After 33 years on the coaching staff at Mainland Regional High School in Linwood, New Jersey, head swim coach Brian Booth will retire following the conclusion of this season, marking the end of a legendary career that included five boys state championship-winning teams.
Out of the last 33 seasons at Mainland Regional, the last 29 have been spent as head coach of the boys swimming team. A graduate of Mainland in 1989, Booth’s career record as a head coach sits at 316-71, with 12 sectional titles and five state titles in that span.
His swimmers also accumulated major accolades, including 24 individual state championship titles, 28 All-American honors, and 10 national records. Some of the key swimmers under Booth were Destin Lasco (Cal), Justin Liu (MIT), and Brian McGroarty (LSU).
Between 2016 and 2019, Booth’s Mainland Regional High School team won four straight state championship titles. In an article from the Ocean City Sentinel, Booth credits the swimmers on those teams, saying he was “blessed for those four years in a row to have some of the best kids in the state swimming, all right here. So I give them the credit more than I would ever give myself credit.”
“We kind of came out of nowhere, and we won a state title. It kind of really started setting in motion what we could do in the future. And really since then, we’ve had a great run,” Booth said when talking about his 2003 state championship team in an article from Ocean City Sentinel. “We’ve not won every year, obviously, but I’d like to think that we’re always in the conversation of teams that people say, ‘Hey, if we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to get by Mainland.’
Booth’s retirement will become official in March, as he plans to step away to care for his father, who has dementia.
In addition to his time at Mainland as a coach, he is an educator in the school’s physical education department.
Booth’s Mainland boys fell to Chatham in the NJSIAA Group B Semifinals on February 18, putting an end to Booth’s legendary tenure with the program.
