SWIMMING
By TOM HAYES
THERE was a number of ways you could describe the late Geoff Peterson, but one that people usually came back to was ‘professional’.
Peterson was a beloved coach at the Morwell Swimming Club, spending more than a quarter of a century in the role. He sadly passed away last month at the age of 85.
The long-serving coach joined the Morwell Swimming Club in 1992 and held the position of head coach for 23 years until 2015. After 10 years of non-stop service, Peterson was awarded life membership of Morwell Swimming Club, in 2002.
For the 2015/16 season, he spent time away from the club travelling, before returning as assistant coach in 2016/17. It wasn’t long before he was the top dog once again, assuming the role of head coach in the 2018/19 season. He held this position until his passing.
In 2022, Peterson was named as a finalist at the Australia Day awards ceremony for Senior Citizen of the Year, nominated by families of his swimmers.
Prior to his tenure at Morwell Swimming Club, Peterson also worked as a head coach at the Churchill Swimming Club and ran individual coaching and learn-to-swim program while at the Moe Swimming Club.
He was dedicated to the job up until his passing, coaching three eight-year-old swimmers to win two gold, one silver and three bronze medals at the Gippsland Championships, and one gold, one silver and two bronze medals at the Victorian Country All Junior Championships in March this year.
Peterson took pride in seeing the support the Morwell Swimming Club members gave to the local competition, and the versatility of swimmers in relay events. While under Peterson’s tenure, the Morwell Swimming Club posted a third place finish for boys points at the Victorian Country Championships in Albury in 2005.
During his time at the Morwell Swimming Club, Peterson oversaw the development of nine swimmers who made the transition from club level to the national level. Those swimmers were Daniel Bertacco, Susan Hunt, Chris Warren, Andrew Crozier, Stuart Hall, Glenn Ferguson, Matthew Dismore, Phillip Blunt, and Jacob Mulqueen.
Bertacco was potentially the most prominent of the lot, as he was inducted into the Victorian Institute of Sport, selected for the Commonwealth Shadow Team that travelled to Canada and the US, and claimed a silver medal at the Canadian Summer Championships in the 100-metre butterfly.
Crozier, Dinsmore, Blunt, Chris Olorenshaw, Annie Pepper, Melissa Hopley, and Libby Towns were all swimmers of Peterson’s who were selected for the Pacific School Games over the years.
Peterson coached Crozier, Pepper, and Olorenshaw to their Gippsland swimming records, for which they still hold and are congratulated for today.
Peterson was a massive part of the Morwell Swimming Club’s success in the mid-2000s, where the club won many district shields and trophies. Much of that success came down to consistency and regular attendance at local carnivals, spurred on by the dedication of Peterson.
Life members and current president and vice-president of the Morwell Swimming Club, Alan Godfrey, and Melissa Scholes, spoke to the Express about Peterson, and his legacy.
Scholes has been with the Morwell Swimming Club since Peterson started in 1992, while Godfrey started in 1996, spending years with him coaching those in the pool.
“(Peterson) was very dedicated to the Morwell Swimming Club. He spent a lot of time helping the swimmers, training them up for different competitions that they wanted to attend, and he was always at the pool, without failure,” Scholes said.
“He didn’t go away very often! He just really looked after everyone.”
Speaking to multiple sources, it appears that Peterson has travelled to almost every edge of the Latrobe Valley and surrounding regions just to show his support to swimmers at their meets, doing this out of the kindness of his own heart.
Speaking with the two life members, they mentioned that if he ever did take time away, it would only be for a week or so at a time, always planning in advance to make sure no one was left short in his absence.
“Even during the lockdowns of COVID, he was even in the background preparing land-based activities for swimmers to do at home, checking in with them each week,” Godfrey added.
Peterson would facilitate Zoom-like conferences, so that he could monitor his swimmers while they did their land-based training from home.
And when lockdown restrictions were eased, he made sure that every swimmer had the chance to get back in the pool, as only a certain number were allowed at one time.
Even when his swimming students would take time off, or go on holiday, Peterson would prepare a special program specifically for them to complete.
And for less fortunate families, Peterson would provide them with equipment, like stretching bands for instance.
His connections in the swimming world helped him and those ever involved with him. He often took swimmers from other regions or states under his wing, recommended by coaches far and wide. And if swimmers ever had to relocate, he would return the favour and find them a new coach that he trusted.
So determined, Peterson would advise those who were close to achieving Country Qualifying times, helping them get to the standard they needed to be.
His coaching style was described as detailed and particular, giving his swimmers instructions stroke by stroke, with the times they needed to achieve per split at a certain effort percentage point.
Nowadays, swimming coaching is focussed on the broader aspects of the sport, which put Peterson head and shoulder above the rest with his old-style ways.
Both Godfrey and Scholes, who had spent decades of time with him, had many personal experiences with him. They described his quirks when talking to the Express.
“He and I shared coffees quite frequently. We had Saturday morning training for a few years, and he and I would go have breakfast after that,” Godfrey said.
“We chatted mostly about the swimmers, but it was also about other things like politics and occasionally about the footy team he followed – Collingwood!”
Scholes noticed the relationships he had built up with swimmers and their families, and how he was so interested in everybody’s lives.
“I think it’s important to note that he was always interested in what the swimmers were up to and he would go along to the school swimming to see how they were doing,” she said.
“He also seemed to know what everyone had left the club were up to and keep an interest in hearing about their lives and what achievements they made.”
Past swimming students included Moe’s Teagan Micah, who’s preferred sport is now soccer. And despite her code switch, which has seen her play for Liverpool in the Women’s Super League and represent her country, Peterson remained interested in her career after all of these years.
Peterson would take his younger swimmers out to the movies as a group, getting cheaper tickets in the process, just to increase that level of team morale outside of the swimming club. The groups would also attend the circus, or go bowling.
“It wasn’t just at the pool; it was social activities as well,” Godfrey said.
“So many people say that he was such a big influence in their lives, shaping them into the people that they are today,” Scholes added.
Godfrey noted that Peterson worked as a teacher, and as an engineer on a merchant ship before his time in the pool.
He mentioned that Peterson would suffer from sea sickness on occasion, which is ironic to some extent for someone who worked in water for more than 20 years.
Not only will people miss Peterson as a coach, but also what he resembled in a coach and a friend.
“I think they’ll miss catching up with him for a chat, they’ll miss seeing his face around at the pool – he was there all the time,” Scholes said.
“The (Morwell) Leisure Centre sort of consider him as a bit of an icon there because he was always there,” Godfrey added.
There is a photo tributing Peterson’s life at the Morwell Leisure Centre, in the spot that he would often sit or stand to coach his swimmers.
A number of words were thrown around when describing Peterson, but one that encapsulated him as a whole was ‘professional’.
He worked tirelessly on improving the personal best time of every swimmer, calculating their splits all on his own. All of the background work he committed his time to dissolved into what a professional is.
“Most of the kids wouldn’t have seen (the work he put in),” Godfrey mentioned.
In 2017, the Morwell Swimming Club hosted the inaugural Geoff Peterson Sprint Meet, honouring Peterson for his contribution to the sport and the club.
This year however will be the inaugural Geoff Peterson Memorial Sprint Meet, which is sure to be a sentimental occasion for the club and all involved.
Following his passing, tributes flew in from the wider swimming community. A celebration of Peterson’s life was held on Friday, April 26.
DURING his funeral, former Morwell Swimming Club member, 15-year-old Kitana Bramley shared her experiences with Peterson in a speech, which truly displays the type of person he was to his students.
Good evening, my name is Kitana Bramley, and I am a former member of the Morwell Swimming Club – that’s how I met Geoff, I was seven years old when I decided to stop swimming lessons to challenge myself further and so I joined the swimming club.
Geoff saw the potential in me, he challenged me and pushed me to do my best and that is a reason why he will always have a spot in my heart.
As I stand in the room with all these faces, I wonder how many of you have had the same experience with Geoff’s guidance as I have, and if he holds that same special place in your hearts as he does in mine.
Geoff was a very selfless person; he would give up his time to be down at the pool coaching the kids, devoting his time into us swimmers. Geoff has travelled countless kilometres to support his swimmers which shows his devotion to the club he also had volunteered for 40 years.
Geoff not only volunteered for Morwell Swimming Club, but he had also dedicated his time into other swimming clubs and the swimming community in general.
Throughout my time knowing Geoff I got to create many cherished memories with him, but I will limit them down to a few. In one of my last year’s as a swimmer, I had made it to represent Gippsland in Melbourne, although I wasn’t competing until later in the day, everyone else had finished competing and already gone home, but Geoff waited around with me even, though my race wasn’t for hours he stayed there to support me and that’s what I admire about Geoff.
He was so reliable and supportive towards everyone, and it made you feel special knowing there was always someone on the sidelines supporting you.
Another one of my cherished memories is when I would turn up to training and Geoff was so excited to try all these new ways of improving our swimming ability even further by implementing the things he had learnt from coaching seminars and YouTube.
For instance there was a point where Geoff would make us swim laps and after each lap, he would measure our heart rates, or when he would put a hoop in the middle of the water, and we had to dive into the centre. I can just remember the little giggle you would hear from him when the landing didn’t go as expected and lastly when he would get us to put the sponges around our waists while we swam to build our endurance.
At school we are writing about heroes in the modern world and the first person I thought of was Geoff. He always thinks of others before himself and he had so much devotion and dedication towards the swimming club, and for that I am so grateful for because he not only taught me how to swim competitively, but he taught me skills that I can use in the real world, he taught me how to push myself, understanding my full potential, he taught me how to set goals and aim for them, and he taught me to not give up when things get to hard.
Geoff also internally challenged me. He would spend numerous hours doing the math to work out my average swimming times to set reasonable goals for me to achieve and overall this foundation is what I will use in my future life.
Although Geoff isn’t standing with us today, we just have to remember the little spot in our hearts that belongs to Geoff and remind ourselves that he will never be forgotten.
