After 40 Years, Laing Set To Coach Final Home Meet; Owls Swim Coach Retiring at End of Season

WESTFIELD, Mass. –  Westfield State University women's swimming and diving coach Dave Laing will coach his final home meet on Saturday, January 22, 2022, when the Owls swim against UMass Dartmouth at the Ely Pool.

The meet will also serve as the Owls senior day, with both the 2021 and '22 senior classes recognized before the meet.

Laing has announced plans to retire from coaching at the end of this season, after 40 years on the deck for the Owls.    Laing is the only head coach the Owls' program has ever had, and is the longest-ever tenured coach at Westfield State University, having started the varsity program for the 1982-83 season after operating as a club team for several seasons before that.

"40 seemed like a nice round number to end on," said Laing. "I considered a few opinions on whether to coach this last year, as last year with so few practices due to covid I had a lot more downtime, I started to think that 'I could do this.'  But I really wanted to coach the swimmers that we had recruited, and I thought 'I can do 19 more weeks.' What has made it so simple this year is that we have a great group of kids and my assistant Karen Summers has been great."

"I couldn't ask for a better team to leave with. They all click.  Lauren Harkins and Emily Smith as captains and Karen, as our assistant coach, have done a lot for team bonding. "

A couple of them said "can't you stay one more year," said Laing. "But one more becomes one more."

Laing's teams have posted a .500 or better record in dual meets in every season since 1987, except for a 5-6 mark in 1992-93.

Overall, Laing's Owl teams have posted a 222-126-1 mark in dual meets heading into Saturday's affair.

BEGINNINGS

"After three years as a club program, coach (Paul) Bogan said we could start with a women's team and work from there," said Laing.   "We took six young ladies to the New England meet at UMass Dartmouth, and the last event was the 800 free relay, and just before they were supposed to start, Lisa Cavanaugh asked the official if she thought anyone would notice if she didn't swim all the laps, because we were so much slower than the other teams."

"First win was against UMass Lowell at their place," said Laing, whose team was 0-6 in dual meets in their debut in 1982-83."

TOP TEAMS

Laing's best ever teams came in the 2006-7 season when they posted a 9-1 mark in dual meets.

"Our only loss that year was to Simmons, and if we had swam them later in the season we would have beaten them," said Laing. "But it was early in the year and I was still figuring out what events were best for each of our swimmers."

In 2017-18 his team set 13 school records at the New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association championship meet while finishing fourth - as a team, their best-ever finish in a meet that has included more than 40 teams at times.

"We finally beat Smith that year, it was a great meet, and Kelsey Johnstone was down by about two seconds, and then touched out smith at the wall to win by .3, and everyone looked up, and it was like OMG we won."

"Every year speaks for itself," said Laing.  "In 2017-18 I knew we were swimming well but I was worried about our mental attitudes.  We were in a little circle for a pep talk, and Tia Pariseau said we were going to be fourth – and the girls said 'yeah, let's do it'.   We weren't going to beat Keene, Bentley and Roger Williams, but year we were going to kick a** for fourth place and they went out and did it - almost every swim was a school record.  They lit up the scoreboard."

WINTER BREAK TRAINING TRIPS

Laing's teams pioneered the winter training trip, first going to Venezuela in 1989, then to Puerto Rico, and then the Swimming Hall of Fame, before settling into Plantation, Fla., as their winter home, annually training there for a week over the holiday break.

One disappointment for Laing is missing the 2020 and 2021 trips due to the pandemic conditions, but many good memories from past trips remains.

"I always tried to give them a day off to go do a few things, - we did Disney, or Sea World, one year we went all the way to Key West," said Laing. "But as it's gotten more expensive the kids seem just as happy to hang out with each other and go to the beach when they have free time. We always try to have a big team dinner, and we traditionally go to Jackson's Ice Cream where they have ice cream sundaes so huge it takes 4 or 5 swimmers to eat one of them.  The trip helps the team to really get to know each other better."

"We'll swim mornings 8-10, spend the afternoon at the beach, and then go back to train 4-6.  The pool has a long course and short course, and as a team we will be a lot better after the trip.  We'll swim about 8,000 yards a day, and that's just right for our level of swimmers.  The one rule is once we start training, 'don't get out of the pool.'"

"One of my favorite moments from being a student-athlete under Dave is from our training trip to Fort Lauderdale in January 2019," said Shannon Fitzsimmons. "Dave had us swimming twice a day most of the days that we were training on the trip. He knew we were exhausted, sore, and most importantly hungry! At the conclusion of our morning practices we knew we could persuade Dave to stop for breakfast on the way back from the pool. With some convincing, Dave pulled our van into the parking lot of Krispy Kreme almost every day that week with one unspoken condition: we had to let him eat one of the six donuts we bought. We all enjoyed our (many) donuts together on that trip!"

"When we first started going we'd drive vans down to Florida, but then one year Vanessa Morton said the heck with that, and that she'd fly and meet us there – and I'm glad she did because that has changed the trip for us.   We used to try to drive it in 24 hours, and we'd stay overnight at the house of friends or family along the way, but flying down has been a change for the better."

The Florida trip created a date with fate in 2017, when the Owls' team was passing through the Fort Lauderdale Airport as a lone gunman opened fire.  While thankfully, no one from the Owls team was injured that day, five people were killed and six others wounded in the incident.

Laing was picking up the rental vans and pulling through the airport when the team saw people running for cover and ultimately one man bleeding from the incident.   Several swimmers were stranded in a plane on the runway on their incoming flights for hours, while others hid behind cars or in closets in the airport until federal officers cleared the building.

Dave, and his wife Sue, kept the lines of communication open with the team and college administration, as Dave circled back several times to Port Everglades to pick up the swimmers who had been shuttled there after having been separated from the team by the incident.

INDIVIDUALS

Divers have been some of Laing's top performers throughout his career, as Laing dove at Springfield College as an undergraduate.  While he admits he does not remember every single swimmer vividly, he rattles off many names and hometowns, and past captains with ease.

"I met Dave during my senior year of high school, out in front of Dickinson Hall with the two captains from that season," said Heather Tomassian '05. "I knew from that moment, I was meant to be on this team. He made me feel at ease right away about heading off to college. I felt as though I had known him my whole life."

Lori (Vincent) Hadley was the first Owl to qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships.

After Vincent's performances at the NCAA meet, "people started to see Westfield State as a real option for college swimming," said Laing.  "I never thought I was the best recruiter in the world, but I'd meet with everyone that was interested.

"Alex Fraser told me she was coming, if she got in to Westfield – so she said I didn't have to call her any more to recruit her," laughed Laing, noting that Fraser was well on her way to being a star in the Owls program until beset by injuries later in her career.

"Lori lit up the scoreboard a little bit as a sophomore," said Laing.  

 "When Lori qualified for NCAA's in diving, you had to go to the meet early, and qualifying was on Tuesday.   and of course we had to factor in 'Bogan-omics', and the cost of the flights out to Notre Dame, where the meet was being held," noting the frugality of the Owls' late athletic director.   "I told him Lori was going to be an All-American so we could go, and she totally missed the reverse 1.5 on the low board, so she didn't make it on the low board, and I'm thinking 'how am I going to explain this to Bogan'."

"Lori told me and her mother go go walk around campus so she could get some rest before the high board.  She said she had it under control. She gets up on high board, boom, boom, and we're in the meet.   I may have prayed to Touchdown Jesus, but it all worked out OK."

"Lori's junior year we go up to Williams, and she gets to the pool and realizes she forgot her suits. I said how do you go to a national meet and the one thing you forget is a suit!?"

Fortunately, she was from Pittsfield, so her roommate drove the suit to the pike entrance in Lee, and her mother drove it up.

The Owls recently had a strong run of divers with national qualifiers Kim Schmidt and Katie Sterpka both earning All-America honors while winning five NEISDA Diver of the Year honors between them, and Monique Groux winning multiple Little East Conference titles and a NEISDA Rookie of the Year title.

Sterpka earned honorable mention All-America honors on the 1 and 3 meter boards in 2015.

"If I had a different coach I don't think my career would have been the same, and I give him a lot of credit," said Sterpka after the NCAA meet.  "He was probably the first reason why I came to Westfield," she added.

Swimmer Tobey Cronnell (Sp) was a national qualifier in 1992 after transferring to Westfield State from national powerhouse program Kenyon College (a 23-time national championship program).

Cronnell had participated at Laing's Pine Knoll swim school in East Longmeadow, a program originally founded by his college coach (and eventual father-in-law) Charles Silvia.

"I saw Tobey at nationals at Williams, then she contacted me later in the spring about swimming her senior year at Westfield.  She said she wanted to transfer from the #1 team in the country to come back to Westfield.  I said 'I think youre crazy, why would you go from the number one team in the country.'  We weren't number zero at the time, but we certainly weren't anywhere close to the same level."

"She said she wouldn't make the travelling team that next year."

"Do you want to be part of a team or do you want to SWIM on that team," said Laing, noting that he used that concept in recruiting moving forward.  "You might be on a team but swimming in the B or C relay, or never even get in a meet," he noted.

"Tobey wanted to be able to finish her career having fun.  At New England's she won the 100 IM, and I'll never forget the girl from Colby that she touched out, looking over in disbelief."

"Tobey gets to the 400 IM which is the race where she could qualify for nationals , and I asked my father-in-law to come up to Bowdoin with some words of wisdom for Tobey, and he shows up … and he's talking with Tobey before the race, and the whole time I'm nervous and asking if she's going to qualify.  And her time in the 100 free led at the end was incredible.  She makes it and I had a big sigh of relief."

"We went to Buffalo, one day it was great, and the next day it was a blizzard for the NCAA Division III Championships.   While she didn't make the finals, she was happy, and set a record in the 400 IM that is still standing here a long time later.  That was fun."

"My most memorable moment from being a student-athlete under Dave was at my first meet swimming under him sophomore year," said Fitzsimmons, who transferred to Westfield State from Division II Assumption College, and set school records in six individual and four relay events.  "Right before my first race, Dave looked at me and said, 'Just go have fun!'. His simple piece of advice stuck with me for the rest of my time on the team. Dave was my reminder that day that my love for the sport needed to come before the time on the clock."

THE BIG FINISH

Laing has accomplished much over the past 40 years at Westfield State.

Laing has earned the New England Intercollegiate Swimming & Diving Association's  diving coach of the year honor seven times (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 1991), and was named the Little East Coach of the Year in 2017-18.

He also coached the women's tennis team for nine seasons before it was suspended as varsity sport in 1989. Laing has served two-year terms as president and vice-president of the New England Women's Swimming and Diving Association.

Laing also served as a full-time professor in the Westfield State movement science department, retiring from that role in 2017, but continuing as head coach of swimming and diving until this year.

"With such a strong foundation in exercise physiology and kinesiology, he knew what it took to get the best out of his athletes," said Tomassian. "He focused on technique and stroke mechanics, because no one will swim fast until those are corrected. I think his knowledge and love for swimming and diving made it so easy for him to be successful. And, his humor, that made him resilient. Working with girls, in their teens and 20's, you need to be able to roll with the punches, and I think Dave had the wit and the hilarity to make even the grumpiest and moodiest girls into super star athletes. I have taken so much of what he has taught me to use in my own coaching, to which I am very grateful."

A 1968 graduate of South Hadley High School and a 1972 grad of Springfield College, Laing now resides in Wilbraham with his wife Sue.

Laing doesn't have a distinct plan for his retirement, but notes that they have several friends in the Venice, Fla., area and he and Sue could go south for a month or so in the winter. "They both golf," said Laing, an avid golfer and member at Wilbraham Country Club.

"As one of his student-athletes, it has always been clear to see that Dave brought his experience as a former student-athlete, coach, parent, and professor to Westfield State," said Fitzsimmons.  "He was always more than just a coach to his team. He wore the hat of a coach when you needed to be pushed, a father when you needed advice, a teacher when you needed support in the classroom, and that of a student-athlete when you needed someone to empathize with the balance of being both of those."

"Dave never forgets what it is like or has been like to be in each of those roles," added Fitzsimmons. "He was successful in making our team a family because he is more than just a coach to his athletes. I attribute so much of his success to his selflessness and willingness to step into any of those roles effortlessly and with infectious positivity …. I think it's about time Dave's advice made it back to him for his last home meet: Just go have fun, Dave!"

The Owls' host UMass Dartmouth at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, with senior recognition beginning at 12:30.   Kait Kelly, Taylor Pierce, and Heidi Demers from the class of 2021 will join 2022 seniors Lauren Harkins and Emily Smith in being recognized before the meet.  No formal senior day was held last year with athletics competition suspended due to the pandemic in the winter of 2020-21.

"Senior night is always special. I think anyone that has swum or dove for Dave would say the same," said Tomassian.  "He manages to fill the pool deck with stories of his athletes, and you can truly tell how much he cares for all of them. For me, I was a blubbering mess. He had the kindest words for me, and I just remember thinking how lucky I was to learn so much from him over my four years at Westfield. I am so grateful for the experience to have swum for Dave."

A retirement party / swim reunion event is being planned for the early summer following the conclusion of the spring season.  Additional details will be released when available.