One glance at Steve Potsklan, Fordham’s broad-shouldered swimming coach, and you would never believe he didn’t make his high school football team.

“I was very small and thin, and it didn’t work,” recalled Potsklan, the son of former Albright College football coach John Potsklan. “So my dad said, ‘You don’t have to do football. Just get into some sport you like and want to do.’”

Potsklan had always loved to swim. After that failed football tryout, swimming quickly became his sport of choice.

After high school, Potsklan joined the Penn State team as a walk-on and left four years later as the team’s most valuable player, setting school records and winning a league title in the 100-yard freestyle.

But it was coaching that really appealed to the Pennsylvania native, who said he “grew up on the sidelines of football fields.” After completing a master’s degree in physical education from West Virginia University, Potsklan landed a job as an assistant swim coach at Yale. From there, he jumped to the head coaching position at Fordham in 1993.

This spring, Potsklan was named Fordham’s 2009 Coach of the Year and the 2009 Atlantic 10 Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year after leading the women’s swim team to a second-place finish in the league. It was the team’s best finish in the Atlantic 10, trumping its 2007 third-place finish.

“This was an amazing season for us,” Potsklan said. “The majority of the team had lifetime-best performances.”

In fact, the 2009 men’s and women’s swimming teams set 25 school records, and 11 of Potsklan’s students earned All-Atlantic 10 honors. Rising senior Caitlin Napoli received the team’s MVP award, setting six school records. Courtney Collyer, now a rising sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill, was named 2009 Atlantic 10 Women’s Rookie of the Year and broke an A10 record in the 200 butterfly.

“My swimmers kept telling me, ‘You should win [best coach]this year,’” said Potsklan. “But my win was because of them—both the men and women. They were fantastic.”

During swimming season, which runs from late August to mid-spring, Potsklan spends every day at the Francis B. Messmore Aquatics Center on the Rose Hill campus, where his office looks out on the swimming pool. He oversees nine workouts a week for approximately 55 team members, and he demands 100 percent attendance in order to maintain an “inspiring environment” for his team.

“Academics are always first, but we try to keep swimming at a very close second,” Potsklan said. “We do a tremendous amount of team-building skills—in and out of the pool.”

With new technologies, the mechanics of the sport has changed tremendously in the last decade, Potsklan said. Today, the use of video analysis and other advanced imagery helps swimmers locate trouble spots and hone their techniques.

“If a hand is coming into the water at 85 degrees and I want it to come in at 90 degrees, showing it to the swimmer on video can absolutely make a difference in improving it,” he said.

In the last few years, the development of new “miracle fabric” suits has led to a spate of record-shattering, creating what some call a new class of swimmers.

“Old speeds are being wiped out across the board,” Potsklan said. “It’s exciting.”

No matter what the technique level of a swimmer is, said Potsklan, the most critical element of the athlete is self-confidence. To develop a swimmer psychologically, Potsklan practices team-building skills, such as maneuvering hula-hoops through a human chain or engaging in friendly team competitions. The better the team chemistry, he said, the healthier the individual swimmers.

“One of our key elements this year was that the team believed not only in their individual abilities, but in the team as a whole,” said Potsklan. “What they gave to each other came back and allowed each individual to perform better.”

Potsklan recruits approximately 16 new members annually, mostly from regional high schools. Using the online U.S. Swimming Database, he can check potential candidates’ academic averages along with their swim times. From there, he goes to see a candidate in person, looking for a stroke that looks “effortless. Pretty.”

“It’s a very simple word, pretty. But it means they’ve been taught good mechanics,” he said.

With the sweep in gold medals by U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, swimming has grown into a much higher-profile sport, said Potsklan. He is proud that Fordham’s fans come out to watch home swim meets, sometimes filling the stands, and he sees swimming growing as a spectator sport.

“In Phelps you now have a swimmer who is a major marketing celebrity, a million-dollar athlete,” he said. “It really promotes the sport, and it makes swimmers more proud of their role in athletic competition.”

– Janet Sassi

The Fordham women’s squad set 16 school records and the men’s side added five more at the 2009 Atlantic 10 Swimming and Diving Championships. The annual competition was held from Feb. 18-21 at the Flickinger Athletic Center in Buffalo, N.Y.

Leading the Fordham women was Courtney Collyer (FCRH ’12), who won two events and set one conference mark. She won the 400 individual medley in a school-record time of 4:22.16, snapping the old mark of 4:29.78 set in 1993.

On the final day of the meet, Collyer took gold in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:59.96, surpassing the former A-10 record of 2:01.01 set in 1993, as well as shattering the Fordham mark of 2:04.44, which was established two years ago.

Collyer was named the Atlantic 10 Female Rookie of the Meet—the first Fordham woman to earn the honor.

Head Coach Steve Potsklan was named the Women’s Coach of the Year, his first A-10 honor. Photo courtesy of Fordham Athletics

Her success in the pool was the leading edge of a total team effort that earned the Fordham women a second-place finish, their best showing at the Atlantic 10 Championships. Previously, their highest finish was third place in 2007.

For some icing on the cake, Head Coach Steve Potsklan was named the Women’s Coach of the Year, his first A-10 honor.

Collyer wasn’t the only Fordham woman to earn First Team All-Conference honors. Caitlin Napoli (CBA ’10) also won two events, placing first in the 200 and 500 freestyle and setting school records in both.

She won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:49.55, surpassing her own record of 1:49.97, which she set in a morning preliminary. In fact, her preliminary run broke the two-day-old record of Tressa Dunn (CBA ’10), who clocked in at 1:51.61 over the first 200 meters in the 800 freestyle relay.

Napoli won the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:52.07, shattering the school mark of 4:57.75 set in 2004.

She also finished second in the 200 butterfly to earn Second Team All-Conference honors, finishing 0.83 second behind Collyer.

The 200 freestyle record wasn’t the only one to change hands several times at the championships. The Fordham 100 fly record was rewritten all day.

Katelynn Gray, (FCRH ’10) set the school mark by clocking 56.98 in the morning preliminaries. Kelly Bunster (FCRH ’12) snapped that time by swimming a 55.88 in another preliminary a few minutes later. Bunster then swam a 55.43 in the finals to reset the mark and earn Second Team All-Conference honors.

Courtney Collyer (FCRH ’12) was named the Atlantic 10 Female Rookie of the Meet Photo courtesy of Fordham Athletics

The women’s 800 freestyle relay team took home gold and set an Atlantic 10 record, winning the event in 7:24.25. It broke the record of 7:28.19 set by the Richmond Spiders in 2007 and destroyed the school mark by nearly 14 seconds.

Earning Second Team All-Atlantic 10 honors for the women were Dunn, who finished second in the 100 and 200 freestyle; the 200 and 400 medley relays; and the 400 freestyle relay.

Christina Cosentino (CBA ’11) and the women’s 200 and 400 freestyle relays also got in on the record-breaking action. Cosentino set the 200 back mark with a 2:01.94, placing sixth, while the Fordham women combined to swim 1:35.85 in the 200 freestyle relay, taking sixth and breaking the record of 1:36.52 set in 2003.

The 400 freestyle relay earned Second Team All-Conference honors, placing second in a school record time of 3:24.56, bettering the former mark of 3:31.35 set in 2005.

Nicole Marshall (FCRH ’10) also had a strong championship meet, setting school records in the 100 (1:03.85) and 200 (2:19.21) breaststroke and the 200 individual medley (2:03.82); finishing third in the 100 breaststroke and 200 individual medley; and fourth in the 200 breaststroke.

On the men’s side, Ryan Coombs (FCRH ’10), won the 200 fly with a season-best time of 1:50.03 on the final day of competition. He placed fourth in the 200 freestyle, with a season-best time of 1:40.17, and the 500 freestyle, taking eighth with a season-best time of 4:40.77.

Not to be outdone, twin brother Justin Coombs (CBA ’10) set a school record at the championship, swimming a 20.72 in 50 freestyle preliminaries, breaking the record of 20.73 set in 2003. He placed fourth in the finals.

Ryan Coombs (FCRH ’10) won the 200 fly on the final day of the competition.

The 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams earned Second Team All-Atlantic 10 honors by taking second in each race. The 200 freestyle relay finished in a school-record time of 1:22.21, surpassing the former record of 1:23.69, while the 400 free relay swam a school record time of 3:01.54, smashing the former record of 3:04.10 set in 1979.

There were two other record-setting relays. The 200 medley relay placed third with a time of 1:31.62, breaking the mark of 1:33.00 set in 1996. The 400 finished sixth with a time of 3:23.95, breaking the mark of 3:24.93 set in 1996.

Overall the Fordham men placed fourth at the championships with 415 points.