Longtime Aquajets coach retires

Cambridge swim club skipper Ron Campbell passes torch to son after 36 years as deck captain

Ron Campbell was a reluctant swimmer as a child.

“I remember being deathly afraid,” the 64-year-old recalls. “But back then if your family was doing it, you didn’t have a lot of choice, so I kept going at it.”

As it turned out, swimming became his life.

From neighbourhood pools in Montreal to the Kitchener YMCA to the national team and, finally, decks around Cambridge as head coach of the city’s Aquajets swim club.

Now, after 36 years at the helm, Campbell is passing the torch.

“It’s a good time to take a look at some other things,” he said.

The club is in good hands. Campbell’s son Trevor, a former Aquajets swimmer and assistant coach for the past seven years, is taking over. But his dad’s absence will be felt. After all, Campbell coached thousands of swimmers at Galt’s John Dolson Pool — the club’s hub — and, later, at its second location the W.G. Johnson Centre in Hespeler.

He marched poolside in the wee hours of the morning, watched siblings grow up stroke by stroke and, in some cases, cheered alumni on as they competed around the world.

“Swimmers are kind of different,” he said. “They’re not looking to make a million dollars swimming. They’re usually pretty humble and hard-working. If you want to restore your faith in youth, you should just hang around a swim meet, because the kids are awesome.”

Campbell grew up in Montreal with three siblings and spent his formative years at the local Lakeside Swimming Pool.

“That’s what families did back then,” he said. “Your parents would kick you out of the house and you’d be at the pool all day.”

In the early 1970s, his parents Don and Jacqui moved to Waterloo. Campbell latched on with the swim team at the Kitchener YMCA, where he was inspired by local Dave Heinbuch, who competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics.

By his late teens, Campbell, a breaststroker, made the national team, where he spent about four years representing Canada at various events.

Campbell found coaching to be his calling after he retired from competitive swimming and took over head duties with the Aquajets in 1986.

“I thought I would be there a year or two and move on,” he said. “That’s usually how things work in coaching. I ended up staying for a long time.”

Under Campbell’s guidance, the Aquajets, which is run by a board of parents, remained on solid financial footing, developed national and international swimmers and helped thousands of others aged six to 18 improve, have fun and form bonds with their teammates.

When Campbell started, the club had 80 swimmers. It peaked around 160 before falling back to about 100 during the pandemic. Numbers are expected to rise this fall as the club readies for its first full “normal” season since COVID-19 hit.

He worked side by side with his wife, Karen — a one-time assistant coach — for a dozen years and saw sons Trevor and Drew come up with, and eventually coach, the Aquajets.

But now it’s time to move on. No more 4:45 a.m. wake up calls for practices, suffocating humidity on pool decks and wafts of chlorine.

Campbell, who also taught math for 25 years at Conestoga College, plans to spend more time at his cottage near Southampton. He wants to do more cycling, kayaking and charity work too.

He’ll still check in now and again to lend a hand with his old club if needed, mostly with the upper-level swimmers.

But make no mistake: this is his son’s team now.

“He knows what the gig is and his eyes are wide open,” said Campbell. “He has some great ideas. He’s fired up to get things going.”