Swimming Notebook: Back to the pool, this time as coach of his alma mater
Sean Flaherty, who still holds a state swimming record, has Scarborough off to a quick start.
By GLENN JORDAN, Staff Writer January 7, 2010

From the Portland Press Herald, January 7th 2010

Last February, Sean Flaherty snuck away from his work in the state Legislature in Augusta to watch the state swimming championships at Bowdoin College. The meet program still included his name, listing the state record of 1 minute, 55.96 seconds he swam in the 200-yard individual medley as a Scarborough High junior in 2002.

“It brought me back, certainly,” he said. “I’d never seen it from the stands before. It was exciting.”

This year Flaherty will be back at Bowdoin in February, this time on the pool deck as first-year coach of his old high school team. He took over the boys’ and girls’ programs at Scarborough after Bill Stone – Flaherty’s first swim coach as an 8-year-old with Coastal Maine Aquatics – stepped down.

With help from an influx of CMA swimmers, the Red Storm girls and boys are off to unbeaten starts in top-heavy schedules that included December meets with perennial powers Cape Elizabeth and Cheverus.

“We’ve had a tremendous start,” said Flaherty, whose team beat the Cape Elizabeth boys by eight points in a tri-meet and Cheverus by seven (boys) and five (girls) in a dual meet. “I knew we had some talent but they are above and beyond what we expected. We’re getting contributions up and down the lineup.”

Upon graduation from Scarborough in 2003, Flaherty continued his swimming career on scholarship at George Washington University, where he majored in history and political science. He stayed in Washington after graduation, helped coach a swim club in Arlington, Va., and returned to Maine in early 2008. That fall he ran a successful campaign for a seat in the state Legislature, representing eastern and southern Scarborough.

He’ll be in Augusta today for the start of the next session.

“It’s certainly going to be a little bit hectic,” Flaherty said of the travel. “But the Legislature is kind of like a diesel engine. It revs up slowly. There will be more work days as the session gets going.”

He said the swim season will be winding down just as his legislative work begins to heat up, allowing him to do both. Meantime, he and assistant coach Maureen Baxter, who swam at Gardiner High while Flaherty was competing for Scarborough, are juggling two practices a day, often at different locations, because Scarborough has no pool and uses three facilities in Portland.

“I won’t say it’s been seamless but it’s been good,” said Flaherty, who also coaches at CMA, but not during the high school season and only with swimmers in grade 8 and younger. “It’s an interesting balance.”

Other than working with the swimmers, Flaherty said one of the best aspects of his return has been reconnecting with officials and coaches.

“The swimming community is small and it’s a tight group,” he said.

As for his state record in the IM, he thinks it won’t last much longer. The only question now, he said, is who will take it first: James Wells of Morse or Robby Gravel of Scarborough. Both have landed scholarships, Wells at Indiana, Gravel at La Salle.

FLAHERTY ISN’T the only comeback story. Windham is in a resurgence under former South Portland coach Pete Small. This is the fourth season since the school reinstated the program after more than 30 years.

The boys have won their first five meets, including a 50-44 victory over Class B stalwart Greely, and the girls are 3-2.

“We have a couple of kids who swim on clubs, but the majority are high school swimmers,” said Small, a history teacher at Windham who took over a fledgling middle school program four years ago when the current seniors were in eighth grade. Now the program boasts 20 boys and 25 girls.

Windham swims at nearby St. Joseph’s College, and has seen school records set by several swimmers, including Nathan Paluso (200 free, 200 IM), Nick Sundquist (100 butterfly) and Lance Webster (500 free). Sophomore Elaine Miller has set school records in the four freestyle events as well as the 100 backstroke.

Greely Coach Rob Hale, a bit of a historian himself, presented Small with records showing Windham’s 10 Cumberland County Conference championships between 1920 and 1950.

“It’s neat to say there’s a tradition, there is a history,” Small said. “It would be nice to resurrect that.”

A significant first step was beating Greely, an achievement made possible, Small acknowledged, by Greely’s four-lane pool, which negated the home team’s advantage in depth.

“In a six-lane pool,” Small said, “we would have trouble beating them.”

Windham’s next major goal is to contend for the South Southwesterns title in Westbrook in February. With a summer program already in place, the future appears bright.

“There’s huge community support for swimming here,” Small said. “We’ve added Greely and Cheverus to our dual-meet schedule because we want that exposure to the top teams.”

MEETS OF THE WEEK: Cheverus at Greely boys tonight and Falmouth at Cape Elizabeth girls Friday. Divers will get their first opportunity at an 11-dive meet Saturday at the second Falmouth Diving Invitational at Bowdoin College. Twenty divers from six schools – Greely, Deering, Belfast, Brunswick, Mt. Ararat and host Falmouth – are scheduled to take part. In addition to Wells and Gravel, local seniors expected to continue their swimming careers in college are Falmouth’s Adrianne Madden (Wheaton) and Cape Elizabeth’s Zach Gavin (Swarthmore) and Chris Makrides (Bates).