By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
Men’s and women’s head swimming coach John Taffe has been one of longest tenured members of the Springfield College community. Currently wrapping up his 35th year as the head coach, Taffe has greatly impacted numerous student athletes and has maintained the success of the program, being one of the best Division III swimming and diving programs in the country.
However, his 35th year will also be his last on Alden Street.
At the end of the academic year on Tuesday, May 7, Taffe’s time at Springfield College will come to an end, retiring from coaching the sport he has come to love.
In his three and a half decades coaching, Taffe has helped a total of 176 swimmers from the men’s and women’s teams combined collect NCAA All-American honors and is a 10-time NEWMAC Coach of the Year. He’s also played a huge role in bringing 11 conference championships to the school, with an incredible run of 10 straight for the women’s program. On top of it all, he’s worked very closely with many Olympians and Paralympians, and served as the head coach for the Netherlands-Antilles swim team at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, Australia.
Taffe’s love of swimming dates back to his early years, where he spent hours in the pool at his local YMCA in Haverhill, Mass.
The coaching aspect however, came a little bit later down the line. After swimming for four years at the University of Rhode Island, Taffe helped the team out in his fifth year while he was finishing his degree. This is what sparked his interest in coaching.
“I was like a lot of folks back in the 1980s when you graduated college you didn’t really know what you were going to do,” Taffe said. “My former coach allowed me to help out and then he helped me from that point forward getting involved in the college level.”
After finishing up his undergraduate degree at URI, Taffe went to Eastern Carolina to obtain his masters. During that time, he also served as the head women’s swim coach at East Carolina. Following that stop, he then went to the University of Mount Union in Ohio, taking the position of head men’s and women’s swim coach. After his first year at Mount Union, Taffe headed back for his second year in August of 1989, but things quickly changed after he left to head back to school.
Back then, Springfield had two head coaches, one for the men’s and one for the womens. Well, neither returned for the 1989-90 academic year.
“That [the coaching change] wasn’t decided here until late August,” Taffe said. “In a matter of days I sent my stuff in. I flew out here in one day and I was offered the job the day before the semester started in the fall of 1989. I didn’t make the people at Mount Union too happy because I left, but they were very understanding and allowed me to leave because I had already signed a contract for a year. The rest is history.”
While Taffe initially saw Springfield as just a stop along the way, it ended up being much more than that. The rich history of the program and the proximity to friends, family and the college where he competed was very appealing to Taffe. While it was a great fit for him at the time, Taffe did not envision that he was going to be here for as long as he was.
“You want to be in a place where you’re supported and people care about what you’re doing,” Taffe said. “That’s mostly why I ended up staying. I enjoyed it here, I enjoyed the environment [and] the student body.”
After 35 years, Taffe felt that this was the time to retire due to the program being in good hands for the future. However, there are aspects of his job that he will miss, even though it will allow him and his wife to do other things that they weren’t able to do before.
“Our goal is to obviously leave the program in good shape. Both teams are going to be as solid as they’ve ever been no matter who may be running this program. I just felt this was the right time [to retire],” Taffe said. “[However], I will miss the camaraderie, I’ll miss the teams [and] I’ll miss the day to day interactions and the joking and laughing that goes on within the team.”
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics