Coach Adria applauded with heartfelt send-off into retirement

Dedication and determination found Holyoke coach Adria Colver pulling hard for school swim programs for over two decades.

With heartfelt appreciation, she was honored at the end-of-season girls swim team program Saturday, May 8. She was applauded for her coaching career from which she has chosen to retire.

Many coaches are attracted to that position because of their own love of and success in a sport. Not so with Adria.

In fact, she admits she didn’t really swim when she was growing up. She hesitantly says now that she can swim, but she just doesn’t choose to get into the water. She loved watching her athletic cousins who were tremendous swimmers, but it didn’t inspire her to dive in.

So what motivated her to undertake a coaching role in a sport she clearly knew nothing about? Her daughter.

Alyson (now Brinkema and now a fellow coach for the high school swim team) was taking swimming lessons in Holyoke when she was probably about 4, Colver told the current team members and parents as they gathered last weekend.

Susie Cox was the swim instructor and told Colver, “Aly has a sense of the water.”

That’s all it took. “That’s how you take what you’ve been given and you go forward,” Colver said.

An avid reader, she learned the sport of swimming by reading, by studying, by observing, by seeking input from those she admired in the sport, by making sure her daughter had camp opportunities. She put her heart and soul into something that became a passion for mother and daughter alike.

Each time Aly went to a camp, her mom was a quiet observer, watching everyone’s style.

When 1997 rolled around and Aly was going to start her freshman year at Holyoke High School that fall, it was time to pursue a girls swim team. At that point, 4A was the smallest level of competition.

It wasn’t a popular request, but Colver was eventually allowed to coach a Holyoke girls swim team as a club sport.

The school allowed the girls to compete through Colorado High School Activities Association, but all expenses except the $60 CHSAA participation fee were the responsibility of the club.

But that was only the first hurdle. At that time, the girls swim season practice began in early October, with meets scheduled from Nov. 6 through Dec. 20.

That overlapped with both the fall volleyball season and the winter basketball season. Holyoke had a one-sport policy at that time, allowing athletes to compete in only one sport during a season.

Further school board approval, with some pretty rigid stipulations, was eventually garnered so that girls could maintain their love of other sports as well and still compete with the newly-formed swim team.

Then-Superintendent Bill Brown was not a fan of the swim team addition, according to Colver. But she credits him for at least allowing them CHSAA identity. And when it came time for the first meet of the season (in Sterling), Dr. Brown was there to watch and support the team.

“We started as a club sport, and we didn’t know how long it would last,” said Renata Rumold at Saturday’s program. Rumold was a junior in that inaugural swim team year and the oldest member of the team.

She was also a volleyball and basketball player who had to juggle the practice times. “Adria stayed late and pushed me hard,” said Rumold, telling about her individual swim practices that followed volleyball and basketball practices.

She acknowledged appreciation for that level of support that Colver’s given to so many girls over the years. Rumold thanked Aly for filling her mom’s giant coaching shoes and thanked Adria for creating those giant shoes to fill.

A scrapbook documenting the first HHS girls swim season was presented to Colver as she was surrounded by her last team and the memories from them as well.

Letters from the first team members were included in the scrapbook, surrounding an appropriate Lewis Carroll quote, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

The 1997-98 team, as pictured in the Oct. 30, 1997, edition of The Holyoke Enterprise were Rumold, Brinkema, Michelle Bornhoft, Sarah Jones, Lindsay Huwa, Sherrill Sandstrom, Carrie Roll, Cindy Pfau and Amy Kropp from Holyoke; and Anita Gagnon, Sami Noel and Emi Sasaki from Wray.

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