Blue Devil Legend Gil Smith Retires
A Blue Devil legend is retiring. Huntington High School’s founding swimming coach Gil Smith is stepping away following a career that has spanned 39 years.
A native of Rochester, New York, Mr. Smith is a graduate of Edison Technical School. He went on to earn an undergraduate degree at SUNY Oswego and a master’s degree at C.W. Post College.
Mr. Smith founded the Huntington High School girls’ swimming and diving program in 1976. The first season saw the team compete as an independent, but success was immediate. One of the swimmers, who had known Mr. Smith from Oswego, moved to Huntington for her senior year and lived with a local family that had a daughter on the Blue Devil team. That upstate transplant went on to win a state title at New York’s first swimming and diving championships at Cortland and earn a scholarship to Duke University.
Despite the passing of decades since that first Huntington girls’ swim team, Mr. Smith is still able to rattle off the names of the athletes that comprised the squad’s roster and the events they competed in. He still maintains contact with several of them and is enthusiastic when asked to discuss the group.
After that first year independent team’s success, Huntington decided to formally sponsor a girls’ swimming and diving program for the 1977 seaosn. Mr. Smith continued coaching the Blue Devil girls through 2007 before retiring and concentrating on the boys’ program.
Mr. Smith founded the Huntington boys’ team in 1982 and coached it for 33 years, wrapping up his career in March at the state championships. The Blue Devil pool mentor saw Gunther Cassell, his best swimmer ever win his third state championship and set a new state record time in the 100 yard breaststroke this past winter.
Mr. Smith taught social studies in the South Huntington school district for 12 years before being excessed due to declining enrollment. He joined Huntington’s faculty full-time in 1983, leading the high school’s Positive Alternative to School Suspension (PASS) program for many years. He eventually returned to a social studies classroom, retiring from teaching in 2002 after a stint at J. Taylor Finley Middle School.
Despite all the success he has had at Huntington, none of Mr. Smith’s boys’ or girls’ teams ever won a county team title. The boys’ squad finished second four times, including this past season and girls’ team came close on many occasions, losing by one point, two points and five points.
“We were always up against high schools that had their own pools and were able to have a morning practice and an afternoon practice,” Mr. Smith said. Huntington has utilized the YMCA pool through the years and has typically been limited to about one hour of daily practice time.
Married to his wife Lorraine since 1980, Mr. Smith said he finds it hard to pick one highlight or even a handful of highlights from his long career. “I would say the highlight has been working with quality kids and exceptional athletes,” he said. “I am really proud of everything we have been able to accomplish. It’s been an outstanding group of young people.”
Although he is retiring as a Blue Devil coach, Mr. Smith is not completely finished with swimming or coaching. He intends to continue working with the Long Island Express swimming program based at Hofstra University. The program has about 500 boys’ and girls’ swimming with it.
As he prepares to step away from the Huntington swimming program for good, Mr. Smith leaves with decades of good memories and dozens of relationships intact. The Blue Devil legend plans to make himself available as a resource should his successor ever need him.