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Swimming instructor Bill Harmer taught kids more than the skills to stay afloat. He taught them self-discipline and good sportsmanship.
By KATHRYN BOWDEN
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- In 40 years of teaching and coaching swimming, Bill Harmer estimates he must have instructed between 4,000 and 5,000 kids.
"During one summer, I was working with 115 kids between the swim lessons and the swim team," says the 72-year-old, who retired some years ago as swim team coach at Lakewood Country Club.
"Practically every kid I worked with had started with me as a baby and they stayed with me through all phases of swimming, eventually leaving only to attend college or something like that."
He still holds strong views about the proper ways to teach swimming. Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics warned against swimming lessons for children under 4, saying such training may give youngsters a false sense of security around the water.
Harmer says he agrees that a child should never be left alone near a pool no matter how familiar he or she might be with the water. But he also believes that some children are more capable than others of learning to swim at an early age.
"Many parents think that if they take their child to a drown-proofing swim class, the child will be safe," says Harmer.
"Drown-proofing is a bad term. To teach a child as young as 9 months old or younger to swim is fine as long as they are taught the proper fundamentals of swimming, floating and having fun."
Over the years, Harmer's experiences poolside began to reflect a change in society's belief that it was best to get kids swimming young, the younger the better.
"When I first started out teaching, there weren't many programs where children as young as 9 months could learn to swim," says Harmer.
"Teaching them that young takes a lot of patience, and the problems I saw were when the parents would think their kids could swim because they had experience in the family pool.
"Kids at a young age don't have good judgment. They'll swim out to deeper water where they can't swim back and that's when they get into trouble. I always told the parents they would always need to keep an eye on the child."
Harmer says when he reads about a child who has drowned, he tries to analyze the situation and usually finds the parent has a false impression of the child's ability.
"A lot of times a parent will enroll their child in swim lessons and then over-estimate the child's swimming ability," Harmer says. "But in reality, the child may have hardly spent any time in the pool at all."
Although he chose swimming as his means, his end for his pupils was education of a different sort.
"I was interested in developing self-discipline and character in those kids," he said.
"I wanted those kids to accomplish what they said they would. I wanted them to learn how important it was to carry out the job until it's finished. Back then, I realized this kind of lesson takes years to sink in. But I also knew that this was a value that would carry those kids throughout their entire lives."
Harmer not only taught children to swim and dive when they were small, but as they grew older, he coached them to earn several hundred state swimming and diving records even though he coached only in his "spare time." He taught physiology at Boca Ciega High School for 28 years.
With Florida ranking among the highest in drowning deaths, Harmer knew it was essential for children to learn to swim. He used whatever worked.
"I threw coins onto the bottom step of the pool," says Harmer. "The child would have to put his head under water to grab the money."
Harmer also used a bamboo pole to guide the swimmer's direction and to gauge the height of the splash. "A good kick is essential to any good swimmer."
For many of Harmer's students, the rite of passage from land to water was a milestone still remembered.
"When I was 5, Bill would make me jump off the high dive into the deep end as part of my swimming lessons," says Anne Emnett, 41, a graduate of Harmer.
"I remember he would touch my back with the bamboo pole, and I was so afraid because the water seemed so deep. I just knew I was going to sink like a rock. Bill guided me along and persuaded me to take the leap. A lot of things I don't remember from my childhood, but learning to swim with Bill Harmer is one thing I will never forget."
The kids of today are not so different, Harmer says.
"If there's a problem with today's kids, I think it's a lack of parental supervision," says Harmer. "I believe today's kids need to become involved in more activities -- I don't care where it comes from -- organized sports or after school clubs, wherever, just so that the kids are involved in daily activities. It's important for these kids to have positive influences in their lives, and these are the kinds of places where kids can look up to the adults in charge."
Patty Chase Conolly, 42, became a member of Harmer's swim team by the time she was 10 and continues to swim today. She attributes her love of the sport to Harmer's strict coaching style that began so long ago.
"Bill always made us feel like we were all a big family," says Conolly. "I practically lived at the pool, and I can still hear him say: "You can't win in swim meets by swimming slow in practice.' It was his motto. He worked us hard, but we loved it when we won, and we won a lot!"
Conolly competes in triathlete races and considers her strength to be in the swimming leg of the competitions.
Laura Kaleel learned to swim under Harmer's tutelage at age 2 and by the time she was 4, she was a member of his swim team.
"Bill worked us very hard," says Kaleel, 39. "When I was 9, we were competing against a team in Clearwater, and I thought I had broken my finger on the side of the starting block.
"Instead of letting me sit out of the race, Bill made me swim with a taped hand. I really learned a lesson that day: self-discipline. It is something I still believe in today. At the time, I was too scared to try to talk him out of making me swim, but today, that determination is part of my nature."
As a child growing up in Lynn, Mass., Harmer discovered the YMCA at an early age and it was there that he found his love not only for swimming and diving but also for gymnastics, soccer, karate and track. Before long, the other coaches noticed he was a natural athlete and they began to take a special interest in the young jock. By age 14, Harmer had been appointed director of the YMCA's physical education department.
"That experience was one of the best I ever had, because I really looked up to these older guys, and they taught me a lot about treating everyone equally and fair. I've carried what I learned there with me through the years," he said.
"No one was treated better or worse because of their background."
In early 1953, the Lakewood Country Club swimming pool had just been built and Harmer was hired as director of pool activities. Initially, his primary duties were to teach swimming lessons but as his students began to grow into strong, young swimmers, the idea for a swim team evolved, and Harmer was asked to be the coach.
"Parents would come to me and say, "You have taught our daughter to swim so well so fast,' " says Harmer. "And I always believed that it really was just good parenting and parents who supported their children's interest in the sport. That is what made these kids such strong swimmers and quick learners."
Today, as a resident of Coquina Key Arms south, Harmer says he has had many requests to teach second and third generations of his original students, but he prefers to spend time with his six grandchildren.
As a swim coach, Harmer worked hard to teach the kids something beyond winning.
"The hardest part of my job was to teach these kids how to be good sports," he says.
"I wanted them to realize that being a good sport was far more important than winning. This was a lesson that had to do with discipline and good behavior. I felt it was very important for them later on in life.
"What I found out was that I had very devoted swimmers who showed me that devotion and it felt wonderful."