Coach Al Rose stands near the Olympic-size outdoor swimming pool at the JCC’s Henry Kaufmann Family Park in Monroeville during one of his final practices with the Sailfish. (Photo by Adam Reinherz)
(Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle) – Coach Al Rose hasn’t taken his last lap, but the pool’s end is in sight. After 67 years with the JCC Sailfish, Rose stepped down from leading the team in September. Since then, he’s continued coaching athletes at the Olympic Swim and Health Club in Penn Hills.
On Saturdays and Sundays he oversees a few swimmers in a single lane. It’s quite the change from administering daily 5 a.m. practices for scores of promising teens, but it “works out,” Rose said. He’s still correcting strokes, helping swimmers come off the wall and, most importantly, prepare for what’s next.
For longer than many people live, Rose’s swimmers have reached the apex of accomplishment. During the past seven decades his athletes have won Olympic gold, qualified for the Olympic trials, won national championships, been recruited by top-ranked college programs, received Division 1 scholarships and routinely bested personal records.
The Forest Hills resident, who grew up swimming at the YMWHA in Oakland (a precursor to the JCC), recognizes the totality of his swimmers’ achievements, but asking him to parse a lifetime at the pool bring some surprising turns. At points, speaking with the aquatic savant feels like returning to math class. With a cup of tea in hand, he mentioned stroke count, distance, time and tempo. Practices, he continued, required carefully planned workouts, staggering athletes of differing abilities in adjacent lanes and adjustments, or tapers, for upcoming races.
Listening to Rose, one might think his formulas are solely dependent on calendars, calculators and stopwatches. Success, however, is measured with the fewest of tools; he sees it in his swimmers when they “do the best they can,” he said.
