'Until we meet again': Mike Brosnahan bids farewell after 32 years

SANDPOINT — If you grew up in Sandpoint, chances are you’ve met Mike Brosnahan.

While Mike, 57, has been teaching people in the community how to swim for 32 years, his storied career is coming to a close.

About two weeks ago, he turned in his resignation as the aquatics and youth director at the Litehouse YMCA as he sets his sights on retirement.

This past Friday was Mike’s final official day on the job. Monday, he will bid farewell to the Sandpoint Sharks Club swim team that he started in 1990 and has coached ever since.

“Monday will be shaking hands and kissing babies,” he joked.

Mike is hard to describe. He’s eccentric and some say he looks like Dr. Emmett Brown from “Back to the Future.” His personality and smile light up a room and he’s had a lasting impact on those around him, whether he’s known them for 30 years or 30 minutes.

Mike isn’t calling this retirement though. Instead, he’s looking at it as being fun-employed.

Mike’s entire life has revolved around swimming and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I think the biggest part of everything that I’ve done for 32 years has been helping people get over their fear and learn how to swim,” he said.

Born to be in the water

Mike’s dad and grandpa were both lifeguards and served in the U.S. Navy, so a future in or on the water for Mike seemed like it was a given. But for a good bit of his childhood, he didn’t know how to swim.

Mike, who grew up in Whidbey Island, Washington, didn’t learn how to formally swim until he was about 12 years old.

At age 11, Mike and his family went to visit his uncle in Canada who had a pool. Mike's parents left him unattended on an inner tube in the deep end of the pool. Mike’s cousin then proceeded to knock him off the tube.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “I still remember the shimmering of the surface as my body is sinking to the bottom.”

Mike nearly drowned, but his cousin reached down and pulled him up. Despite the near-death experience, Mike wasn’t scared. He felt comfortable being underwater.

A year later, Mike returned to the same pool and he was left unattended once again. Then his cousin’s girlfriend came over and offered to teach him how to swim.

“In one day, she got me to be able to swim on my back all the way across the pool and back,” he said.

Mike returned home after that and began taking 4-H swim lessons at the local Navy combat pool. He kept taking the same class over and over again because he loved being in the water so much that, when he was 14, the instructor asked him if he wanted to help teach the class.

Mike took the offer and, at 15, he got his lifeguard certification and started working at the combat pool.

Mike attended the University of Idaho and went straight into the Navy ROTC program to start and worked at the school’s swim program. He planned on following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a fighter pilot, but his depth perception wasn’t good enough to pursue the career, so he scrambled to find a new path.

He switched his major from computer science to recreation and it turns out that’s where he belonged after all.

“If you were to put me back 35 years ago and say make that decision again, I would,” he said. “This is what I wanted to do.”

Mike became the lead instructor at the UI swim center and the following year he walked onto the school’s dive team with no experience. That season he made it to the conference championships and placed third in the 1- and 3-meter springboard.

Mike spent six years at the UI before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in recreation.

Journey to Sandpoint

As Mike neared the end of his time as a Vandal, Kim Woodruff, the Sandpoint parks and recreation director, gave him a call and offered him an internship opportunity.

Mike was good friends with Woodruff throughout their time at the UI, where the pair were the president and vice president of the recreation club.

Woodruff knew Mike had the expertise and knowledge to revamp the city’s lifeguard program so he extended a nine-week internship to Mike in 1988, but he wasn’t interested.

“I wasn’t really turned on by Sandpoint,” Mike said.

Eventually, Woodruff convinced Mike to take the position and he packed up his 8-foot sailboat and moved to Sandpoint.

Mike quickly nudged his way in with some of the locals and began enjoying everything the town had to offer.

After the internship ended, Mike served as an athletic director at a now defunct boys school and then found his way to a resort on the lake that was helping him prepare to be a manager of an athletic club.

Soon after, the aquatic director position opened up at the Sandpoint West Athletic Club, now the Litehouse YMCA, and he’s held the job ever since.

About a year into the job, Mike created the first club swim team in Sandpoint — the Great White Sharks. Eventually, the team with hot pink and blue speedos became just the Sharks.

In 1994, Mike helped form the Sandpoint High School swim team and for over 20 years he fought to have the sport recognized by the Idaho High School Activities Association. In 2016, the IHSAA finally did, making Idaho the 49th state to hold a sanctioned state swim tournament.

Two years later, Mike handed over the keys to the high school team to Greg Jackson, one of his former swimmers.

Mike has trained the city’s lifeguards since he moved to Sandpoint, but last year he gave it up and his daughter, Briana, took his place. She is currently working as a lifeguard at the UI swim center.

Mike said this is the first time since he was 15 that he isn’t certified as an American Red Cross lifeguard.

Mike said he began contemplating retirement about a year ago. The Sharks had a swim meet scheduled in Lewiston on May 18 and he was planning on hanging it up after, but the coronavirus threw a wrench in that plan.

With all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, Mike figured he’d stick around until the YMCA got back on its feet and reopened. Then the kids were able to get back in the pool in June and he kept pushing back the date further and further.

Woodruff heard Mike was considering leaving and made his best pitch to keep him around longer. He also asked Mike to call him before turning in his resignation.

Mike turned in his resignation and immediately called Woodruff after doing so to give him a hard time and let him know that he forgot to call first.

“Oh shoot, I blew it,” he recalled saying.

Mike’s legacy on swimming in Sandpoint

When Jim Zuberbuhler, the current race director for the annual Long Bridge Swim, came to Sandpoint in September of 2000, Mike was one of the first people he met.

Zuberbuhler has had a close relationship with Mike ever since and when he decided to start a water safety program through the Long Bridge Swim, he knew the perfect man for the job.

Zuberbuhler said Mike was critical in helping establish the curriculum for the program that has a goal of making sure no kid in Bonner County gets past the third grade without learning how to swim.

“He has been the heart of it,” Zuberbuhler said.

To Zuberbuhler, what makes Mike such a great coach is his ability to connect with kids on a personal level.

“Mike really is about character building,” he said. “I think that is the most important thing is the influence he has on helping our local students grow up into good people.”

Dig Chrismer, who has been a member of the YMCA advisory board for over two years, shared a similar sentiment. Her daughter, Leah, was on the club swim team for about a year and said Mike was always there to support her.

“He really wanted the kids to learn to love what they were doing first and there are so few coaches I think who really get that and Mike he really did,” she said. “He’s got a wonderful touch.”

Zuberbuhler said Mike created an environment that emphasized celebrating the achievements of others and that team-first mentality was on full display at every meet and practice he coached.

“You walk in there and it might seem to be pretty chaotic but out of that has come many of the best swimmers the state has ever produced,” Zuberbuhler said. “Kids that have gone on to have great swimming careers and at the same time they’ve had a wonderful experience and they really understand sportsmanship.”

Mike has been named the Coach of the Year in Idaho four times and received numerous Inland Empire League coaching honors.

Zuberbuhler said Mike knows everything there is to know about swim mechanics and his passion for the sport is unmatched.

Mike has coached Zuberbuhler’s daughter and son and they have a deep affection for him.

“It’s about that relationship and he’s got it,” Zuberbuhler said. “He’s nutty and funny. He’s one of a kind.”

Chrismer said Mike is genuine and the impact he has had on the YMCA and the people who have walked through their doors can’t be put in words.

“You can’t replace somebody like that,” she said. “Mike is a unique character and we’re just so grateful for the time that he spent with us and all that he gave to swimming.”

Litehouse YMCA Branch Manager Tammy Campbell said it’s hard to imagine their aquatics department without Mike in it.

“Mike has been such an inspiration to everyone here at the Y,” Campbell said in a press release. “It’s fun to describe Mike with his long hair and Volkswagen vehicles, but he doesn’t just look the part of peace and love; he truly lives it.”

Zuberbuhler said the community will miss him dearly.

“It is not a stretch to claim that more than a few lives have been saved in our local waters because of Mike’s efforts to rigorously train our Sandpoint lifeguards to a higher standard than you might see in other programs,” he said.

Saying goodbye

With all the things Mike has been involved with over the years, balance has been quite the challenge. But he came to love his weird work schedule that consisted of early mornings and long weekends.

“As long as I balanced hard work with hard play I was happy,” he said.

The play portion for Mike came in the form of sailing. He and his wife, Wendy, really enjoy it and Mike has plenty of boats to choose from. Besides the 8-foot sailboat his dad gave him, Mike has a 36- and 30-footer. He also has three kayaks, a canoe, a windsurfer and a 1971 Jolly Roger ski boat.

Clearly, Mike loves the water. It’s his sanctuary. If he drives by the lake all he can think about is what it would be like to be on it.

“I’m on the water and I’m at the most peaceful calm that I can find,” he said.

Zuberbuhler said what he will remember most about Mike is his willingness to do more.

“Things were just added to his plate over and over again,” he said, “and he just kept saying yes because it was in support of swimming and safety for our community.”

Mike plans on spending his retirement working on projects he hasn’t gotten to over the years and taking his wife on a trip across the country at some point in the near future.

Mike hasn’t shut the door on a return to coaching completely.

“I always thought it would be kind of funny if I stopped coaching at an age where I could still sail and have fun and ski, and then I get to a point down the road in my late 70s and I’m compelled to coach again, I can come back as a grumpy, old coach,” he joked.

Mike enjoyed every moment he got to coach and teach in Sandpoint over the past 32 years.

“I get giddy and anxious and happy and excited every time I have to leave for a weekend and go to a swim meet,” he said. “I don’t think there is a job in the world that could bring me as much joy and happiness as being a swim coach with the kids and the families that I work with.”

For Mike, the most rewarding part of his job was watching people learn how to swim and changing their lives.

Mike said it will feel strange not going to work.

“Tuesday I’m going to get up in the morning,” he said, “and I’m going to have a cup of coffee when I want to, I’m going to sit in the hot tub and look up at Schweitzer, contemplate life and formulate a short-term plan that doesn’t involve not doing anything.”

Mike said the hardest part about leaving is saying goodbye to the kids.

“They are the glue that has kept me,” he said.

Mike will miss watching nervous 5-year-olds grow into confident graduating seniors, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever lose contact with any of the kids he’s touched over the years.

“In the sailing world you never say goodbye, you always say until we meet again,” he said.

It won’t be easy, but it’s time to let go.

“I have these horrible dreams of me coming back in a couple days later with my tail between my legs going, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, can I have my job back,’” he joked, “and I know they would accommodate me in some manner, but I really just have to go. I got to do something different and I really want to spend time with Wendy and that’s the biggest thing.”