Randy Bennett led Canadian teams at the Commonwealth Games, the Olympics and multiple world championships. Victoria Academy of Swimming, Head Coach Randy Bennett handles a lever for the power tower, a resistance training device that swimmers use to gain strength and endurance. Chad Hipolito For The Globe and Mail Thursday March 1, 2012Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
It was never about Randy Bennett; it was about his swimmers. They wanted to talk about their coach and all he had done for them; he wanted nothing more than to bask in their success.
Even as cancer was spreading through his body, Mr. Bennett was asked if he wanted to talk about his career and how he was going to have to miss the Pan American Games swim trials in Southern Ontario.
"I don't want to take the focus off the kids," he said by phone. "I'm just a guy."
Mr. Bennett, 51, was one of Canada's top swim coaches, known for his love of the sport and his ability to get the most from his athletes. He died of metastatic malignant melanoma on April 27 in Victoria, where he was much more than just a guy.
He was the head coach at the Swimming Canada High Performance Centre as well as the coach/director of the Island Swimming club. He was the relentless force behind two-time Olympic medalist Ryan Cochrane and Hilary Caldwell, the bronze medal winner at the 2013 FINA world aquatic championships in Barcelona.
Added to all that, Mr. Bennett had been the head coach of Canada's national swim team at two Commonwealth Games (2010 in Delhi, 2014 in Glasgow), the 2012 London Olympics and at three world championships. He was honoured as Swimming Canada's coach of the year five years in a row, from 2008 to 2012.
Consequently, he became well known in swimming circles around the world. Chris Hindmarch-Watson, the executive director of the Canadian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association, messaged his peers after Mr. Bennett's death to inform them "the Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association recognized Randy during their annual awards dinner. It was very fitting as he spent a lot of time with the Aussies."
Those who knew him best say Mr. Bennett was destined to coach swimmers. It may have had something to do with his background. Mr. Bennett was born to David and Trudy Bennett on Nov. 11, 1963, in Red Lake, Ont. The family then moved to Fort Nelson, B.C., a northern town that didn't have an indoor pool. By the time the Aquatic Centre was built, Mr. Bennett was in his final year of high school. He worked there as a lifeguard only to leave in 1981 for something better. He settled on Fort McMurray, Alta., after hearing there might be work there. He started as a lifeguard but quickly became an assistant swim coach.
The man who gave the 18-year-old his first try at coaching was Don Wilson. He ran the Fort McMurray club and found his young assistant to be both strong-minded and eager to learn.
"It became very apparent he had an aptitude for it," said Mr. Wilson, who shared an apartment with Mr. Bennett during their time in Fort McMurray. "What Randy brought to swimming was an unwavering attitude. He was a thoughtful guy."
Mr. Wilson was a mentor for Mr. Bennett, who years later told Impact magazine, "I had no competitive swimming background but they [at Fort McMurray] needed a warm body and I was there. Don bailed me out a million times as I made so many mistakes as it was a pretty steep learning curve for me."
It wasn't long before Mr. Bennett felt he needed to move along to the next stop on his coaching quest. He went to the Olympian Swim Club in Edmonton, from there to Windsor, Ont., from there to Vancouver, where he worked with the University of British Columbia swim club under head coach Tom Johnson.
At every stop, Mr. Bennett soaked up as much knowledge as he could, often phoning Mr. Wilson to share ideas and talk swimming. By the time he was offered the coaching/directing posting at Victoria's Island Swimming club, Mr. Bennett was ready to make his mark. Fate brought him a skinny 13-year-old named Ryan Cochrane. It was the start of a coach-athlete relationship that would benefit both of them for more than a decade – not that things were always warm and fuzzy.
Mr. Bennett felt it was best for his athletes to be pushed in the pool and pushed hard with lots of training sets in the water; hundreds of pool lengths, thousands of metres, back and forth.
A telling moment in the Bennett-Cochrane partnership came one day when the coach saw his lanky swimmer goofing around on the pool deck. Mr. Bennett didn't like that, so he assigned Mr. Cochrane a lung-busting, muscle-aching set of lengths. The coach was going to show the athlete who was boss.
Mr. Bennett left the pool area for a bit then returned to see how things were going. Mr. Cochrane had completed all his lengths in less time than his coach had anticipated. As Mr. Cochrane headed to the change room, he raised a middle finger and flipped off his coach. Mr. Bennett laughed when he recalled that story, saying it showed just how good his young swimmer could be if properly motivated. That was the understanding the two needed to challenge the world's best swimmers.
"That was way back in the day. I needed time to grow up," said Mr. Cochrane, now a more seasoned athlete at 26. "Randy was the one wanting the [swim] sets put at a high level to see us fail. Doing that, it pushed us to make us better people, better swimmers."
Mr. Bennett often sought out Australian coaches to learn how they were training their athletes for swimming's big event, the 1,500-metre freestyle, a race that demands speed, fitness, strategy and technique. Mr. Cochrane won an Olympic bronze in the 1,500-metre freestyle in Beijing then won a silver medal in the same event at the London Olympics four years later. The coach and athlete celebrated their accomplishments, each one knowing how much work had gone into them.
"It's hard to imagine the time and effort he put into his coaching," Mr. Cochrane said of his coach. "You can't fault anyone for being that passionate."
Ms. Caldwell, the world bronze medalist, moved to Victoria in 2009 to train with Mr. Bennett. She recalled that immediately after winning her medal Mr. Bennett gave her a hug then said, "You messed up your third [turn at the] wall. Here's what we're going to do about it."
"He was hard to work with sometimes," Ms. Caldwell admitted. "But I've never been with a coach who wanted his athletes to do well as much as he wanted us to do well."
The last few months of Mr. Bennett's fight against cancer were hard on those who knew what was happening. While he felt poorly last November and December, it wasn't until January that he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. He took chemotherapy and radiation treatments in Victoria. He lost his hair and needed a walker to get around.
He would take the walker to the pool so he could watch training sessions. He wasn't well enough to go with his team to the Pan Am trials in Toronto but he followed the races online and he texted and spoke with the swimmers whenever he could.
When the swimmers were told Mr. Bennett didn't have much time left, some were stunned. "We thought he was going to get better," Ms. Caldwell said. Others reflected on what Mr. Bennett had done for them, always pushing them to do more than they thought was possible.
"He didn't want to be seen in a vulnerable position. He didn't want to show it when it was really hard on him," Mr. Cochrane said. "He had this persona that he really lived every day. … He wanted to leave an impression that would be his legacy, and he did. He made Canada better."
Mr. Bennett leaves his wife, Lesley, and two teenage sons, Brett and Kyle.