, however, seems to accept this and adjust his schedules accordingly.
"On the men's side, we are one of four non-scholarship teams in the Big East," said Groden. "So that makes the Big East Championship a hard thing to work towards as a competitive goal for our swimmers. We are going to go to the ECAC meet this year and hopefully we can provide that kind of environment for the kids.
"The women are probably 11th or 12th in the Big East in terms of funding, but they're close enough where they can have a real competitive environment, and our top swimmers are certainly up there."
Groden may have reached a watershed for his women's team over the past two seasons. Last year's freshman class wasted no time in breaking a pile of school records, and this year's class shows that same promise.
"Last year's class was the best freshman class I've ever had," said Groden. "They were the best, both in terms of coming in here on paper and what they did in their first year. I think this year's class can be better. I usually have a balanced team in terms of numbers through the classes, but this year the numbers are weighted in the lower classes and that bodes real well for the future, too."
The women haven't shown their promise yet, beating only Army in a string of tough opening meets that included swims against mighty Connecticut and Yale teams. The men's team also excites Groden.
"I think the men have more potential than they have had in the last decade. They have three great captains that makes this team easy to coach -- guys that have given me everything I've asked in the last three years."
Groden is a throwback. He laments all the paperwork the NCAA makes him do. He tells the story of the swimmer on his team that is a University Scholar, but was originally declared ineligible because the NCAA didn't recognize her Advanced Placement credits.
"That type of thing wouldn't have happened when I started," vented Groden.
Of course, things have changed drastically since then -- except for the coach.
