George Haines

George Frederick Haines (March 9, 1924 – May 1, 2006) was a competitive swimmer and coach who for twenty-three years coached the highly successful Santa Clara Swim Club which he founded in 1951.

He later coached UCLA, Stanford University, and six U.S. Olympic swim teams.

Haines was born on March 9, 1924, in Huntington, Indiana, the son of George Fremont Haines and Frances Mae Mow, and became interested in swimming after joining the local YMCA, where he won two YMCA championships in the mid-1930s.

Not widely known about Haines, he first learned to coach swimming around 1942 while he was in the Coast Guard teaching Marines and sailors survival swimming.

Influencing his future approach to coaching, the U.S. Military was a learning environment that measured and demanded achievement from students and expected them to respect their instructors.

He was married in 1945 to June Carter Haines, and the couple had five children.

A bronze statue of Haines now stands next to the Olympic-size pool at the Santa Clara Swim Center.

After serving in the Coast Guard, he moved to California, attending college at San Jose State University, where he was conference champion in the 50-meter freestyle before graduating in 1950.

Though he began coaching at Santa Clara the prior year, in 1951, he officially founded the Santa Clara Swim Club, the team he would be best known for.

He also coached the Santa Clara High School Swim team and Water Polo Team which remained at the High School.

Santa Clara Swim Club started out as a thirteen-member club located in the old Santa Clara High School, but soon became a training ground for competitive swimmers from all over the United States.

It now conducts training at the Santa Clara Swim Center.

In 1960, Haines was selected to coach at the 1960 Summer Olympics, and seven of his swimmers from Santa Clara qualified, including 1960 gold medalists Chris Von Saltza, Lynn Burke, George Harrison, and Paul Hait; the first class also included Donna de Varona and Steve Clark, who would win gold at the 1964 Olympics.

In the 1960s, multi-gold medalists Don Schollander and Mark Spitz joined Santa Clara to train with Haines prior to their success at the 1964, 1968, and 1972 Olympics.

Sources vary, but in 1960, he was Head coach for the Olympic Women's Swimming Team.

He was Head Coach for the Olympic Men's team in 1968 and in 1980 when America boycotted the Moscow Olympics.

He served as an Assistant Coach in a few additional Olympics in the 1970s.

He coached the club for 23 years, leaving Santa Clara in 1973.

While at Santa Clara, he coached 26 future Olympians including Mark Spitz, Greg Buckingham, Don Schollander, Donna DeVarona, Chris Von Saltza and Claudia Kolb.

During Haines's 23-year tenure, Santa Clara won a nearly unmatched 43 national club team titles, 26 women's, and 9 men's.

From 1974 to 1978, Haines coached the UCLA men's swimming team.

UCLA twice finished third in the NCAA during his tenure.

In 1977, he was inducted as an Honor Coach into the International Swimming Hall of Fame who later voted him "Coach of the Century" in 2001.

After leaving UCLA, he took an AAU coaching job in Philadelphia with the new Foxcatcher Swim club from 1978-80 taking a considerable salary, replacing ASCA Hall of Fame Coach Frank Keefe, who began coaching at Yale in September 1978.

In 1982, Haines started coaching the Women's Swim Team at Stanford University, where he led the team to an NCAA championship in 1983 as well as two second-places finishes and two third-place finishes.

He coached the Stanford Women's team for seven seasons, through around 1988.

After his stint at Stanford, he retired from coaching swimming in 1988.

George's achievements were exceptional and remain unprecedented.

By the time of his retirement, he had coached 53 Olympic team swimmers, who won a total of 44 gold, 14 silver and 10 bronze medals.

The majority of his Olympians were from his Santa Clara Swim Club teams.

During his retirement, he coached senior softball, leading a team to West Palm Beach's Senior Softball World Series.

He spent most of his retirement in Sacramento, where he enjoyed golf, occasionally returning to Santa Clara, or Palo Alto to watch and attend meets.

In 2000, the Center was renamed the George F. Haines International Swim Center in his honor.

Around 2000, he was named the Coach of the Century by the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Haines suffered a stroke around 2004, which incapacitated him for the rest of his life.

He died in a nursing home in Carmichael, California, on May 1, 2006.