Don Burton has found a new challenge.
After 19 years in the swimming scene in Guelph, all 19 with the Guelph Marlin Aquatic Club and the last nine with University of Guelph varsity swimmers under his coaching, Burton is stepping down from both to become the head coach of the Ontario Swimming Academy.
"I was not looking to leave. I love Guelph," Burton said following a Gryphon practice session at the Gryphon Aquatics Centre. "I identify myself as a Guelph person. My kids are here. I love this school and I love this club. I'd been offered a few positions before and none of them was even close to what this organization already is doing and the potential that we already have."
The Ontario Swimming Academy is a relatively new endeavour by Swim Ontario and partners Swimming Canada, Own the Podium and the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario that was born out of last year's Pan Am Games.
"One of the legacy things of the Pan Am Games is that facility and the different organizations wanting to have the ability to help fuel the next wave of people that would go to the next Pan Am Games or whatever," Burton said. "It's like some of the legacies they have from Vancouver 2010."
The academy is based at the pool at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in Scarborough and has several full-time members, many who attend the nearby St. John Paul II Catholic Secondary School.
Burton replaces Andi Manley who left the position early in the summer to return home to Great Britain.
"They had put out an offer for people to apply and I didn't apply," Burton said. "I had a phone call from somebody who said 'We really want you to apply.' So I applied not thinking anything of it. 'Sure I'll apply, it doesn't matter.' For whatever reason they chose me."
Now he'll get to coach a small squad that trains at the same facility in lanes beside many of the national team members.
"The facility is fantastic. It's world class," Burton said. "But that's not a reason to go. I guess the intriguing thing was all the extra support."
The job at the academy will give Burton a chance to concentrate on coaching. In Guelph, he and all the coaches with both the Marlins and Gryphons were involved in all aspects of running the club, including fund-raising.
"We do an amazing job here of stretching our resources to the max," Burton said of the Guelph groups. "I guess the thing that interested me was that if I wasn't spending all my time on making all those things happen, and they're already there, then I'd have the ability to take my time and concentrate on the coaching aspect and maybe I could do a better job. That's what I'm going to find out."
Along with coaching the academy's domestic or resident swimmers, Burton plans to run weekend camps for elite swimmers who are not academy residents.
"We'd target, let's say, all the female butterflyers in the province and ask them to come in for a weekend and we'd do two or three or four training sessions and really analyze the stroke, see what the world's best are doing and talk about some different tactics that we need to do in practice in order to have them when we race," he said. "See where we are now and see where we're trying to go and do all the gap analysis stuff for that. Obviously we'd do that for both genders, all the different strokes and a bunch of different age groups."
He'd also organize provincial teams for trips to international meets and he'd try to help the hometown clubs in the province who are demonstrating the ability to do a lot with a little.
"From a provincial perspective, I need to figure out how we can give back to the clubs that are making things happen without handouts in the past because it makes sense to support the people who are able to do that," he said.
While Burton is looking forward to the new challenge, he had thoughts of turning it down when it came to telling the Marlins and the Gryphons he'd be leaving.
"I'm going to miss the intimacy of this pool and Victor Davis Pool," he said. "And of course I'm going to miss all the people. Telling them that I was leaving was really hard. I didn't think it was going to be that hard and as soon as I was looking at them, I was 'OK, I don't want to do this anymore.' I almost backed out."
