T-L Photo/SETH STASKEY BILL BRUBAKER (center) has officially announced his retirement as head swimming coach and social teacher at Linsly School. He is pictured with Linsly Athletics Director B.J. Depew (left) and Headmaster Justin Zimmerman. Brubaker taught and coached at Linsly for 42 years. He will continue as the OVAC Swimming Director.

WHEELING – In recent years, the acronym GOAT (Greatest of All Time) is thrown around more and more frequently in sports.

As it pertains to Ohio Valley high school swimming coaches, very few will debate the usage of that term to describe Bill Brubaker.

A swimming institution at the Linsly School and in the Ohio Valley for 42 years, Brubaker has left a lasting imprint and legacy on the sport and school.

However, all good things come to an eventual end and for the now 66-year-old Brubaker, the time to scale back has arrived.

Brubaker has retired as the head swimming coach and educator at Linsly, but will remain at the school as an attendance officer and will continue to help with the junior high swimming program in the spring.

“I just feel like it’s time to step back from some things,” Brubaker said. “Coaching and teaching at Linsly have given me an appreciation for an awful lot.”

Though Brubaker’s high school coaching success all came at Linsly, his impact on swimming stretches up and down the Ohio Valley. On top of his high school coaching, Brubaker also coached the YMCA program for many years in the spring and is involved with summer swimming. Quite frankly, other than his family, swimming has been Brubaker’s life.

“I am sure when the first day of practice rolls around in late October, it’ll definitely hit me even harder,” Brubaker said. “But, it’s not like I am just walking out the door.”

Brubaker, who is a member of the OVAC Hall of Fame and the man for whom the OVAC Swimming Championship is named, guided the Cadets to an astounding 40 OVAC championships, including 29 boys titles. The Cadet girls won the first female OVAC title in 1984.

Not bad for a guy who had never been to Wheeling – let alone Linsly – prior to his job interview with then Headmaster Reno DiOrio.

Brubaker, who is a 1974 graduate of Mechanicsburg High School in Pennsylvania, was a graduate assistant at West Virginia, where he had swam collegiately for four years, when the Mountaineers were hosting a meet.

Brubaker was talking to John Sandy Pigeon Jr., who swam for Pitt, on the deck. Pigeon, who Brubaker had tried to recruit to WVU, asked him what his future plans involved.

“I told Sandy that I wanted to get into teaching and coach swimming,” Brubaker recalled.

Ironically, Pigeon’s father, John Pigeon Sr. was involved at Kiski Prep and knew DiOrio well.

“Sandy told me, ‘my dad has a friend who is looking for a swim coach and a teacher,'” Brubaker said. “He took me over and introduced me to his dad and Mr. DiOrio. We talked, I applied for the job, came here and interviewed in May of 1980.”

Brubaker accepted the job offer and just like that, Linsly’s storied swimming program was going to add several more chapters.

Linsly won the OVAC in each of Brubaker’s first 13 seasons.

Though impressive, Brubaker never measured his success as a coach by any championships or victories.

“Those are just numbers,” Brubaker said. “What you’re really remembered as a coach for is the impression you make on the students and how they remember you for that. It’s always been special for me when I run into former swimmers and students and they still call me ‘coach.'”

Though Linsly has had an incredible amount of success and produced an astonishing number of college swimmers, Brubaker made sure he pointed out that not every season was easy.

“There were years when I didn’t have a lot of kids (on the team) and some teams didn’t have that good of swimmers,” Brubaker admitted. “We won a lot, but it’s not like we won everything. We just kept working at it.”

Like many coaches, Brubaker found himself – many times – in the hallways at Linsly talking to kids and encouraging them to come out for the swimming team if they weren’t involved in a winter sport.

“I was always willing to work with anyone who was willing to give (swimming) a try,” Brubaker said. “Even before Linsly had its no cut, no quit policy, we gave every kid who wanted to jump in the pool a chance.”

Early in his career, when he was still a competitive swimmer, he actually issued a challenge to students, saying if they could beat the coach’s time, he’d buy them a pizza. However, if they couldn’t beat his time, they had to come out for swimming.”

“I got a couple of swimmers because they thought it was easier than it was,” Brubaker smiled.

Brubaker couldn’t provide an exact number of individual OVAC champions or college swimmers that he coached. He did point out four prep All-Americans – Bert Hazlett, Theron Pappas, Kevin Rosepappa and Jenny Loew (diving) – came through his program.

“All of the teams had different characteristics and some of them had some really good swimmers,” Brubaker noted. “In the first 10-plus years or so, we were the team with a pool, which gave us a bit of an advantage. The sport started to grow and then different (Ohio Valley) teams had different strengths.”

As Brubaker was compiling more and more championships, he received interest from the college level. Wheeling Jesuit was moving toward completion of its pool inside the McDonough Center when Jay DeFruscio, who was the Director of Athletics at Wheeling Jesuit University at the time, offered Brubaker the Cardinals’ head coaching position.

“He told me I could remain a teacher at Linsly and coach at Wheeling Jesuit,” Brubaker said. “I said, ‘you’ve never read a contract with a private school have you? There was no way Mr. DiOrio was going to allow me to teach (at Linsly) and coach (at Wheeling Jesuit). That was about as close as I ever got to leaving.”

More importantly, Brubaker and his family had found a home at Linsly and didn’t want to leave.

“This place truly means a lot to me,” Brubaker said. “Whether they were swimmers or not, I’ll always remember the kids.”

Bill and his wife, Terre, are the parents of two Linsly graduates – Katy and William.