SANDPOINT — Sandpoint head swim coach Mike Brosnahan tendered his resignation recently, leaving a sterling legacy in his wake after starting the Bulldog swim team a quarter century ago.

Brosnahan coached two girls teams to 4A state championships, also finishing second several times and third a handful of times while stewarding one of the consistently-best swim teams in North Idaho for the past 25 years.

The high-energy and highly-popular coach will continue to coach the SWAC Sharks, but with new rules in place club coaches can no longer double up as high school coaches, forcing Brosnahan to step away from something he truly loves.

“I’m going to miss the energy of working with nothing but high school kids. In 25 years, I can’t think of not enjoying a season working with high school kids,” said Brosnahan. “It makes it easy to get up in the morning. The time spent with these kids has been an absolute joy. That’s what I’ll miss the most. It was a long run, and I really liked it.”

Brosnahan has been teaching swimmers since the age of 14, and did so for years before walking on at the University of Idaho swim team as a junior. From there he ended up teaching swimming at the SWAC more than three decades ago, and has been at it ever since, even helping an 86 year-old learn to swim on Monday morning.

Sandpoint was the second high school team to form in North Idaho one year after Coeur d’Alene, and in the 25 years since Brosnahan has developed a program model that has been emulated around the state. He’s been on the Idaho High School swimming board for 10 years, and was a driving force in the sport becoming sanctioned by the state last year.

Sandpoint athletic director Kris Knowles knows it will be very difficult to replace the only coach the team has ever known.

“Mike has been an instrumental part of the development of swimming as a sport not only here in Sandpoint, but statewide. His efforts to get swim sanctioned by the IHSAA were great, and we appreciate him working so hard to see that happen,” lauded Knowles, noting the position is open and the school is taking applications. “With the sanctioning of swim by the IHSAA it would be difficult for Mike to continue to coach his age level teams and stay in compliance with sanctioned swim rules. We are sad to see Mike step away.”

Brosnahan feels the model Idaho employs, one he’s had a big hand in, is one of the best in the nation, encouraging people who have never swam and giving them a state qualifying time as a carrot.

While Brosnahan remembers the fastest swimmers who won state championships, like Ben Palmer, Paulina Gralow and most recently Payton Bokowy, he holds a soft spot in his heart for the slower among the team, whose accomplishments were impressive in their own right.

“Amazing watching a kid who was never a swimmer show up at the pool, have the humbleness to show up, stick to it and do really well,” recalled Brosnahan. “We had a boy who started swimming with his head out of the water, and almost made state with just 12 weeks in the program. Sometimes it’s those kids who never were swimmers that do something amazing.”

That’s not to say he’s not proud of the state champions he’s produced, many of whom went off to swim in college.

“It’s been fun watching Payton be state champion three of her four years. Paulina Gralow’s breaststroke record lasted some time. Ben Palmer got inducted into the SHS Hall of Fame,” said Brosnahan. “Successful, fast swimmers are exciting to watch, but the success of the program is the kids who have never swam before.”

One of his former pupils who went on to swim in college is Greg Jackson, a Bulldog volunteer assistant coach for the past 10 years and a guy whom Brosnahan calls his “right hand man, an amazing coach.”

While he’ll still coach the Sharks, and many of the kids on the high school team, Brosnahan admits he’s going to miss coaching the Bulldogs dearly.

“This is what I’ve always done, there will be a big hole in August when I’m not super busy. I really had a good time. I’ll miss the families too, the support and the love that they have given me as a coach,” claimed Brosnahan, who will now get to spend a little more time with wife Wendy. “It’s the little things. At the banquets, a parent will always stand up and say ‘Wendy, thank you for letting us have your husband.’”