John Campbell has set youth age-group records, swam competitively at the university level and coached national record-holders and Commonwealth Games swimmers.
Not bad for a guy who was forced to start swimming by being thrown into the ocean when he was 10 years old.
“I was petrified of the water,” Campbell, now 63, said of his late start in the sport. “It was very embarrassing; all my friends could swim.”
For the past 16 years, Campbell has made friends and high-level competitors out of young swimmers at Ravensong Aquatic Centre, and now he is stepping down as head coach of the Ravensong Breakers Swim Club. Campbell, 63, will begin his retirement on board his Vancouver Twin 7 sailboat, sailing back to the place it all began.
Born in Vancouver, Campbell had moved to the Bahamas as a youth with his blended, sailing family. While he loved being on the water, the youngster wanted no part of being in it.
“We sailed a lot, and I think the family just got tired of towing little Johnny to shore,” Campbell said. “One day my stepfather decided he had had enough of this. He literally threw me in the water.”
And created a monster.
The following week, Campbell joined the local swimming club. One year later, he was setting Central American age group records at the 10-under level. Upon returning to Vancouver to live with his father at age 14, he joined the high-powered Canadian Dolphins Swim Club, where he trained under multiple-time Canadian Olympic Team coach Derek Snelling.
Campbell later moved on to the University of British Columbia swimming team, and it was during his university years he began coaching swimming, including a stint working with U.S. Olympic coach Bill Rose with the Hyak Swim Club of New Westminster.
“I was fortunate to have really great mentorship,” Campbell said.
That high-calibre approach to competitive swimming has been instilled in the Breakers program, a small but well-decorated club Campbell has dubbed “the little team that could.”
It almost never came to pass. After coaching stints in Cambridge, Ont., and Regina, Sask., Campbell married his wife, Robyn, accepted a job offer from the Nanaimo Riptides club, and relocated to Vancouver Island.
But he eventually soured on the Nanaimo club and resigned, feeling its goals did not mesh with his own coaching style and ambitions for the club.
“I always strived for excellence, and think our results are a testament to that,” he said.
While he received job offers, including offers from clubs in Toronto and Montreal, Campbell had settled on a one-acre, beachfront property in Nanoose Bay and begun his young family.
“I’m thinking, ‘Why leave this?” he said.
Instead, he got into real estate and, other than occasionally assisting a swim program when it needed fill-in help, left the profession.
In 2000, the Breakers’ previous coach left the job and suggested to the board of directors that it offer the position to Campbell. He immediately said no, unwilling to repeat his Nanaimo experience. But he was talked into discussing the position after speaking with Robyn.
“She said, ‘You never left coaching on your own terms. Why don’t you help them out?’ So I helped for 16 years, and now they’ve finally hired a coach,” he joked.
Intent on training top-performing athletes, Campbell said he grilled the board during his interview. When he asked members what the club’s mission statement said, he learned it did not even have one.
“I said, ‘Well, we need to say what it is,’” Campbell said. “Now the first line of the mission statement is ‘Ravensong Aquatics is a competitive swim club.’”
He will be succeeded when the club begins workouts for the upcoming season on Sept. 12 by Byron Trajan, a mid-Island resident who most recently has coached in Nanaimo. Campbell said the club received 18 applications for the position, and he recommended it select somebody connected to the community.
“I’ve put too much into this to see somebody come in for a couple years to make their name with these kids, then move on. Byron is me at (age) 35.”
Campbell’s recent going-away party drew nearly 200 well-wishers, including current and former swimmers and parents.
“It was so neat; some of my early swimmers were here with their kids.”
