Former Boulder City-Henderson Heatwave Swim Team head coach Bob Swift died last Thursday, December 14, four months after suffering a major heart attack. He was 72-years old.
Swift was a fixture in the Nevada swimming team, beginning his coaching career with the Las Vegas Sandpipers in the early 1980’s, before going on to coach with the famed Las Vegas Gold Swim Team where famed coaching names like David Marsh and Bob Bowman have also made stops.
Swift’s longest tenure in coaching, and biggest impact, came with the Boulder City-Henderson Heatwave Swim Team, where he worked for 30 years. Among his most famous pupils there was American-record breaker Zane Grothe, who credits Swift for extending his swimming career past middle school.
“Without Bob I probably would not have had a swimming career past junior high,” Grothe said. “I wanted to quit swimming when I was going through puberty. I couldn’t keep up and wasn’t making any progress anymore.
“Rather than quitting I joined Bob’s group for the summer between junior high and high school, and between that man and the culture he cultivated in his group, I fell in love with the sport again. I don’t know if I’ve ever had as much fun swimming as I did that summer.
“My club team used to work the aid stations when Bob would compete in the Silverman Iron Man triathlon locally. Bob was an amazing coach and an even better human being. He will be missed dearly.”
Silverman was an active triathlete, competing in 5 Silverman half-ironman triathlons in Henderson as well as others triathlons around the world.
He came to swimming via a circuitous route. Swift ran track at Menlo-Atherton High School, and at BYU he studied physical education. There he met Olympic gold medalist Mike Burton and enrolled in Burton’s swimming class, falling in love with the sport.
Burton taught Swift how to swim butterfly and, as the story goes, called him a fish because he was the only PE major who could swim.
He then competed in Masters meets after graduation and worked as a lifeguard at a gym in Salt Lake City, eventually creating a swim team for the facility.
He also spent 16 years as the coach of the Green Valley High School swim team, which placed in the top 3 at the state championship meet in every year he led the program.
Swift and his wife Carla met while students at BYU. They were married on January 2, 1974 and together raised 6 children and 27 grandchildren. Besides coaching swimming, Swift taught at the Variety School in the Clark County School District. Variety is a school that specializes in teaching children with moderate to severe physical and mental disabilities.
Swift’s legacy at BCH lives on via his son, Ryan, who is an age group coach with the program.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking people to donate to Special Olympics or Opportunity Village:
Fly high Bob Swift