SWIMMING NEWS - Jack Bauerle, head coach of the University of Georgia swim teams, is one of a kind. He cares about his swimmers as if they were his own kids. Bauerle constantly shows that he cares by asking how they are doing, how classes are going, and how their families are doing.
Bauerle is more than just a coach. He has become a father figure for many people as they are going through college both academically and athletically. He is amazing at remembering names and time; he is like a walking encyclopedia. There is likely not a person who has met Bauerle who doesn’t like him as a person.
He is an avid sports fan, particularly Philadelphia sports, and loves to talk sports. He also enjoys playing tennis and surfing when he gets the chance.
You are originally from Pennsylvania, so why Athens? Why did you come here in the first place?
I’ll tell you what, to say I had a great recruiting trip is a understatement. And I think a little bit of it was the recruiting trip I had beforehand sort of shook me to my feet. It was 1970 in the spring. I just had a good trip, enjoyed the people. I never thought I was going to come here in a million years; it was just another recruiting trip for me.
I just had a good mix with all the people that were here. At one other school that I was very interested in we had a sort of unusual trip because it was during the Vietnam War protest time. And I was on a campus of a major school that I really liked an awful lot and I was in a position where something happened on campus: a rock was thrown through a library window.
And next thing you know I’m one yard away from National Guards where they put a round of ammunition on them with the bayonet on and that sort of changed my feel for that school. Right or wrong that’s just the way it was and I came down here.
I guess the biggest thing was as attached as I was and still am to where I was from, I love the Philadelphia area, and am avid pro fan and remain so, for me I thought to grow I needed to go somewhere else. I think the irony of it was I had other friends that swam, one went to Penn and one went to Ohio State, if we thought any one was going to stay, everyone thought it was probably going to be me because I just love being around.
