Swimming icon

At the end of every school day at St. Charles East, Dave Bart heads to the swimming pool, a place that has been his coaching home for the better part of three decades.

But on the way, the Saints long-time head coach and current boys assistant coach, sometimes shoots a glance to the loading school buses -- and doesn't really like what he sees.

"I look at the number of kids who leave school and get on the bus and go home and do nothing, and I think it's sad," Bart said.

Bart is an ardent salesman for swimming. In the years he wasn't on-deck, he was the most knowledgeable person in the stands. Teamed with Joe Cabel in the area's coaching Dream Team, the Saints have a superb tandem on-deck daily, whether in practice or at meets.

And he certainly knows what makes a swimmer successful.

"You have to live it," Bart said. "There are sports where you practice and play and there are sports where you train and compete. We're probably the epitome of the training and competing. We're masochistic, sadistic and those other 'distics.' We're probably the most overtrained sport out there."

One of Bart's trademarks was to find students in whom he saw swimming potential. He still swells the roster in this manner, but it's not as easy as it was.

"Society's changing and kids are changing," Bart said. "I see so many kids that don't do anything. I see more kids who want to play video games and all that stuff and then don't want to be in a sport. Numbers are down, and it's not just us. It's all over."

Bart never sugar-coated how difficult a sport swimming was -- and is. However, he always sold the incredibly tough sport in the most positive way possible.

"We swim 5 hours a day," Bart said. "We have 22 hours of practice a week. We invented morning practice. We're not going to lie to them. It's hard."

But, Bart would be first in line to affirm the validity of the line from A League of Their Own: "It's the hard that makes it great."

At the same time, he's finding more kids to whom that challenge no longer appeals.

"It's different," Bart said. "It used to be that you could tell a kid that they had some skills and they'd go 'Yeah, great!'" I've told kids that they had skills for other sports too. I've told them to go out for soccer or track. There are still kids out there waiting for someone to turn them on to something. But there are more now who say, 'I heard that's really difficult to do.'"

For a sport that has 22 weekly hours of practice, turning around that attitude can sometimes be insurmountable.

"Everybody wants to play," Bart said. "Practice is hard. Our practices are hard. But especially in this sport, if you don't practice, you won't get it done. I tell them that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is if you do the extra."

Bart has some first-time swimmers, recruited from gym class. And he said that some of these newcomers have the potential to be good swimmers. The first step, the first hurdle crossed, is that they want to put in the work.

"They see that there's no excuses," Bart said. "They see that you have to work hard."

It's not all doom and gloom in Bart's eyes. The future, he thinks, is actually quite bright -- both for swimming and for athletics in general.

"The age-group level here is as strong as ever," Bart said. "We have a lot more parents thinking about their kids doing exercise. We're more educated about how the rate of obesity we have is kind of sad."

High school athletics still works on a pyramid philosophy with regard to participation. Much like minor league baseball, an abundance of lower-level athletes competing and improving and vying for roster spots will eventually produce top-echelon athletes at the highest level.

"It's always been a numbers game," Bart said.

Another aspect that is almost certain to boost swimming's participation later this year when the Beijing Olympics take place. With stars such as Michael Phelps, the U.S. team will enter the pool as one of the best, and no matter what their medal haul, the end result will be positive.

"Olympic years are always the biggest years for swimming," Bart said. "The sport gets seen then like it never does in the other years. It's their one time that they get to shine, get on TV and everything."

None of that happens if the potential swimmer leaves school and gets straight on that bus.

"I always tell kids in class, 'Do something,'" Bart said. "Don't waste high school. You've got to do something. There's a lot of kids, not just in swimming, who can go and try."