By Keith Mills

What began as a labor of love more than 40 years ago and a gnawing curiosity as to just how Baltimore swimmers would match up nationally has now taken Murray Stephens from the pool at Loyola High School to Ft. Lauderdale and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

"It's really stunning," said Stephens, 61, who along with his wife Patty and an army of family and friends made their way to South Florida on May 8 for the ultimate honor in swimming. "We have 40 people from Baltimore who are going to be a part of this. And to me it's really a validation to them, and a celebration of all the time and effort for so many people who helped make this thing happen. This isn't a one-man process."

But it was one man's vision. In 1967, four years after he graduated from Loyola High School and 19 years before he moved the club to the Meadowbrook Swim Club in Mount Washington, Stephens and Tim Pierce coached their first group of young swimmers and the North Baltimore Aquatic Club was born. For 15 years Stephens, Pierce, age-group coach Carter Warfield and John Cadigan coached and trained a growing group of young athletes who were starting to make their impact felt nationally.

"When you work on something for about 40 years I think every decade you have a different perspective on what you're doing, what you want to achieve," said Stephens, who took over the coaching job at NBAC in 1971. "Early, it was: 'Can we have national and Olympic-level swimmers from Baltimore.' It took about 10 years to get that done, maybe a little more than that, but we did it. In 1984, Theresa Andrews won two gold medals in L.A. (Olympics) and we said, 'Well, OK, what do we do now?'

"We really wanted to have one of the best teams in the nation, to show that age group and youth development swimming can be great in Baltimore. That was the next step. Then we were fortunate to have Anita Nall break a world record and win Olympic medals, and then Beth Botsford did the same. Our girls’ team won the national championship in 1994 with really only five girls. And then it just took off.  Michael Phelps, Katie Hoff and now Liz Pelton and the kids today."

Today Stephens is a Hall of Famer. He was among the 46th class inducted, joining such legendary U.S. swimmers as Clarence “Buster” Crabbe, Mark Spitz, John Naber, Tracy Caulkins, Janet Evans and Shirley Babashoff. Of the 10 inductees this year, Stephens and former Olympic gold medalist Brooke Bennett are two of just four Americans.

Stephens is one of just three Baltimoreans ever elected to the Hall. Ironically, all three have been inducted the last three years: Nall in 2008 and 69-year-old Judy McGowan of Dundalk a year ago.

 McGowan now lives in Lutherville but grew up in the Gray Manor section of Baltimore County and is also a member of the Greater Dundalk Hall of Fame. She was elected last year as a synchronized swimmer and long-time official and contributor.

"Judy is very active in FINA (International Swimming Federation)," said Stephens. "She's always judged a lot of synchronized swimming events. When Anita competed at the Barcelona Olympics in '92, Judy helped me get through some really heavy security. Like a half-dozen machine guns and Uzis. She's a great friend and it's really unique that three Baltimoreans would be elected three years in a row."

Stephens began his swimming career in 1961 at Loyola High School under coach Andy McCormick.

"That really opened my eyes to national swimming," said Stephens, "and I decided I wanted to be a part of it."

Stephens took the coaching job at Loyola in 1978 and built the Dons into a national powerhouse. Among his first dominant swimmers at Loyola and NBAC was Patrick Kennedy, who helped Loyola win its first national prep championship in 1980 and went on to become the Southeastern Conference Swimmer of the Year at the University of Florida.

"Murray was such an awesome coach and way ahead of his time," said Kennedy, now a doctor in Roanoke, Va. "I trusted Murray implicitly. If he said, 'Pat, this is what we're going to do today,' I never questioned him. He and I had this chemistry together. He may have asked me to do things that I probably couldn't have done, but I did them because Murray said I could do it."

One of them was to train hard, harder than he ever had before, to earn a berth on the 1984 Olympic team, which he did.

In 1984, both Kennedy of Towson and Theresa Andrews of Annapolis represented the North Baltimore Aquatic Club in the L.A. Olympics. Kennedy finished eighth in the 200-meter backstroke while Andrews won a pair of gold medals in the 100 backstroke and 400-meter relay. 

NBAC would never be the same. Stephens pushed his swimmers hard and surrounded himself with outstanding coaches. The results have been mind-boggling, a level of success that may never be duplicated again in age-group, club swimming.
Andrews, Nall, Botsford and Phelps have won Olympic gold medals while Kennedy, Jill Johnson, Whitney Metzler, Casey Barrett and Hoff have passed through the club on their way to the Olympics.

Phelps is, of course, the marquee swimmer, considered by many to be the greatest of all time. He arrived at NBAC as a 7-year-old when his older sisters, Whitney and Hillary, were swimming for the club's vaunted women's team in the early 1990s. He swam in the Sidney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, winning 16 gold and two bronze medals.

He will also compete in the 2012 London Games and joins Nall (1992), Botsford (1996) and Hoff (2004) as NBAC swimmers who all swam in the Olympics as 15-year-olds. Phelps was 15 when he swam at Sidney in 2000.

"We're a little biased toward the youth development," said Stephens. "We really like to see children develop, with Michael Phelps being the ultimate example. From 4, 5, 6 years old through youth swimming and local summer swimming to now. If you compare it to baseball, you get to see a child go through first picking up a bat and ball, right through Little League into Triple-A ball, right into the major leagues. We're able to follow and be a part of that process the whole way, which is pretty exciting."

After Botsford won gold at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Stephens stepped back from coaching and began to use his growing influence in the sport to help improve it. He was named to the board of directors of United States Swimming, brought in Bob Bowman to coach the senior team at NBAC and helped to set up an endowment for the club.

"Personally, for me it got to be about helping the sport," said Stephens. "After I brought Bob Bowman into the program in the late ’90s, it got to be about mentoring coaches and swimmers and helping to guide people, motivate them and give them a structure and culture that would last."

Coaches such as Tom Himes, Bowman, Paul and Tom Yetter, Rachael Fishbain, Dan Dougher, Chris Kaplan, Scott Armstrong, John Burke and Ann Hollister have all played a huge part in maintaining the club's enormous reputation internationally.

Pelton, who finished fifth in last summer's world championships; Austin Surhoff, now a freshman at the University of Texas; Felicia Lee, Andi Staub and Brennan Morris are leading the team into the second decade of this century.

High school swimming in the area has also benefitted from NBAC's enormous influence. Several former club members are now coaching many of the leading area prep programs, including Stephens' alma mater, the Loyola Dons.

"Scott Ward at McDonogh, Keith Schertle at Loyola," said Stephens. "There's some good people doing some great coaching locally."

Posted May 10, 2010