Sue Jensen

Member 2008 - Present

• 2023 - USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award

• 2023 – NELMSC Contributor of the Year Award

• 2014 – NELMSC Contributor of the Year Award

• 2022 – Present - NELMSC BOD Championship Committee (Chair)

• 2015 – Present - NELMSC BOD Officials Chair

• 2024-Present – Cambridge Masters Swimming, Co-founder and Team Captain

• 2025 - USMS Certified Coach – Level 1, 2 &3

• 2015 - USMS Adult Learn to Swim Instructor

• 2014-2019 & 2022 - Ran “April is Adult Learn to Swim Month” program with teammates

• USMS All American – 1 year, 1 Individual

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 55 Individual

• NE LMSC Individual Records – 4 Current, 8 Lifetime

USMS Profile

I grew up in Bristol, Connecticut, the daughter of entirely unathletic parents. I learned to swim at the age of 7 at the local Girls’ Club. At the age of 8, I had a brief stint with synchronized swimming. In my first of several brushes over time with swimming greatness, my teammates were 5-year-old twins Karen and Sarah Josephson who, much later, won gold and silver at two Olympic Games.

My family had a backyard pool. During the summer, I was in it daily, rain or shine, doing flips off the diving board, playing Marco Polo, swimming underwater, pretending to be a mermaid, and swimming at night in the pitch black. I taught myself to swim butterfly by jumping – arms extended - from the shallow end to the deep end. 

In the summer, I swam with the Page Park Swim Team, just down the street, eating powdered Jello at swim meets between heats. In the winter, I swam for Coach David Tyler with the Greater Hartford AAU Suburban Swim Club (and with teammate Karen Smyers, future Triathlon World Champion). At St. Paul Catholic High School, as a senior I captained its swim team. 

Burned out and tired of swimming, I did not swim in college. In its place, I started a running career, which continued for 29 years till 2007. During that time, I trained with the Greater Boston Track Club and competed in many races: 5K, 10K, sprint triathlon, and three marathons (Cape Cod and two Boston Marathons). 

During those 29 years, I would jump into a pool from time to time, and considered joining a Master’s team, but my earlier swimming burnout held me back. The stars aligned in 2007 when a foot injury forced me to take a break from running and the middle of the day opened up because my kids were old enough to attend school. Cambridge Masters Swim Club at Harvard’s Blodgett pool offered coached noontime practices, and it has become my middle-of-the-day routine – and joy - for past 19 years.

I love being a part of a Master’s swim team, swimming 4-5 times a week. Now age 65, I pinch myself that I get to “play” every day with my friends, get daily exercise, while training hard for competitions. I am the current team’s “Captain” which means that behind the scenes, I am its primary administrator and on deck, its primary cheerleader. 

Over the years, I have attended numerous New England regional and USMS national meets, as well as three FINA World championships (Göteberg, Sweden; Riccione, Italy; and Budapest, Hungary). 

During the summer months, I swim with AquinAqua, an open water group on Martha’s Vineyard. We meet early mornings six days a week for a swim in Menemsha Pond, a beautiful way to start the day in the water under the big sky. I will be going on my first SwimTrek open water trip, to Greece, in the fall. 

I have been with the love of my life, Rob Schiller, also a swimmer, since 1986, and married since 1992. Of course, our first date was a swim date, at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin War Memorial pool. There we raced and I beat him (although he disputes that). We have two children - Harry, a law student, Ruby, an art historian, and for nearly 14 years Duncan, our golden retriever. 

I love to spend my spare time with my family, cook, entertain, travel, study French, bike, play the piano, and garden.

I am honored to be inducted into the 2025 Hall of Fame in the Contributor category.

Al Prescott

Member 2000 - Present

• 2023 - Colonies Zone “Dot” Award

• 2022 - USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award

• 2009-2011 - NELMSC Chair

• 2011-2021 - NELMSC Treasurer

• 2008 – Member USMS Communications Committee

• NELMSC Fitness Chair

• NEM VP of Communications

• USMS Certified Coach – Level 1

USMS Profile

My first memories of swimming are from Long Pond in Lakeville, MA where my grandparents had a lake house. After having learned to swim there circa 1978, I amazed/horrified my parents by swimming around Nelson Island, a distance just shy of a mile. Not bad for a 10-year-old with no other swimming experience, though far from safe.

Since I was forbidden from doing that again, and my mother had no urge to put me on a swim club, my next flirtation with swimming occurred in college. One of my fraternity brothers, Vinnay, asked for volunteers to do the intramural swim meet.  Again, I surprised everyone by scoring points in all my races (freestyle only since I had no clue how to do anything else).  By the end of college, I could score in the top three of all those events and even took second in the 200 free.  All of this in the "OLD WPI Pool", a 20 yarder under the old Alumni Gymnasium. That was January of 1990.

10 years later, I was flirting with Triathlons, and swimming at lunchtime with my work friend, Matt Camelio. Shortly after our nearby pool closed, Matt announced to me he had found a Masters team nearby and bonus: They had EVENING workouts. And so in January of 2000, I drove onto Hanscom Air Force Base for the first time and joined Minuteman Masters. Between Rich Axtell, Marc Broudy, Rick Battistini, and many others early on, I received awesome coaching, learned to do all the strokes, and competed at the Harvard Meet for the first time that very spring as well as Nationals that summer.

Within a few years I had finally started losing weight, got healthier and was in a much better place personally. I knew I wanted to give back to the sport that was helping me so much, so when Tom Lyndon asked me to write a monthly column in the NEM News newsletter, I agreed. That set me on an arc to more and more service to the greater New England and National organization. Eventually, I would go on to hold more offices and positions than I can remember at this point.

Though I had to step back from that level of volunteering to help family members in more recent years, I still swim 3-4 times per week and even host a small workout group at my lake house. As I write this, we have just boosted our morning swims from 1.4 miles to about 2. If my poor late mother only knew.

Douglas Sayles

Member 2009 – Present

• 2024 - USMS Ted Haartz Staff Appreciation Award recipient

• 2023-Present – LMSC Development Committee (Chair 2024-Present)

• 2023 - USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award recipient

• 2023 - NELMSC Distinguished Service Award recipient

• 2020-2022 – USMS Legislation Committee

• 2013, 2020-2021 - USMS Membership Committee

• 2021-Present - USMS Colonies Zone Chair

• 2019-2021 - USMS Colonies Zone Vice Chair

• 2019- USMS Governance Committee

• 2012-2015, 2019-Present - NELMSC Membership Coordinator

• 2015-2019 - NELMSC Chair

• 2016 - NELMSC Contributor of the Year recipient

• USMS Certified Coach – Level 1, 2 & 3

• USMS Adult Learn to Swim Instructor

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 5 Individual

USMS Profile

Douglas Sayles is a dedicated leader in the Masters Swimming community whose passion for building inclusive swimming communities has helped countless others discover the lifelong benefits of swimming. 

Douglas joined U.S. Masters Swimming in 2009 and was first elected to the New England LMSC Board of Directors in 2012 as Registrar. He later served as Board Chair and Membership Coordinator and filled interim roles including Vice Chair, Open Water Chair, and Secretary. He has also led and contributed to special committees addressing grievances, COVID-19 relief, and championship event planning.

As an event director and organizer, Douglas has helped reinstate the annual Colonies Zone and NELMSC championship meets following the COVID-19 pandemic, establish new traditions like the New England College Club & Masters Swimming Meet, and coordinate the biennial USMS Boston Education Weekend. He also directs Swim Across America’s Rhode Island Open Water Swim — an 800-swimmer charity event that funds cancer research — and has helped plan and promote several other charity swim events.

Douglas is a member of SwimRI and New England Masters Swim Club and is a USMS-certified Level 3 coach and Adult Learn-To-Swim instructor and member of the American Swimming Coaches Association. He has coached workouts, organized swim clinics, fostered a unified SwimRI identity across venues, and coordinated many team-building swim and social events, such as the Stuffies vs. Steamers Meet, Hour Swim Heats, Friday Night Swim Fights, SwimRI Soiree, and Columbus Day 5K Ocean Swim.

At the national level, Douglas has served as Colonies Zone Chair, chaired the LMSC Development Committee since 2023, and previously served on the Legislation, Registration, and Governance committees. He has presented at and helped plan the USMS Volunteer Relay, attended Leadership Summits, and since 2012 been a member of the USMS House of Delegates.

Douglas has received several honors and awards recognizing his commitment to strengthening the Masters Swimming community and delivering impactful programs through strategic, mission-driven leadership: He is a 2025 “Contributor” inductee into the New LMSC Hall of Fame and has received the USMS Ted Haartz Staff Appreciation Award (2024), USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award (2023), NELMSC Distinguished Service Award (2023), and NELMSC Contributor of the Year Award (2016).

To view Douglas Sayles’ swimming CV, click here.

Fred Bartlett

• USMS Pool All American Honors – 1 Relay

• USMS Long Distance All American Honors – 2 Relay

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 22 Relay

USMS Profile

I grew up in a military family, which meant moving at least every two years. This also meant never putting down roots, nor ever swimming on any swim teams growing up. Both my mother and father were in the Navy and first met at an outdoor officers’ pool, which meant that after I and my three siblings were born we were always in the water in some form or fashion. 

At an early age my father had us up on his shoulders, as he was on a saucer while my mother drove the boat we owned and then later we learned to saucer, then ski, then slalom ski.  Everywhere we went while crisscrossing the country to new posts, we swam, mostly in open water lakes and rivers.

In 1968 we moved from Meridian, Mississippi to North Kingstown, Rhode Island. At some point my father, who was back and forth from Vietnam tours, introduced us to NEM legend Dan Rogacki. At the time, Rogacki was in the Navy and had formed a kids' swim team named the Navy Junior Swim Team. For my brother, my sisters and me, this was our first introduction to a formal swim team – sans goggles, lane lines, pull buoys, and paddles. But we did have kick boards, which I hate to this day! Both my brother and I became lifeguards at the outdoor officers’ pool at Quonset Point, Rhode Island in our high school years before the base closed in 1974.

I attended the University of Rhode Island, where I tried out for the men`s swimming/water polo teams, under now retired Coach Mick Weskott. I lasted one semester before discovering I was not talented enough to be there and focused on ice hockey, golf, racquetball, and running instead.

Fast forward, after years of golfing and running after graduating from URI, a new sport arose called triathlon, which seemed to fit me to a T, since I wasn’t top notch in any one sport, but I could do many sports at a high level. Since triathlon involved swimming first, and with my growing up swimming open water, it became a passion of mine. With triathlon a growing sport, I occasionally dropped in to fellow honoree Stuart (the human dolphin) Cromarty`s masters sessions at URI to augment my one-lone wolf training.

Once Stuart left URI, there was no masters swim program in the South County Rhode Island area. So, somewhere along the way, South County Y allowed me to start a Masters team there. We started with three lanes, which quickly grew to all five lanes, three times a week. This group has been ongoing and growing for at least 28 years. 

Along the way, the team, now called the SCY WAVES, (yes, we have our own shirts, pink caps, and secret handshake) has grown to 60 USMS members, swimming in back-to-back sessions, three times a week. SCY WAVES are encouraged and trained up to swim the USMS Virtual 1-Hour Swim along with one or two 2 championship swims in New England each year.

Starting with one or two triathlon friends, open water swimming at Narragansett Town Beach (NTB) became a regular practice, which has also grown. Today, anywhere from 20 to more than 100 swimmers attend those workouts regularly in the summer months. 

Early years of swimming at NTB, Barber Pond, and other open water locations like Roger Wheeler Beach, was strictly by word of mouth or routine. But as the numbers grew, we established a swimming hotline to designate both time and place of the swims that would occur. In time, the phone tree became an email listserv, which eventually had 700 + emails subscribed. That has since evolved into a web site, swimtrirunman.org, where swimmers can find out about upcoming open water swims and other events.

I have participated in the Save the Bay Swim for more than 25 years and have coached the Leukemia/Lymphoma team in training for 7 years. I’ve been a part of the Laguna Mar Swim Camps run by Bob and Barb Crowder for six years, coaching Masters swimmers at the camp. I am still coaching triathletes and giving adult swim lessons.

Nate McBride

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 4 individual

• USMS Certified Coach

• SWIMMER magazine May-June 2010 article – “Extreme Stroke Makeover” – Breaststroker Learns the Value of the Streamline

• SWIMMER magazine May-June 2009, “Web Workout”

I started swimming at the age of 5 for the Tanterra Tarpons Swim Club in Olney, Maryland, and, for the next 13 years, I transformed into a decent backstroker/IM'er. It was just one of many sports my parents enrolled my brothers and me into, in an attempt to exhaust the energy supply daily. I continued to be an all-sport athlete throughout my child/teen years, but despite whatever sport I played: soccer, lacrosse, hockey, I always also did swimming (mostly with LRAC). My time in the water waned at the end of my high school career as the final (of four) high schools I attended did not have a swim team.  

I picked up swimming again in my sophomore year of college when I walked on to the Division III team at Connecticut College to reprise my former role as a backstroker. That lasted only a short time as I realized that I enjoyed the distance workouts way more than the sprint/IM-focused workouts, so I switched to learning how to swim the 500/1000 combo. During this time, our team needed to raise funds for our annual winter training trip to Florida, and one of the ways we did this was by coaching the Eastern Connecticut Masters Club (ECM) in our pool after our workouts were over. While many of my teammates dreaded having to do this, I loved it so much that I did it nearly every day after practice and found that I had a passion for it.  

That following summer, I ended up getting a job as a lifeguard and Masters swim coach at Barrington YMCA (in Barrington, RI), and, for the next two years at school, I morphed into a full-time swimmer dropping all of my other sports pursuits while also coaching ECM year-round when I could make time.  I also continued to coach the Barrington Y Masters in the summers and became the Barrington Y age group coach for the final two summers of my college career.  

After college, I moved to Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, to be a Latin teacher and, to make some extra money on the side, I also coached the White Plains Masters (and lifeguarded) for my one year in NY.  After that, I moved back to MA and got a job as the Director of Technology at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, MA. Cushing did not have a swim team, but I was able to rent lanes at Greenwood Swim Club and Wachusett Community College to train Cushing kids who wanted to continue with their swim training.  

After two years at Cushing, I moved to Winchester, MA, and decided to get back in the pool for myself.  I joined the Minuteman Masters team coached by Rich Axtell, which was swimming at Hanscom AFB in the LCM pool. I loved swimming with that group and felt like I had discovered something so special with the NEM Masters community at large. 

I wanted to give back to NEM, and there was no shortage of opportunities to do so. I helped build the new NEM website, helped with recovering the NEM registrar database after a terrible data crash, joined the NEM organization leadership, and even devised a new model for team scoring, which helped the little teams get as much recognition as the big teams!  

Though I was still chasing that elusive sub-5 for my 500 time (which seemed to get further away with each year) I did go on to win the mile at LC Nationals in 2004 and swim the mile fly at 2007 SCY NE Champs to settle a bet. Those were my two crowning moments in the pool. 

Rich was gracious enough to give me a chance to be an assistant coach at Minuteman, and that was a huge turning point for me.  After a few years of coaching (and swimming) with Minuteman, I eventually started my own team, West Side Swim Club, in Sudbury, MA. I spent the next three years rethinking everything I knew about swimming and applying it to a Masters and Triathlete program.  Nothing was off the table, and I obsessed about everything from dissecting the perfect stroke, using active rest in workouts, incorporating mid-set drylands, and trying to somehow put it all together.  

I was very honored to receive the first annual Tom Lyndon Award in 2011 and am still so grateful to have been a part of such a wonderful community after all these years.

Crystie McGrail

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 22 individual

• USMS Profile

LMSC Positions:

• 2021 to 2022 – New England LMSC Immediate Past Board Chair

• 2019 to 2021 – New England LMSC Board Chair

• 2014 to 2019 – New England LMSC Coaches Chair. Created a series of local clinics for coaches and swimmers and scholarships for coach education.

• 2013 – New England LMSC Asst. Webmaster

Coaching Positions:

• 2010 to 2022 – Head Coach & Club Manager, Great Bay Masters Swimming, Inc. (GBM), Dover, N.H.

• 2018 – Started GBM’s annual “April is Adult Learn to Swim Month” program at the Dover pool, expanded to the Portsmouth pool

Meet Director Roles:

• 2022 – Portsmouth Mini Meet, Portsmouth, N.H. (30 participants)

• 2011 to 2022 – Jenny Thompson LCM Mini Meet, Dover, N.H. (80-100 participants)

• 2012 to 2020 – Exeter SCM Mini Meet, Exeter, N.H. (90-100 participants)

• 2010 to 2014 – New England LMSC SCM Championship Meet, Boston, Mass. (3 days, 400+ swimmers)

Other Assignments & Honors:

• 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 – USMS National Coaches Clinic Attendee

• 2019 – USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award

• 2019 – New England LMSC Contributor of the Year Award

• 2018 – USMS Convention Task Force

• 2014 – New England LMSC Coach of The Year Award

Crystie has been a swimmer her entire life. When she relocated to New Hampshire, she was happy to find a robust adult swim community through a college teammate who suggested she join Great Bay Masters. She was quickly integrated into a wonderful community of well-organized and spirited people. 

As the team evolved and roles changed Crystie started coaching workouts and becoming more involved with club and meet management. Her role quickly expanded to running multiple mini meets and workouts at two sites for the club. Crystie found herself on the regional stage while taking over the coordination of the NELMSC Short Course Meters Championship Meet hosted by Great Bay Masters in 2010. She continued to run this meet until it was transitioned to a new host site in 2015. 

After meeting more of the regional volunteers, Crystie was encouraged to get involved at that level. In 2014 the NELMSC Coaches Chair role opened and when Crystie suggested this role become more robust by offering local coach education and networking, she was offered the opportunity to bring that vision to fruition. During her six years as the NELMSC Coaches Chair Crystie also delved into volunteering at the national level for USMS by joining the National Coaches Committee from 2016 to 2018 and then moving over to the LMSC Development Committee from 2019 to present. 

Crystie attended her first USMS Annual Meeting as a delegate in 2017 and has been a regular attendee in person, or virtually, ever since. An understanding of what is happening across the country and at the national level is incredibly helpful to better support and bring new ideas to our local swimmers and programs in New England.

Following intentional succession planning Crystie was elected to the NELMSC Chairperson role for a two-year stint from 2019 to 2021. This is when the pandemic created everlasting change in our lives and was a very atypical experience as a volunteer and club manager. Crystie focused on getting volunteers virtually connected regularly to help maintain a sense of community and share best practices for dealing with a whole new set of restrictions around swimming.

During the pandemic, Crystie worked to keep the Great Bay Masters community together by coordinating virtual socials such as online game nights and video workouts that included the novelty of “Soup Can Swimming”. She created a support group called “Accountabilibuddies” where each week participants were given five days’ worth of workouts and mental health practices. Participation was tracked and points were scored and celebrated to help keep people engaged and physically active while in lockdown. 

After the excitement of the pandemic Crystie stepped back from the role of Chairperson to past chairperson and continued to help support the NELMSC board and volunteers in new roles. She continued to coach and run swim meets until January of 2023 when her family relocated to Colorado. 

Crystie will forever be grateful for the amazing community of swimmers across New England and all of the energy and effort that goes into providing the best adult swimming experience! The opportunities to grow as a person, a volunteer, a swimmer and a friend while in New England are stamped on her very soul. 

Priscilla Davis

• 2022 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2018 NE LMSC Lifetime Appreciation Award Recipient - The Appreciation Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions toward the conduct, leadership, and support of the NELMSC or its registered clubs.

• Priscilla Davis and her team of 13 active officials does a masterful job of tirelessly running our Masters swim meets throughout the year. Each championship meet (WPI and Harvard), they spend 20-25 hours on their feet officiating. They also officiate at all our mini meets throughout the year. Not only that, they are professional, good humored and obviously love what they do. New England is blessed to have such an experienced and friendly group of officials running our meets.

• Over 40 years of service, laughter, encouragement, professionalism, kindness, commitment and putting up with Bob Fredette.  Priscilla Davis is naturally the mother (or perhaps grandmother!) of swimming officials in New England. She's been doing it forever and ever. I know that two of the events that she takes a lot of pride in working are the Ivy League Championships and the Special Olympics (which are also usually at Harvard). Several years ago, she needed a hip replacement. Based on input from doctors, she scheduled the hip replacement to be right after the Ivy Champs in late February or early March, so that she could be back on her feet for the Special Olympics.

• As far as I know, she's only ended up in the pool as an official once. It was 36 years ago in March 1980. Harvard was hosting the Men's NCAA Division I Championships at Blodgett Pool, which was just 2 years old. They put in a floating bridge/dock between the 8-lane course and the diving well so that officials could walk on that "side" of the pool for officiating. Let's just say it wasn't completely sturdy, and at one point during the meet, Priscilla ended up in the water.

• Priscilla was a long-time and beloved fixture in the swimming community in New England. She was a dedicated official for thousands of swimming competitions across all ages and abilities. She was on the pool deck for local youth, summer league, high school, collegiate, YMCA, Masters, Paralympic, Bay State Games, and USA Swimming competition. A family member commented that when they examined her calendar planner, there were remarkably few days that did not have at least one swim meet scheduled.

• She was a member of the New England Swimming Board of Directors for decades, serving as the Adapted Swimming and Safety Chair for many years. She served on numerous USA Swimming national committees, including the National Adapted Swimming Committee and the National Swimming Safety Committee. She also served for many years on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) Board of Directors.

• She was the recipient of countless awards and recognitions and was a two-time recipient of the Adolf Kiefer Safety Commendation Award, presented at the United States Aquatic Sports National Convention, in 1991 and 2017. She is a member of the MIAA Hall of Fame. In 2014, the Eastern Massachusetts Interscholastic Swim Coaches Academy (EMISCA) created the Priscilla Davis Silver Service Award, honoring her 25+ years of service to Massachusetts High School swimming and diving.

• Priscilla has been on deck as the referee for nearly all of the Ivy League Championships over the past 25 years. She refereed Harvard’s final home meet in January of 2020 and was scheduled to be the Meet Referee for the 2020 Ivy Championships. She created the tradition of officials wearing blazers for finals at this meet, and the officials continued that tradition in her honor.

Laszlo Eger

• 2022 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• Years Active 1997-2018

• Recipient of the NEM Service Award 2011

• NEM President - 2006-2010, 2011-2014

• NEM Board Member - 2010-2011

• NE LMSC SCY Top Ten Recorder - 2004-2014

• USMS National Committee Positions held

• 2012-2016 USMS Finance Committee Member, Vice Chair 2013-2015

• 2005-2011 USMS Records and Tabulations Committee Member

• 2007-2009 USMS International Committee Member

• 2005-2006 USMS Planning Committee Member

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 68 individual, 9 relay

• Club: New England Masters

• USMS Profile Laszlo J Eger - USMS Swimmer

Laszlo began competing during his sophomore year in high school while living in New York City.  He also played water polo. While attending Yale, he continued to swim, but the emphasis shifted from swim team to water polo.  Laszlo returned to competitive swimming many years later in 1994 while living in France, as a Master.  He was immediately hooked once again. He loved the feeling of camaraderie of his fellow swimmers and the satisfaction of accomplishing some great times. He returned to the United States in 1995, where he competed as a Master in the NY/NJ area, before becoming a NEM in 1997.

For many years Laszlo has been a familiar presence around NEM local meets, as well as National and World Championship events. Additionally, he has taken on many responsibilities behind the scenes that have helped make our club successful.

“I’m very numbers oriented, so my first job was Top-Ten Recorder (SCY) for the NE LMSC starting in 2004. This is a very challenging task - collecting all meet results, reviewing, correcting errors, uploading them to the USMS web site, preparing Top-Ten submissions, etc. Shortly thereafter, Homer Lane took me under his wings, inviting me to several USMS conventions, and proposed, with Tom Lyndon, that I consider taking over as Club President in 2006. I stayed as President for 4 years afterwards spent 2 years on the Board. I volunteered to take on the presidency again and served from 2011-2014.”

“Maintaining the high standards set by my predecessors is the main goal and challenge. For me, this is providing for the needs of our membership - ensuring opportunities for everyone to partake in their favorite pass time, organizing pool and open water events, and communications (NEM News, web site, e-mails).”

Bob Fredette

• 2022 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2020 NE LMSC Lifetime Appreciation Award Recipient- The Appreciation Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions toward the conduct, leadership, and support of the NELMSC or its registered clubs.

Forty years ago, Bob founded the Seacoast Swimming Association in Dover, NH, which has instilled the love of swimming into thousands of athletes over the years. He hired Coach Mike Parratto, later inducted into the ASCA Hall of Fame, and under Mike’s tutelage Seacoast became one of the dominant teams in New England Swimming. Seacoast developed many high-caliber athletes, including Jenny Thompson, who began swimming for Seacoast at age twelve and became one of the most decorated swimmers in history with twelve Olympic medals. Bob served as the Officials Chair of New England Swimming for five years Served as the Chair of the New England Local Swimming Committee (LSC) for two years.

Bob is proud of his many years involved in swimming at all levels. Along with Priscilla Davis, Bob has officiated at every New England SCY Masters Championship since the meet came to Harvard in 1999, along with a number of SCM Championship meets and countless mini meets. He especially loves Masters swimmers because “everyone is friendly and pursuing healthy goals by keeping in shape and being social.” He now officiates exclusively for Masters meets and frequently serves as Meet Referee.

Bob has mentored and trained many of our New England officials over the years. His quick wit and friendliness, along with his calm and confident oversight of our meets, make him a welcome presence on deck.

Frank McQuiggan

• 2022 New England LMSC Hall of Fame Inductee (Contributor)

• Years active: 1979-Present

• 2001 Rhode Island Aquatic Hall of Fame Inductee

• 2014 NEM Tom Lyndon Award – Presented to a New England Masters Swim Club member whose efforts have significantly contributed to the growth and success of Masters Swimming in New England

• 2014 New England LMSC Coach of the Year Award

• 1981-2022 Founder & Coach, East Providence Masters/SwimRI Workout Group

  • Created and maintained a unified team identity across multiple practice groups, coordinated communications, promoted USMS membership and engagement, organized and drove participation in a myriad of swimming, social, and charitable fundraising events

  • Coached Masters practices throughout Rhode Island, including East Providence High School, Community College of Rhode Island, and Pods Swimming

  • For decades has written workouts for swimmers locally and around the country.

• From 1981 to 2021, EPM’s and SwimRI’s participation in meets resulted in:

  • Everyone participating in relays at every meet

  • 5 NELMSC SCY Championship Team Points Titles (1998-1999, 2014-2016)

  • 50+ swimmers with All-American Pool designations

  • 200+ All-American swims

  • 1,000 individual and 300 relay National Top 10 swims

  • 100 current All-Time New England Top 10 relay swims

• Provided career mentorship and helped ~200 swimming contacts find jobs or internships

• 2020-2021 Volunteer Deck Coach, University of Rhode Island Club Swim Team

• 2011-2019 Volunteer Assistant Coach, Assumption University Swim Team

• 1981-2014 Volunteer Deck Coach (informal) at various high school practices

• 1992-2007 Citizen’s Bank Sponsor Rep, Save The Bay’s Swim for Narragansett Bay - Ran swimmer clinics, helped create event operations plans, recruited volunteers, swimmers, and sponsors, helping raise millions of dollars for an important environmental cause

• 2010-Present Volunteer & Supporter, Swim Across America’s annual Rhode Island charity swim benefiting cancer research.

• 1996-2006 Event Director, Kickemuit River Swim

• USMS Records 1 lifetime pool relay

• USMS All American Honors: 5 years pool relay

• USMS Top Ten Achievements: 20 individual, 58 relay

• Club – New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile - Frank McQuiggan - USMS Swimmer

• “It’s not his personal swimming accomplishments that define him, it’s his colorful personality and the decades he has spent building a community of swimmers and comrades who support each other in and out of the pool. Swimmers join and stay in this community more so because of Frank and the foundation he has laid.”

Rick Osterberg

• 2022 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• Years Active 2000-Present

• 2000-2017 & 2019 Meet Director NE SCY Championship

• 2018 NE LMSC Distinguished Service Award - recognizes outstanding long-term service to NELMSC. This is given to one individual based on leadership, membership recruitment, program development, and promotion of Masters swimming at the club, NELMSC, and national levels. Nominees must have maintained current NELMSC registration for the last ten years.

• From the nomination - Outstanding service to Masters swimming. Promotes the sport locally and nationally.  The BEST meet director.  Supportive.  Encouraging. Great announcer. Kind. Plays great music. Outstanding professionalism. Above and beyond. Thoughtful.  Dedicated. Great announcer. Above and beyond.  Friendly and fun! 

• Rick is the wizard of Harvard’s web page. His approach to meet management is part science and part art. The technology used to run the New England championships is equal to or superior to that used at our USMS National meet. Results were available minutes after the completion of every event. Team scores, individual events and relays were posted on our meet website within an hour after the completion of each session. We were very good at keeping to our meet timeline in large part because of Rick’s mastery of the many meet details. The meet web page exceeded our expectations. Visitors could observe live action via electronic scoreboard or live video through webcam (about 250 unique IP addresses logged on). We had more than 10,000 hits to our web page—without the general broadcast of availability of results! Rick was a very big factor in this meet’s success

• Rick has been the SCY Championship Meet Director for over 15 years and has repeatedly demonstrated outstanding service to Masters Swimming on many levels and consistently promotes Masters Swimming at the Club, NE LMSC, and National levels.

• USMS All American Honors – 4 years pool relay

• USMS Records – 1 lifetime pool relay

• USMS Top Ten Achievements – 11 individual, 17 relay

• Club – New England Masters

• USMS Profile - Rick Osterberg - USMS Swimmer

My first experience with Masters was before I was even part of Masters. We hosted the SCY Champs at Harvard in 2000 and Bob Seltzer and Steph Morawski got me involved. I was running meets at Harvard at the time (since 1995 really), and they decided to run a Masters meet at Harvard and I committed to the meet in late January 2000 for the April 2000 meet. I have been running that meet every year since... well, except 2018 when I missed it because of chemotherapy, and not since 2020 when we had to cancel. Hopefully we will be back.

It was a year later that I officially joined CMSC in 2001. (And I met Jess, and the rest of history.) Strangely enough, I don't think I've ever held an "official" role in either NEM or NE-LMSC. Part of that is because I was part of the NE Swimming (USA Swimming side) Board of Directors since around 2002. So that was more my "official role" service to the sport.

On the Masters side, I've been in the booth for a long time. I'm often found playing a supporting role behind people who are officially elected. I think I helped shape some of the changes to either or both the NEM and LMSC Bylaws as they have evolved over the years. Over all of these years... I only went to convention once (2016 in Atlanta, and I juggled USA Swimming and USMS sessions). And I've only been to USMS Nationals once (LCM 2012 in Omaha), and one Worlds (2014 in Montreal).

But perhaps fair to say that I'm a persistent advocate for the sport across all segments, and in particular an advocate for high quality meet operations and simplification of rules. I keep my hands in the mix from the SCY Champs at Harvard, to 100x100 at Harvard usually in January, to the Boston Light Swim, to helping unofficially at open water nationals in Vermont a couple years ago, to being part of the Swim Across America Boston organizing committee.

Phil Baker

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 1984-1989 First coach and administrator for Seacoast Masters

  • Started the Masters program after teaching several adult swim-fitness classes and seeing a lot of interest in an organized swim program for adults

  • What started as a small Sunday morning workout group grew to a very active Masters program offering 4 to 5 coached workouts a week at several different pools

  • Philosophy of lifelong fitness and participation at all levels

  • Published monthly Seacoast Masters calendar and newsletter

• Club: Seacoast Masters

Phil was born in Albany and raised in western New York, moving to Maine when he was 17. He is the director of product management for WEX, where his team develops payment products, mobile apps, and vehicle tech. He currently lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, with his wife. They have two children who are in college.

Phil coached for the Westford Seals in Maine. When Phil was finishing his degree at UNH, he was looking for a part time job. Mike and Amy Parratto had recently taken over the Seacoast Swimming age group program with the goal of shifting the focus of New Hampshire Swimming up to the national level. Phil was hired as an assistant coach, coaching the program at the Portsmouth pool.

Looking to make a little extra income, Phil started swimming technique classes for the parents, with the goal of giving them a better sense and understanding of what their kids were doing. This transitioned into swimming workouts and eventually Seacoast Masters. When Phil left the program in 1989, there were 100+ Masters swimmers participating in workouts at three pools in Dover, Durham, and Portsmouth.

Stephanie Walsh Beilman

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2013 U.S. Masters Swimming Dorothy Donnelly Service Award

• 1984 NEMMY Award – Dr. Ransom J. Arthur Decade of Service Award for most contributions to Masters swimming and/or NEMSC over the preceding 10 years

• 1982 NEM 1-Hour Swim Coordinator

• 1982 Coach of UMass Boston NEM workouts

• 1981-1983 Event Director of first three Annual NEM Fall Swim Clinics

• 1981 November NEM News Profile of Stephanie Walsh

• 1978-1984 NEM Vice President

• 1975-1980 First head coach of the Harvard women’s swimming team

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 1 lifetime individual; 6 lifetime relay, 2 currently held

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 10 individual, 16 relay

• USMS Top Ten – 387 individual, 91 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

The oldest of 15 children, Stephane Walsh Beilman grew up swimming in high school, before taking her talents to the AAU where she swam for the Vesper Boat Club of Philadelphia and received coaching under Olympians Mary Freeman Kelly (1952) and George Breen (1956, 1960).

In 1975, Stephanie became the first head coach of the Harvard women’s swimming team, a position that she held until 1980, while she was earning her college degree from Boston University. From 1978 through 1984 (when she moved back to Philadelphia to work for the family business), Stephanie served as NEM’s vice president, event director for the annual NEM Fall Swim Clinic, coached NEM workouts at UMass Boston, and coordinated the NEM 1-Hour Swim.

D Barr Clayson

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 1996-1997 NELMSC Chair

• 1986-1996 USMS Marketing Committee, Chair 1992-1996

• 1983 Inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame

• 1982-1991 NELMSC Chair

• 1978 February NEM News Mini-Profile of D Barr Clayson

• 1976-1977 NEM President

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 5 lifetime relay

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 11 individual, 5 relay

• USMS Top Ten – 228 individual, 20 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

Barr was born in 1935 in Pittsfield and made his home in Weston, and Naples, FL. Barr graduated from South Kent School in 1954 and Brown University in 1958 where he was president of his senior class. He then served two years with the U.S. Navy, first aboard the U.S.S. Antietam and then in New Haven, CT, training at Yale with the Naval ROTC Swim Team for the 1960 Olympics and Pan American Games. 

An All-American swimmer at Brown University, Barr was training to compete in trials for the U.S. Olympic team in 1960 when illness curtailed his aspirations. Having a lifelong love for swimming, he took up swimming again as a Master and quickly became competitive. He was a member of the New England Masters Swim Club, serving as a president for many years. His many accomplishments included All-American honors, Masters National Champion, and three gold medals at the World Masters Games in Edmonton, Canada in 2005.

From the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame Website:

Davis Barr Clayson ’58 has had two lives in swimming, a brilliant undergraduate career leading to All-American honors in 1958, and then a sensational comeback in Master’s swimming that brought him additional All-American honors. And yet, none of this might have happened except for an incident that took place in his freshman year. Based on his size, ability, and prep school reputation, the 6-foot-2-inch, 195-pounder from Pittsfield, Mass., and South Kent School appeared to become one of the standouts at end on the Brown’s football squad. But he suffered a serious head injury halfway through his freshman season and was advised to give up the sport. So, although Coach Al Kelley lost a promising end, Joe Watmough gained one of the best swimming prospects in the school’s history.

But that’s what Barr Clayson was at that point, a prospect. The potential was there, even though the competitive background was nil. What he did have was fine coordination, a powerful kick, and the secret to it all – a strong desire to hone his skills by working hard and absorbing the words of wisdom uttered by Coach Watmough.

Evidence of Clayson’s rapid development is that he improved his time in the 200-yard backstroke from three minutes flat to 2:26 in one year. ‘Of all the swimmers I coached, none showed the steady improvement Barr did during those years we spent together at Lyman Pool,’ Coach Watmough said recently. The years Watmough refers to brought Barr Clayson Brown records in the 200, 100, and 50-yard backstroke events, a host of Colgate Hoyt Pool records, and a New England AAU mark in the 100-yard backstroke.

In dual meet competition, he was undefeated in his junior year and lost only once, to Yale, as a senior. After narrowly missing making the U.S. Olympic team in 1960, Barr Clayson took a 17-year hiatus from swimming before joining the Master’s program and setting new records. He was national record holder in the backstroke events in both 1980 and 1981 and was named to the Master’s All-American teams in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, and 1982. He’s currently a director of U.S. Master Swimming, Inc.

During his prep school days in Connecticut, Clayson was president of his class for five straight years. He’s also president of his class at Brown, has served as a member of the National Steering Committee of the Brown University Fund, and was chairman of the 25th Reunion Gift Committee for 1958 a year ago. Barr is managing director and chief investment officer of Standish, Ayer & Wood, Inc., of Boston. He and Pamela live in Weston, Mass., from where they have sent all three children to Brown – Jennifer ’81, Davis ’86, and Wendy ’87.” 

Ed Gendreau

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• Created the NELMSC Swim Time Tabulations page

• 2001-2003 Meet Director, Jenny Thompson Pool

• 1999-2003 Meet Director, Portsmouth Indoor Pool

• 1998 Created first-ever NE SCM All-Time Top Ten (from scratch, literally from paper)

• 1997-2005 Meet Director, NE SCM Championship

• 1997 September NEM News New England SCM Championship – New Championship Meet Feature: Workout Group Challenge

• 1993-2010 Head Coach, Great Bay Masters

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 1 lifetime relay

• USMS All-Star – 1 year long distance

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 9 individual, 12 relay

  • Long Distance – 2 individual, 1 relay

• USMS Top Ten – 203 individual, 106 relay

• Club: Great Bay Masters (GBM)

• USMS Profile

From his first practice in the early 90s, Ed Gendreau had a vision for Dover Masters that went beyond a small local Masters team. Around 1993, Ed took over as head coach and re-renamed Dover Masters, then a workout group of New England Masters Swim Club, to Great Bay Masters. He would remain head coach and visionary of Great Bay Masters until 2010.

Over the next several years the team expanded from the Dover Indoor & Outdoor Pool to include practices at Portsmouth Indoor Pool and the University of New Hampshire with the help of Greig Cronauer in Portsmouth and the Aquatics Department at UNH.

Ed’s leadership brought structure and rigor to the team resulting in strong attendance at practices. As the team grew more competitive, their presence at meets – both local and regional – saw phenomenal growth. By 2002, the GBM roster at the SCY Championship at Harvard was 90 swimmers deep and a force to be reckoned with!

Ed initiated and directed the first NE SCM Championship at Northeastern University in 1997, which was also the first “Workout Group” competition. The goal was to create relay activity and some “team” enthusiasm. Over the years, the now very popular SCM Championships (now hosted at Worcester Polytechnic Institute) were held at Northeastern University, Wheaton College, Bentley College, and Boston University, drawing up to 700 swimmers from all over the U.S. Ed also directed several local mini-meets each year under the GBM banner: LCM in the Summer at the Jenny Thompson Pool in Dover and SCM in the Fall at the Portsmouth High School Pool. GBM was also visible in large numbers at popular open water swims in the 1990s and early 2000s when open water swimming was only beginning to gain popularity in New England.

Around 2004, Ed led the effort to register Great Bay Masters as an official 501c(3) registered charitable organization, seceding from the oversight of New England Masters and changing from a NEM workout group to become an official USMS Masters Swim Club in its own right. Though the move was controversial, Ed persevered and successfully led the team through this important change in status. Ed became president of the newly formed organization and stayed in this role until 2010.

During this time, Ed began building a strong coaching staff. After having been a coach/swimmer for so many years, he began adding on-deck coaches to the UNH (Erika Cooper) and Portsmouth (Darren Johnson) pools to help carry the load. As these new coaches began to show success, Ed began focusing more on his swimming and eventually turned leadership of the team over to Crystie McGrail.

From USMS Age-Grading: An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Jim Thornton on the USMS Website (November 23, 2017)

“Ed Gendreau's age-rating system http://www.egswim.com/ne/, developed by another USMS swimmer and software whiz, is used by the New England LMSC. Not only has Gendreau kept his system updated on an annual basis, but anyone worldwide can use it gratis to calculate a rating for any official Masters Swimming event.

“Members of the New England LMSC get an additional perk: Gendreau automatically downloads every swimmer’s data from the ‘My Meet Results’ section of the USMS website and adds age ratings to all of these at once. New England swimmers can see at a glance not only their time changes across their swimming careers, but also their time-adjusted rating progression, too. There are a bunch of neat add-ons, too, including the ability to graph your swims by time and rating over the course of each season.

“For narcissistic stat geeks like me, Gendreau provides a treasure trove of data that’s unexpectedly eye-opening. I asked him if I could pay $15 via PayPal for him to run all my results at once, and he agreed. I won’t bore you with the complete inventory of all my races since Y2K, though feel free to contact me if you’d like to see these!”

Kim Goodwin

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2002-2003 NEM News article producer – My Swimming Life

• 2001-2002 NEM News article producer – How I Train

• 2001 February NEM News NEM Thanks…

• 2000-2004 NEM VP of Meets

• 1999-2001 NEM News article producer – How Do They Swim So Fast

• 1998 March NEM News Spotlight on Volunteers – Eileen Craffey and Kim Goodwin

• 1997-2004 NEM Officials Chair

• 1995-2004 Workout contact for Dedham High School

• 1984-2004 NEM Executive Committee

• 1984-1987 Mini Meet Director (Lawrence, Dedham, Rosemary Pool, 1-Hour Swim & 1650 at BC)

• 1984 NEM 1-Hour Swim Coordinator

• 1983 April NEM News Kim Goodwin – Profile of a Lovely Backstroker 

• USMS Certified Coach Level 1 & 2

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 1 lifetime relay

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 3 relay

• USMS Top Ten – 40 individual, 25 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

Kim Goodwin was born in Boston in 1958 and began swimming at the Hyde Park YMCA at age seven. The four-lane, 20-yard pool became a second home to her until she went to college. She was recruited and swam at Boston College for four years but her true love quickly became water polo. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in special needs (later also getting a master’s degree). 

In 1984 she began swimming Masters and hasn’t stopped since. She has coached swimming at the age group, high school (MIAA Coach of the Year in 2006), and Masters levels and been a MIAA official for about 20 years. “Of course, my love of swimming and coaching knows no bounds... I couldn't imagine life without being immersed in water and/or on a pool deck just about every day!” she says.

Kim was a learning disabilities teacher in Salem, NH, for four years and then worked for the Boston Public Schools for 38 years, retiring in 2018. She and her husband Bill have been married for 39 years and have three kids, Joey, Tim, and Mike.

David Grilli

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 1999-2003 NEM News article producer – The Self-Coached Swimmer

• 1997-2001 Open Water Event Director – Swim Like A Rock (First NEM open water event)

• 1994-2001 Check-Off Challenge Coordinator

• 1994 NELMSC Sanctions Chair

• 1993-1996 NEM President

• 1991-1997 NEM Executive Committee

• 1985 USMS Long Course Nationals at Brown – Awards

• 1983-2005 Meet Director (Phillips Exeter, Medford High School, Cedardale, Rosemary Pool, Manchester YMCA)

• 1983 March NEM News The Grillis – One of NEM’s Swimming Couples

• USMS Top Ten – 1 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

After high school, David Grilli was working in laborious jobs that kept him active and ergo thin. After five years, he decided to study engineering at Northeastern University. A few months of sedentary study made him realize he needed physical activity. So, he went to the pool. “I could barely swim a lap without hyperventilating,” he recalled, but he persisted. “And before long, I could finish 500 yards without stopping.”

Swimming was sheer pleasure, and sometime later, “I met my beloved Tracy. She told me that Masters Swimming existed and I should give it a try,” he says. At his first mini-meet, he met “the gregarious Tom Lyndon. Tom made this newbie feel very welcome and I was hooked. I got quite a bit better but was never competitive with my peers.” This led to the realization that David was a fitness swimmer, and attending swim meets was motivational and social.

“Since I couldn’t make a splash with swimming performances, I figured I would help in other ways,” he says. “Along with my wife Tracy, we got good at organizing and running mini-meets. We ran the Exeter meet for 18 years straight. We also ran open water swims and organized a Masters party or two.”

“Enjoying the social aspects of my Masters comrades, I got even more involved with governance. I was elected president of NEM for a two-year term and represented NELMSC at the USMS national convention nine years in a row.”

Alongside swimming and volunteering, David also became a coach and ran a Masters workout at a local pool. “I got a great sense of accomplishment from helping other swimmers,” he says. Soon afterwards, he began coaching a high school swim team, “or future Masters swimmers as I like to refer to them.”

David and his wife Tracy also started a workout group in Londonderry, NH that has “blossomed nicely over the past 20 years,” he says. In all, “Masters swimming has been a defining point in my life. I couldn’t have gone without it.” 

Tracy Grilli

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2018-present NELMSC Board of Directors

• 2005 U.S. Masters Swimming National Championship Meets Award

• 1996-2017 USMS National Office

• 1996-1998 NEM Vice President of Marketing

• 1994-2001 Check-Off Challenge Coordinator

• 1987-present NEM National Relay Coordinator

• 1985, 1986, 1987 NEMMY Award – Most significant contributions to the club’s well-being

• 1985-1986 Meet Director, Hawaiian Relays

• 1985 USMS Long Course Nationals at Brown – Awards

• 1984-1991 NEM VP of Meets

• 1983-2005 Meet Director (Phillips Exeter, Medford HS, Cedardale, Rosemary Pool, Manchester YMCA)

• 1983 March NEM News The Grillis – One of NEM’s Swimming Couples

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 5 lifetime relay

  • Long Distance – 1 lifetime relay

• USMS All-Star – 1 year long distance

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 4 individual, 28 relay

  • Long Distance – 4 individual, 2 years relay

• USMS Top Ten – 294 individual, 180 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

Tracy Grilli was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts in April of 1957, just in time for the grand opening of Bearcroft Swim and Tennis Club where her family were charter members. Her mom brought Tracy and her siblings (Kim and Mike) to the club pretty much every day during the summer. Tracy passed her pool test at age two-and-a-half, and she swam in her first meet at the age of 6. “Many years later, someone created a “Orphans of Bearcroft Swim Club” Facebook page which really bring back the memories,” she says.

Tracy continued to swim during the summers at Bearcroft and with the Seekonk Dolphins (coach Ellis Mayers) during the winter until she was 16. “I was an OK swimmer, nothing to brag about,” she says. “But my high school sports and activities became a priority and that was it for swimming.”

Tracy graduated from Norton High School in 1975 and she attended Slippery Rock State College in Pennsylvania to study physical education. “I tried out for the cheerleading squad,” but didn’t make the team. “I was too big.” She also tried out for the volleyball team, and made it to the last cut. Still searching for something to keep her occupied, she went out for the swim team. “I figured I was 500 miles away from home and needed to do something, so I joined the swim team. Again, I was an OK swimmer.”

After graduation, Tracy got a job as the physical director at the Malden YMCA, “and that is where I found out about Masters swimming! I also met David there, and the two of us joined NEM. Well, actually I was too young to join” – the minimum age to join Masters at the time was 25 – “but I was allowed to compete at meets and was listed in the results as a ‘sub-Master.’ We just absolutely loved everything about NEM – the people, the fun, the meets, the parties, the camaraderie.”

Right from the beginning, NEM leadership took David and Tracy under their wings, Tracy recalls, noting that Jim Edwards, Ted Haartz, Tom Lyndon, Barr Clayson, Stephanie Walsh, and Dave Eskin were just a few of their mentors. “We were appointed meet directors for the annual Phillips Exeter meet. Stephanie moved to Pennsylvania and I took over as vice president of meets, known as ‘Tom’s Vice’,” she says. “Along the way, if there was something that needed to be done, we volunteered.”

Tracy and David married in 1981, and subsequently had two children; Victoria was born in 1982 and Luke in 1985. They moved to Londonderry in 1986. Tracy got a job at the Nashua YWCA where she worked for 10 years. She resigned in early 1996, about the same time that the January/February issue of Swim Magazine arrived. In it was an announcement that Dorothy Donnelley (USMS’s executive secretary would be retiring and the organization was seeking a replacement. “David said, ‘this is the job for you!’ I applied, got the job and until 2009 (when we hired an Executive Director and created a ‘real’ national office) our house was the National Office!”

After 20 years with USMS it was time to move on. Tracy and David are grandparents now (Gianna was born on what would have been Tracy’s father’s 95th birthday – May 8, 2017). “Now, every day when I wake up, I decide what it is that I want to do. Of course, Masters Swimming and volunteering for the LMSC (BOD) and NEM (nationals relay coordinator) are high on my ‘want to do’ list!” she says.

Working Hard for USMS, USMS Website, Meegan Wilson May 30, 2005

Tracy Grilli has been described as ‘simply delightful.; Delightful yes, but she is far more than that. Currently, she is the USMS National Office Administrator, previously called the Executive Secretary of USMS. She took over for retiring Dorothy Donnelly on January 1, 1997 and has been going strong ever since. She said that one of her favorite duties is communicating with the many Masters swimmers from around the country.

Tracy, mother of two, has been active in Masters swimming for the past 24 years and has attended the USMS National Convention since 1996. She has been a member of the New England Masters swim club (Granite State Penguins) since 1981. She is the coordinator for NEM relays at national meets and had also acted for many years as vice-president of meets. She currently volunteers as the Registrar for the New England LMSC. Her husband David Grilli is a past president of NEM and is also active in USMS previously serving as the Fitness Chair.

Tracy has a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education from Slippery Rock State College. Professionally she worked for 15 years for the YMCA and YWCA working her way up the ladder to Interim Executive Director at the YWCA in Nashua, N.H., before taking the position with USMS.

Tracy started competing at the age of six. Today, she normally swims four days per week averaging 3,000 yards per workout and cross trains with weights and aerobics. Her coach is her husband, David, who also competes and coaches a USA Swimming club. Her motivation to keep swimming is to exercise and try to improve her speed.

At the third Annual International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame induction ceremony held at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale on January 8, 2005, Tracy was one of 12 Masters swimmers who were honored at the first Masters Swimming Pioneer Awards presented by the U.S. Water Fitness Association. These awards were presented in the name of the 12 original pioneer participants in the Masters program. Tracy received the June Krauser Rules or Newsletter Award.

Esther Lyman

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2012 USMS Rule Book Dedication

• 2002 USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award

• 2000-2011 USMS Database Administrator

• 1998 Created the first-ever NE LCM All-Time Top Ten

• 1998 Created the first-ever NE 1-Hour Swim All-Time list

• 1996-2000 NELMSC Top Ten Recorder

• 1991-1996 NEM Executive Committee

• 1985-1991 NEM Information Chair

• 1983 June NEM News Esther Lyman – Living Proof That Still Waters Run Deep

• 1981-1984 NEM Secretary (Meet Results)

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 1 lifetime relay

• USMS Top Ten – 5 individual, 1 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

Over the years, Esther volunteered for a number of positions that involved rather tedious responsibilities at both the club and regional levels: New England Masters and New England Local Masters Swimming Committee, including repairing our Top 10 list for short course yards, creating an All-Time Top 10 list for long course meters and the 1-Hour Swim. She served for several years as an assistant to Tom Lyndon, NEM News editor, and also as the vice chair of the LMSC. In each of these positions, she brought her usual thoroughness to the task at hand, becoming expert on each of the responsibilities and then smartly finding someone qualified to take over.

In 1999, with USMS membership at 38,000, Tracy Grilli was given the additional responsibility of bringing the USMS membership registration process in house. She needed to hire a database administrator and the first person she thought of was Esther. Tracy knew Esther would be perfect. When she contacted Esther to ask if she would be interested, she thought about it for a moment and said, “Yes, I think I would like to do this.”

USMS couldn’t have hired a better person. Over the next 10 years, as the USMS membership grew to over 55,000, Esther was hard-working, meticulous, patient, flexible and very knowledgeable when it came to the management of data. If there was something she didn’t know, she researched to find the answer. If something didn’t look quite right or she thought there was a better way of doing it, she experimented until she figured it out.

Esther definitely understood the importance of the information she maintained, what its potential uses were, and why it had to be up-to-date, correct, and available. She took tremendous pride in her work and was very much appreciated by our members, local registrars, committees, and Board of Directors.

After the first year, Esther wrote, “It took a great deal of courage all around to strike into this unknown territory—bringing the function in house—but we all survived and can all take credit that the results speak for themselves, including all the registrars who have given patiently of their time and effort and all deserve a medal! Not all gold, but no DQs either.”

Profiling Esther Lyman, USMS Website July 19, 2000

New England Master Esther Lyman of Londonderry, N.H., lives by her credo, ‘whatever direction you take in life, be excellent at what you do.’ Faithfully following that credo, Esther has been of enormous benefit to many organizations and activities—none more so than her favorite—Masters swimming.

Esther joined New England Masters late in 1974, worked out three to four times a week and took part in several meets a month. Her NEM swimming career produced the usual bouquet of blue, red, and yellow ribbons and medals. However, Esther's attitude was, ‘it isn't whether you win or lose, it’s whether you show up.’ She soon started giving back to the sport, becoming assistant to then newsletter editor Jim Edwards and was club secretary for a term. During this period, she worked 48 hours a week, raised three teenagers, and earned a B.S. with high honors in computer science. In 1984, she went to work for a major computer firm.

Raised in Denmark, Esther’s introduction to swimming was in the salty, pungent waters of Copenhagen Harbor. After marriage to a U.S. serviceman in 1954 when she was pursuing a career in language translation, she relocated to the United States, raising her children intermittent with leadership in Girl Scouting and teaching adult and pre-school swimming at the YWCA in Nashua, N.H.

Esther took over New England Top Ten Times at a time when several people had been trying to patch it back together. After bringing the job "up to snuff" she continued to maintain Short Course Yards. She then searched back to 1972, "an utterly tedious and time-consuming job" to create an All-Time Top Ten for Long Course Meters and then an All-Time New England list for the One-Hour Swim. Fellow NEM Ed Gendreau took on the task for Short Course Meters.

In mid-1998, the New England LMSC needed a major tune-up. The interim chair, John Woods of Maine, asked Esther to serve as New England's first vice chair. She brought her usual thoroughness to the task, becoming expert on each of the LMSC's areas of responsibility. She suggested excellent candidates to fill vacancies that occurred, solving problems and offering suggestions. Feeling her mission as vice chair accomplished, Esther returned to her Top Ten responsibilities. The minutes of October 1998 Annual Meeting noted special thanks to Esther Lyman for invaluable services during this transition.

For her Top Ten endeavors, Esther created a database to store all old times, into which meet results could be added electronically. It contains the current personal best times of all swimmers, and the current Top Ten line-up. It can automatically identify and qualify times for submission for national Top Ten. Times for New England swimmers are electronically downloaded from national results. New national and world records are added to the database as an upper limit for comparison, and prior years' top ten last places as a lower limit. The database does most of the selecting once the times are in the system. It can provide similar services to individual clubs such as Maine Masters.

In her spare time Esther has been working with Carl House and others on the National Archives project. The goal is to identify birthdates and club affiliations from early Top Ten and All-Americans, and to develop a permanent type of identifier for all swimmers to unify each swimmer's data and help with "quality control" of the web pages.

Masters swimming continues its phenomenal growth because the Esther Lymans ‘just show up’ and are excellent in what they do.

2012 USMS Rule Book Dedication

From repairing her LMSC’s Top 10 list to being the USMS membership database administrator, Esther brought her usual thoroughness to the task. She often became an expert on each of the responsibilities and then smartly found someone qualified to take over. Over the years. Esther volunteered for a number of positions that involved rather ‘tedious’ responsibilities.

Esther was hard-working, meticulous, patient, flexible, and very knowledgeable when it came to the management of data. She took tremendous pride in her work and was very much appreciated by member, local registrars, committees, and the Board of Directors.

After the first year as the membership database administrator, Esther wrote, “It took a great deal of courage all around to strike into this unknown territory—bringing the function in house—but we all survived and can all take credit that the results speak for themselves, including all the registrars who have given patiently of their time and effort and all deserve a medal: Not all gold, but no DQs either.”

Tom Lyndon

• 2020 Inducted into the New England LMSC Hall of Fame (Contributor)

• 2005 Dorothy “Dot” Donnelly Colonies Zone Service Award

• 2005 November NEM News Tom Lyndon Receives Dot Award

• 2004 NEM 1-Hour Swim Coordinator

• 1998-2003 NELMSC Chair

• 1996 U.S. Masters Swimming Newsletter of the Year Award

• 1992-1994 Colonies Zone Representative

• 1991-2004 NEM News Editor

• 1991 October NEM News Thomas Lyndon – Profile of a Leader

• 1987-1991 NEM News column producer – Freestyle

• 1985, 1986, 1987 & 1988 NEMMY Award – Most significant contributions to the club’s well being

• 1984 NEMMY Award – Dr. Ransom J. Arthur Decade of Service Award for most contributions to Masters swimming and/or NEMSC over the preceding 10 years

• 1977-1991 NEM President

• 1981 May NEM News Hail to the Chief! Tom Lyndon, NEM’s President

• USMS Records

  • Pool – 8 lifetime relay

• USMS All-American

  • Pool – 1 individual

• USMS Top Ten – 60 individual, 19 relay

• Club: New England Masters (NEM)

• USMS Profile

Tom was born on September 27, 1931 in Boston. He lived in Hingham for his first 5 years, then his family moved to Tennessee. Tom learned to swim at about the age of six at a summer day-camp in Knoxville, but he did not swim competitively until he went to college.

Tom graduated from Newton High School in 1949 and entered Bowdoin College that fall with the class of 1953. Although he had never swum competitively, he realized that he had competitive potential. When deciding where to go to college, the fact that Bowdoin had a pool and a swimming team was a consideration for him. He swam all four years as a sprint- and middle-distance freestyler. He was team captain his senior year and swam a 23.7 in the 50-free at the New Englands, which placed him third overall.

Tom majored in English and switched to American History. He was a member of the Army ROTC, and upon graduation, he was commissioned in the Reserves. Tom was immediately called to active duty where he was assigned to the Brooklyn Army Base. There he served until June of 1954 when he was sent to Puson, Korea. He arrived in Korea shortly after the armistice was signed. On release from the service, Tom entered Harvard Business School, graduating in 1957. After a number of positions, he became a financial administrator for 20 years in the public school systems (Wellesley, Natick, Danvers, and Wachusett). 

Tom became involved in Masters swimming in March 1973 after an article about Ted Haartz in the Boston Globe piqued his curiosity. He showed up at his first Masters meet at Medford High School where he swam the 50 free in 26.5 while wearing boxer trunks. By 1977, Tom had become the president of New England Masters, a position he held until 1991 when he became the editor of NEM News.

Of his service as NEM president, Tom said, “it became and has stayed a major part of my life and a part that gave me frequent and much more than sufficient rewards for the time I put into it. I chose to give the club a lot of time. I am happy I did. The club is healthy and has the people with the potential to move it along. I feel good about that.” His best memories of Masters were “not just the memories, but, even more important, the continuing friendships of the many fine people I have met, because we shared the same pools from time to time.” 

Barr Clayson, a close friend of Tom’s, sums it up: “The contributions made by Tom Lyndon to Masters swimming in New England are widely recognized. They have provided much of the glue that has kept our nifty and healthy club prosperous, competitive, and pleasurable.”