George McGinness: Franklin & Marshall's Coach's Coach

by Mark Stuart Ellison '82

Chances are, you don't know George McGinness. He isn't famous, yet he is a great man. George was my swimming coach at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for one season. Nearly 30 years later, I had the pleasure of seeing him honored at the College's "Celebration of Swimming Dinner" along with several hundred past and present swimmers.

The dinner was held at Franklin & Marshall's Kunkel Aquatic Center at 6 pm on Saturday, October 11, 2008. The Aquatic Center houses the McGinness Pool, named after George, age 94. At 5 pm, there was a reception on the pool deck, where people mingled while vintage still footage of past swimming events appeared on two video screens at opposite ends of the facility.

I had last seen George in the fall of 2005, when I had my first book signing at the local Barnes & Noble. After I sold out and sampled F&M's new, state-of-the-art pool, George and his wife Dorothy took me out to dinner. I hadn't seen George in twenty-five years, but the conversation flowed as if I had hardly been away.

When I returned to Lancaster in 2006 and 2007, I tried to see my coach again, but on one occasion he wasn't feeling well, and on another he had gotten into a car accident. When I heard about this year's dinner, I knew that I had to attend. I didn't know when I'd be able to see George again.

I wasn't one of his top swimmers. At best, I might have been in the upper 40 percent of a team of about twenty-five people. Nor did I have an exceptionally close relationship with George. But he had a rare ability to make everyone around him feel special. He still does.

At 91, he was still driving and good at it. During that night in 2005, George found a particularly efficient route back to my hotel. He probably got me there in about half the time that it would have taken Lancaster's pricey hacks. George had recently undergone knee replacement surgery and complained of poor balance, but I detected no unsteadiness in his gait. Thus I was initially disheartened when I saw him arrive in a wheelchair at the dinner three years later. But my spirits brightened when I saw that his ready smile and easy manner were undiminished, and that there was still a twinkle in his blue eyes.

After nearly four years of service as a navy lieutenant during World War II, George McGinness arrived at Franklin & Marshall College to teach physical education and coach. During his 33 years as a faculty member--from 1946 to 1979--he coached almost every competitive sport on campus, including swimming, soccer, track, golf, and football. He also served for thirty-six years as a borough councilman in Columbia, a suburb of Lancaster, and for four years on Columbia's school board.

When a group of current female F&M swimmers in hot evening gowns surrounded him, George quipped, "In 62 years of marriage, I've never been unfaithful, and I'm not going to change now."

A keynote speaker, Jim Lemonick, a former swim team captain and 1980 F&M graduate, described how George McGinness convinced him to continue swimming by not pressuring him to do so. "I came from a very high-powered high school swimming program, and by the time I got to F&M, I was sick of it," said Lemonick. "George sat me down and said that if I ever came to a workout behind in my studies, he'd rail me. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to stay."

In a video played during the dinner, a colleague described how George stepped up to become golf coach when that position unexpectedly became vacant. Although he knew little about golf at the time, George admirably managed his new charges.

For the first 27 years of his coaching career at Franklin & Marshall, George McGinness coached only male swimmers. But in 1973, the swimming team became co-educational. Although at first reluctant to train female swimmers, he did so in innovative ways. George was one of the first coaches in the region to run co-educational swimming workouts. It was a long day. "I ran swimming workouts from 5 to 7 pm, and I had diving from 7 to 9," he said during a telephone conversation on October 17, 2008.

In 1979, at age 65, a disappointed George McGinness complied with Franklin & Marshall's compulsory retirement rule. This development created uncharacteristic bitterness among swim team members.

I'm not sure if time heals all wounds, but it certainly lessens them. During our telephone conversation on October 17, George was all sunshine. "I made such wonderful friends," he opined, reflecting on the hundreds of swimmers he's coached. "It's a joy for me to see them in prominent positions."

I was a competitive swimmer from age seven to twenty and swam for seven coaches besides George McGinness. I only swam for George for one season, but he made more of an impression upon me than all of my other coaches combined.

George was not my most technically knowledgeable coach. According to Franklin & Marshall men's and women's swimming statistics, his win-loss records are about average for F&M swimming coaches over the last 35 years. Nor did he have the most colorful style. But George McGinness had something better: the ability to make people comfortable with him and each other. My season with George was the most peaceful of my swimming career.

Everyone knew that he or she had a place on George's team. There were few personality conflicts, and those that arose were quickly resolved.

There was also plenty of camaraderie. I vividly remember one overnight swimming trip when I roomed with teammates Ed Laurie and Neal Neuman. Ed launched into a bawdy Johnny Carson routine, while I played sidekick McMahon. The three of us belly-laughed ourselves to sleep. It was great fun.

George was the only coach I ever contacted after I stopped swimming competitively. I didn't dislike the others; I just had no desire to see them.

One reason that the team got along so well was George's even-handedness. Like any good coach, he did his best to win, but he also bent over backwards to enter everyone in as many races as possible. If two swimmers had roughly equal ability in a given event, he'd swim them equally. This philosophy was not shared by his immediate successor, whose demeanor resulted in considerable intra-team friction and caused me to stop swimming after my sophomore year.

George McGinness was eager to put his swimmers up against the best NCAA Division 3 competition, including Yale, Army, and Navy. In the video played at the dinner, and during our telephone conversation, George described a slow but "faithful practitioner" named Fitzpatrick, whom he coached many years ago. When Franklin & Marshall swam against Yale, George decided to "take Fitzpatrick along" and race him against a national champion. According to George, Fitzpatrick entered the pool in a Mohawk haircut. He was still swimming long after the champion had finished drying off and was seated comfortably on deck. "But Fitz never forgot it," George noted. "He was so grateful."

A similar incident occurred when Franklin & Marshall swam against one of Army's top teams. George entered another weak but soulful swimmer, Charlie Baile, against another champion. The result was the same.

"I'll never forget the joy Charlie and Fitz had when they came home," said George. "Neither of them ever missed a practice."

At the end of the dinner, about 100 people lined up to speak to George, some of whom had never seen him before. He said something personal to each of them. George was still able to make everyone feel special.

The Celebration of Swimming had a surreal quality. I felt like an audience member during the ceremonial scenes at the end of "Edison, The Man" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," when revered figures were being feted by generations of admirers. George McGinness isn't a brilliant scientist or scholar, but he exuded an air of down-to-earth greatness in that dinner hall. You'd have to have a heart of granite to be unmoved by it.

In his nearly three-and-a-half decades of coaching at Franklin & Marshall, George McGinness profoundly touched the lives of many athletes. I consider myself fortunate to be one of them.