Smith takes gold and bronze in national seniors swim meet

By STEPHEN FLANAGAN JACKSON

A Ruskin resident, who trains in Apollo Beach and St. Petersburg, recently brought home the gold and the bronze with his prowess in swimming at the National Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Ruskin resident Mike Smith recently brought home the gold and the bronze with his prowess in swimming at the National Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Similar to many others in South Shore, Mike Smith is a transplanted, now-permanent snowbird. He was born in eastern Ohio, has lived in Ruskin for three years and trains at the Apollo Beach Racquet Club pool and the North Shore Aquatic Complex in St. Petersburg.

“I’ve always had an affinity for the water, with a strong desire to compete in Masters swimming,” said Smith,“but family commitments, work schedules, and proximity were always in conflict. If someone would have told me that some 42 years later I could get within three seconds of my college times, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

Smith began Masters two years ago, and as a sprinter swims 2,700 yards of drills every other day. He has shed 20 to 25 pounds, and his times continue to decline. Smith has collected 13 Florida Senior Games state titles, as well as setting two Florida Senior Games state records, including his favorite event, the 50-yard butterfly. The state meets are qualifiers for the Nationals.

According to Smith, the recent National Senior Games in arid New Mexico had nearly 14,000 attendees, the largest in the 32 year history of the games, participating in 20 sports. Smith competes for the St. Petersburg Masters Swim Club. With a strong contingency representing the west coast, he was one of 700 Florida participants at the games, with qualifiers from the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Barbados, Trinidad Tobago, Sweden and Slovakia.

Speaking of his “day” job, Smith says he is an Operational Effectiveness Executive. “I work with organizations to turn them around, assist in startups, new product launches or mergers, but I am focused on culture, unleashing the greatness in individuals and encouraging them to focus on the success of others as much as on their own.” It appears he has taken his own advice.

“I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and grew up in nearby New Boston, Ohio,” related Smith. “I have had many experiences and lived in Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Louisville. Undoubtedly, these cities, including Portsmouth, will connect with others in the local community around the South Shore.

“I began swimming competitively at age nine after they built a public pool in my small hometown, New Boston. The college where I competed was a private college in the Ohio Athletic Conference. I was named Most Valuable Freshman and Most Improved Swimmer my first year but left the state before my sophomore year began to accept a position and finished my degree some years later at another school,” remembers Smith, now in his early 60s. “I was the first in my family to receive a degree as my parents didn’t know anything about the process, and all we knew in those days about college, without Google, was what was in the books on the high school guidance counselor’s shelves.

“That’s why swimming has always felt like unfinished business,” said Smith. “In reflection, just before my high school years, my aunt in California had made a way for me to join the Mission Viejo Nadadores swim club and train under Mark Schubert, who would eventually become the US Olympic swimming coach in 1980, but my parents declined.”

In the early to mid 1970s, Smith swam for Sun & Fun Land [New Boston], the Portsmouth YMCA Piranhas, and AAU with the Greater Portsmouth Swimmers at Dreamland. He attributes his success to God, for sustained health and the ability to compete at a high level; his youth swimming coaches: Aaron Adams, the late Lester Adams (S&FL) and the late Frank Bruch (YMCA), as those men created an atmosphere of sportsmanship, competitiveness, encouragement and clean fun; as well as special tribute to his MVP wife, Gloria, for the hundreds of things she does to enable him to train, travel and compete.

Mike Smith began swimming competitively at nine years old in his hometwon of New Boston, Ohio. Here he is competing at the National Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he won gold and bronze medals.

Smith competes in the 60 to 64 age group and participated in his first national competition in April at the YMCA Nationals in Orlando, winning five medals, competing against a 23-time world record holder as a tune up for Albuquerque and before tapering began. In Albuquerque, Smith outpaced a strong swimmer from Mexico in the 50-yard freestyle to win the gold by three hundredths of a second and become a national champion. He also took bronze in the 100 individual medley and 50 breaststroke and placed fourth in the 100 breaststroke and 50 butterfly. Although not the finish he had hoped for in the butterfly, four of his five times were personal records and three of those times, including butterfly, will make it into the all-time Top 10 National Senior Games record books.

California (601 medals) won the overall competition, followed by New Mexico (449), while Florida (380) finished third, edging out Texas (349). If you would like the experience, the next National Senior Games will be held in Ft. Lauderdale in 2021, suggested Smith.