Biggest names in U.S. swimming greeted him by name. But Don Lemieux was Gardner's G.O.A.T.

He was Gardner’s Greatest Of All Time, plain and simple.

When it came to winning championships and maintaining a swimming dynasty, nobody did it better than Don Lemieux.

The Gardner High School Hall of Fame coach who led Wildcat swim teams to 16 state championships, including 15 in a row from 1994-2008, died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 65.

A picture of health, always brimming with optimism and confidence, his death was truly a shock to anyone who knew him.

The records speak for themselves.

During Lemieux’s coaching regime, Gardner High swimmers held all three state relay records and six of the eight other individual events. In addition, former Greenwood Memorial swimmer Erin Howarth — who swam for Shrewsbury High but trained under Lemieux — also held the other two individual records. By virtue of that, all 11 state-held swimming records came out of the venerable Greenwood Memorial, then the oldest continuously used pool in the state.

Amazingly, he coached a total of 33 individual swimmers who won state championships and that total captured 169 gold medals among them.

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In addition, 24 individual swimmers won 61 silver (second-place) medals and another 20 individual swimmers won 36 bronze medals. That would make a total of 207 medals for first, second or third place in the state. In addition, there were a total of 25 gold medals won by relay teams.

Gardner High also captured 14 consecutive sectional championships, three in Eastern Mass. (1995-97), one in Western Mass. (1998) and 10 in South-Central (1999-08), as the folks running the state swim meets would move Gardner to different parts of the state in an attempt to find parity among high school teams.

To ultimately place Gardner in a section that included teams from Cape Cod was nothing short of ludicrous, but it showed how much Lemieux’s Wildcats were revered — and feared.

It was always quite the spectacle as the Gardner High team walked in together to the pool decks at the sectional and state meets. There would be a hush, almost an aura of reverence, as Lemieux led his squad to their place where they set up camp prior to their assault on the meet records and championships.

They could certainly walk the walk, even though the state forbade them to talk the talk, so to speak.

The MIAA eventually instituted a rule that teams could not have banners marking their territory on the decks. The reason? Gardner’s banner, which listed its long run of statewide dominance year by year, was considered “taunting.”

I was able to witness many of those championship runs, standing alongside Lemieux on the pool deck, and I can tell you there was never a boast or brag from the Wildcat mentor. Occasionally, there would be a playful wink as an opposing team drew a little closer to the Gardner team, only to have them obliterate state record after state record.

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In addition to its hold on the state championship run, the Wildcats put together an incredible 141 consecutive dual meet win streak between 1992 and 2009.

The longtime Greenwood Memorial coach, Lemieux was appointed head coach of the Gardner High swim team by then-Principal Walt Dubzinski Jr. in 1992. Two years later, perhaps the turning point of the entire program occurred at the 1994 Eastern Mass. Sectionals.

There, a clerical error prevented Gardner from competing in the three relay races. Apparently, the mistake was something as simple as a checkmark missing on an entry sheet. However, the powers that be would not renege and Gardner ended up finishing third to Lincoln-Sudbury and Concord-Carlisle.

With the times Wildcat swimmers had been turning in, there would have been no doubt that Gardner would have won the event going away. That point was later verified when Gardner made shambles of the state meet, outclassing the field and scoring 116 more points than second-place Lincoln-Sudbury.

The point had been made — and Gardner would not lose a state meet for the next 16 years. So impressive was the Gardner point total that season that Channel 5’s Mike Lynch featured the team on his “High Five” weekly tribute on WCVB.

There were sectional champions, state champions, NCAA champions, Olympic qualifiers and — to punctuate his career with a giant exclamation point — an Olympic Gold medalist in Samantha Arsenault.

It was always amazing to watch first-hand the way Lemieux and his teams captured state title after state title, but I got a much clearer view of Don the coach when I accompanied him and Samantha to the 2000 Olympic Trials held in Indianapolis.

Now, some people who didn’t know Don may have thought that he was sometimes filled with a little too much bluster. That sometimes his stories may have been a little too far-fetched for a swimming coach from the small Central Mass. city of Gardner.

However, his reputation as a winner stretched far and wide.

As he would walk along poolside, coaches from around the country, including the coach of that year's Olympic team, Richard Quick, would greet him by name.

So, too, did some of the swimming greats who were there: Erik Vendt, Jenny Thompson, Diana Munz, Amanda Beard, Dara Torres and Maddie Crippen. It was a potpourri of American swimming dignitaries and each knew what Don Lemieux was all about.

One morning as we were eating breakfast in the pool commissary, a gawky teenager came over and talked to Don about some training pointers. Apparently, this kid with feet a little too big and the scrawny arms had hoped to add a little bulk to his gangly frame.

When he walked away, I asked Don who the awkward adolescent was.

He told me, “You just wait, you’ll be reading about this kid in a couple of years.”

The kid’s name was Michael Phelps.

We may never truly know how many hundreds of Don Lemieux-coached swimmers went on to perform for some of the most prestigious colleges in the country. Suffice to say, nearly every big-name college in the country has had a swimmer produced in Gardner as part of its athletic program.

So, too, will we likely never know the full scope of his influence.

The people who were made better by knowing him, the athletes whose lives were improved under his tutelage, and the future generations who will benefit because someone had Don Lemieux in their life.

He was truly the G.O.A.T.

And he was our G.O.A.T.

(Comments and suggestions can be sent to Mike Richard at mikerichard0725@gmail.com or in writing Mike Richard, 92 Boardley Rd. Sandwich, MA 02563)

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Column: Farewell to Gardner High swim coach Don Lemieux, the city's G.O.A.T.