Radnor swim coach Tom Robinson closes in on 300th win

An onlooker can get a fine introduction to the last three decades of Radnor High boys' swimming from the banner hanging above its swimming pool.

For everything else, Tom Robinson is the man to see.

For how many District 1 and Central League titles Radnor has won since Robinson became coach in 1984 (10 and six, respectively), consult the banner. Same for when the Raiders won the state championship (2002) and when they placed second (2003 and 2006).

But a banner can only say so much. It lacks sufficient room to list the 267 times a swimmer qualified for states under Robinson. Or his 41 all-Americans. Or each of the 299 dual meets he's won.

Weather permitting, Robinson (299-72-2) will go for his 300th dual-meet victory Tuesday when Radnor hosts Penncrest.

The 2002 state championship sticks out in Robinson's mind as especially improbable. The Raiders were tied late with Shady Side Academy and were heavy underdogs entering the final events.

"Bottom of the ninth," Robinson said. "Bases loaded. Tie score in the World Series. 3-2 count. That's the kind of situation we were in."

Then Kevin Scott swam the best 100 meters of his life and Radnor shocked the state. While Robinson still considers it the greatest moment of his coaching life, he said it had little to do with coaching at all. "That was just talent," he said.

But someone needs to guide and track all that talent. And even at 70, few have a better mind for the job than Robinson, who was a 40-year-old track coach at Chichester and coached swimming in the summers before he took the job at Radnor, which had been a swimming power in the 1970s.

Robinson said that when you spend so many years learning swimmers' names and memorizing qualifying times, an impeccable memory becomes a side effect of the job.

He can clearly see what the pool looked like a quarter of a century ago, back when the girls' team still hung posters, and they unfurled a giant one that read "Back on the Map" as the Raiders earned Robinson's first Central League title in 1989.

He remembers when the posters were put away for good a few years later, after an opponent complained that it was bad form for a team to celebrate the fact that it was "Miller Time."

"They misinterpreted the sign," Robinson said. "We had two swimmers named Miller on the team."

There was a fallow period in the '90s, as low numbers in the Radnor Aquatic Club cut the varsity roster to 14 swimmers. Robinson took over the feeder program in 1996, doubled its enrollment, and shepherded a second resurgence.

The rise of social media is the biggest change he has seen. Luckily, kids can't bring cellphones into the pool. Besides, Robinson said, "good kids don't change."

Maybe, but school administrators do. Radnor, which is 8-0 this season, had a meet postponed last Wednesday before snow even started to fall. This proactive approach is a modern phenomenon.

"If you're alive and you can make it, you're here," Robinson said of the old attitude. Even when schools were closed, his teams practiced.

One year, a Radnor swimmer, and budding artist, drew a picture of the coach down in a bunker, calling everyone in to swim. They hung it up in the locker room. Robinson laughed heartily recalling the piece. He still loves his job, although now he considers it a year-to-year proposition. The final decision is out of his hands.

"That's going to depend on my wife," he said.

When the time comes, the coach will leave the pool and take his memories with him. The banner will stay behind.