Troy Rescued UF Swimming

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Unless you're a truly hardcore follower of the University of Florida swim program, the following names may not mean much to you.

Sara McLarty. Duncan Sherrard. Chris Kellam. Nathan Summers.

McLarty was a 15-time All-American and four-time Southeastern Conference champion. Sherrard was a 14- and three-timer, respectively. Kellam, with two league titles, holds the seventh-fastest time by a Gator in the 200 backstroke. Summers remains the 10th best in the 50 free and 100 free.

Not too shabby, but why in the world of Caeleb Dressel are they relevant today?

"They showed us we could get it done," Gregg Troy said. "Those were some of athletes who made a commitment, had the work ethic and laid the groundwork for the future."

2012 US Olympic coach Gregg Troy at the podium.

Troy, 67, announced Wednesday he is stepping down as Florida's swim coach, a post he's held on the women's side since 1998, and with the men since '99, making him one of just nine coaches in UF's storied athletic history to oversee a sport for more than 20 years. His Hall-of-Fame resume — too long to do justice here — includes one team national championship, 43 NCAA individual champions, 1,145 All-America honors, 10 SEC men's titles, two women's league titles, and 47 Olympians, as well as a stint as the U.S. Olympic head coach.

"Some of the world's best athletes came to Gainesville to learn under his direction," UF athletic director Scott Stricklin said.

And yet, the relatively obscure aforementioned names — McLarty, Sherrard, Kellam and Summers — were among the ones that came to mind when Troy was asked to reflect on the time, nearly two decades ago, when he first started rebuilding the Gators. Troy arrived (with a hint of trepidation, mind you) from The Bolles School in Jacksonville, where he oversaw one of the most powerful international swimming dynasties ever assembled. His prep teams there, frankly, were better than the collegiate ones here. Hard to believe?

Let's review.

Five years before Troy came to UF, the women's program had endured an harassment scandal under then-coach Mitch Ivey. He was replaced by New Jersey prep club coach Chris Martin, who after four seasons of mediocrity left, giving way to the promotion of assistant Kevin Thornton. In Thornton's two seasons, UF went 14-10 in dual meets after losing just 10 dual meets the previous 20 years combined. Thornton's teams finished 20th and 15th at the NCAA Championships, the two worst showings in school history to that point. The last two men's teams coached by Troy predecessor Ron Ballatore finished 26th and 17th, also the two worst.

The dominating days of Randy Reese, Tracy Caulkins and Dara Torres were distant memories.

"I became athletic director in '92, and sometime the next year I tried to make Gregg Troy my very first hire. I played the negotiating game and lost. He turned me down," former AD Jeremy Foley recalled. "To be honest, I didn't know what I was doing. The next time I went calling on him, Gregg had incredible leverage on me."

And he inherited, candidly, an incredible mess.

Troy commuted 90 minutes daily from Jacksonville during his first year and oftentimes spent the drive wondering if he'd made a mistake in taking on the Florida job. He had carved out quite a niche in the national (and international) swimming community, having been chosen as the U.S. head coach for the 1998 World Championships.

In his first season, one student-athlete left the team, having actually told one of Troy's assistants she had made a mistake choosing Florida. She thought her time with the Gators would be "a little more recreational."

Once Troy began bringing in his recruits — and subjecting them to his rigorous, demanding program — results started to change.

Gregg Troy holds up the trophy from winning the women's meet at the 2010 NCAA Championships.

In his first season, the UF women finished fourth at the SEC meet and eighth at NCAAs. They won the league in 2002, and the program's first national championship in 28 years in 2010, despite sending just 12 swimmers to the meet (for context, 2018 champion Stanford needed 18 to win it all). Troy's first men's team placed second at the conference meet and ninth at nationals, then in '02 began a run of 11 straight runner-up finishes to juggernaut Auburn — with a guy from Daytona Beach named Ryan Lochte doing some heavy UF lifting along the way — before starting a string in 2013 of six straight SEC crowns.

That streak of titles began the spring after Troy was positioned poolside in London when his U.S. team won a record 31 medals, including 16 golds as the likes of Michael Phelps and Lochte dominated the competition.

An exclamation point to his career, perhaps?

"It's not something I planned on," Troy said of the honor of taking the Olympic reigns. "But I would tell anyone who asked that the explanation point of my career are the notes and emails you get from people who swam for you 10 or 20 years ago, saying how successful they've become in life and how important their swimming experience at Florida was in setting themselves up for their careers and families. That may not be the athletic answer, but that's reality. I think that's something that's missed in athletics."

It won't be something he'll miss in retirement, however, because those notes and emails will keep coming. In return, Troy forever will be indebted to both Foley, for giving him the opportunity and means for success, and Stricklin for his support the last two years. The Gators, in turn, will be forever indebted to him.

Now, it's time to spend more time with wife Kathleen and their three adult sons.

He won't miss coaching, either.

While Troy is stepping away from the Gators, he'll maintain his ties to the Gator Swim Club and its high-performance end which will include coaching (among others) both Lochte and Dressel, the two-time NCAA Male Swimmer of the Year, in their preparation for the 2018 Summer Games in Tokyo. It was just last month that Dressel had an historic performance at the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis, winning three individual titles, plus a relay, and running his career total of All-America honors to a school-record 28.

Caeleb Dressel (left), the two-time NCAA Male Swimmer of the Year, consults with Coach Gregg Troy during the national-championship meet last month in Minneapolis.

Not a bad meet to go out on, Coach.

"Yes, it would be hard to beat that one," Troy said.

Maybe being poolside with Dressel in Tokyo will give it a run for the money. The coach has plenty more to provide the sport (and program) he loves. The one he rescued from a period of irrelevance 20 years ago.

"I look forward to seeing some Gators doing great things there," he said. "The great Gator tradition will continue."

Because Gregg Troy brought it back.

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