COLUMN: Lawlor-Gilbert leaves a legacy of losing

No one has anything bad to say about Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert. "I guess I'm just sad because I did get along really well with her," College sophomore Kenneth Goh said last week. "She was very well liked," said Matt Kredich, who coaches both the men's and women's swimming teams at Brown. "She was very professional in the way she treated other coaches." "She wasn't just everybody's buddy -- she did a pretty good job of motivating as well," said Tim Holovacs, who set two school records in the freestyle in 1989 with Lawlor-Gilbert as his mentor. In 1982, things were good for Lawlor-Gilbert. Not yet 40, she had already served as the women's head coach at UCLA. She was a former Olympic Trials qualifier. She had served as head coach of the Bahrain national team. And she had just taken over the reins at Penn, becoming the first woman to head a Division I men's program. Since then, however, Lawlor-Gilbert's men's teams have compiled a 65-118 record. Her women's squad has floated closer to .500, going 115-124. But the women have also gone 0-42 in the Ivy League in the past six seasons. Since '91, the men are 20-55 against their league opponents in the EISL. In Providence, Kredich is scratching his head. "I'm kind of surprised. Last year was probably the best year for the Penn women since I've been coaching and it looked like the team had a good time. They had some pretty impressive swims," he said. "I would expect somebody to retire if all of a sudden they had a really abysmal year or the kids weren't good kids or weren't getting along. But it's especially odd to do this at this point in the season." Kredich has a right to be confused. Two years ago he became a member of that small group which Lawlor-Gilbert just exited, those Division I coaches spearheading both a men's and women's program. But the similarities end there. He has never had to deal with being mired at the bottom of the league. Seven years ago, he took over a struggling Brown women's program. That year, the Bears finished last, tied with Penn at 1-6 in the Ivies. Fast forward to today. Brown has topped the league standings the past two seasons and claimed first at the Ivy Championship tournament four years in a row. In that same time, Penn has done nothing but tread water in the standings. I can't reach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert. I've called and I've called, but she's unreachable. So I don't know why she quit. Matt Kredich doesn't know. All I know is that her athletes respect her and have enjoyed swimming for her. And that the last time the men's team finished as high as fourth in the EISL was 1990-91. For the women, it was 1989-90. Philadelphia is a city that has grown accustomed to mediocrity. But the Quakers swimmers have posted numbers that would make even the Phillies and Eagles cringe. "It could very well be [that she's just tired of losing]," Kredich ventured. "Kathy was always good at looking at individual successes and judging herself based on those things. But in more public and objective measures of success, I can imagine that it would be really tough to come up short on those measurements. If your own standards of evaluating yourselves are different and you're viewing yourself as being successful, after awhile I can certainly imagine that losing could wear on you." Kredich pointed out that Lawlor-Gilbert was best at working with individuals like former All-Ivy selections Steve Kuster and Jeff Brown and helping them cultivate their abilities at the college level. And while she was at Penn, Lawlor-Gilbert witnessed every single men's and women's school record broken. But records are made to be broken. And as good as Lawlor-Gilbert was at steering individuals to their personal bests, just six of her athletes -- a total of nine event honorees -- were named first-team All-Ivy. Since she took over at Penn, 510 first-team All-Ivy honors have been awarded throughout the league. Nine out of 510 is just 1.8 percent. These are Division I athletes, and they should be commended for their hard work. But for Lawlor-Gilbert's troops, it has been 17 years of hard work with nothing to show for it on any level other than personal bests. Why has Penn struggled so severely to be competitive? A team's success can almost totally be attributed to a coach's recruiting. According to Kredich, a new coach has a two-to-three year window where a recruit can be told that a program is going to rise up through the league. "You have to be able to give a recruit a really good reason why your program is going to be at the top of the league. If you can't do that or you're not willing to do that, then you're going to recruit kids who don't mind being at the bottom or at the middle of the league." The Penn swimmers can't be expected to compete with top scholarship athletes in Division I. But there's no reason why Penn should be so at the bottom of the pack in its own league so consistently. While Lawlor-Gilbert has been at Penn, Tom Kovic has taken a non-high-profile sport -- gymnastics -- from the middle of the pack to the cream of the Ivies. And Roger Reina has steered the wrestling team from the Ivy League gutter into a squad that can compete with the top-10 teams in the nation. "You wipe the slate clean [with a coaching change] and that's a big advantage -- people like to be a part of something new," Kredlich said. I still haven't heard from Lawlor-Gilbert. I wish her the best of luck in whatever endeavors she decides to pursue. But at Penn, it's time for something new. And something different. And while assistant-turned-interim head coach Mike Schnur has his roots in the old program, it's still somewhat of a fresh start. And after 17 years, a 180-242 record and no league titles, a fresh start is all you can ask for.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.