Coach Brooks Will Retire

Head swimming coach Bill Brooks has decided to end his 25-year Harvard career by retiring after the Eastern Seaboard Championships in March.

Brooks, who is 62, is only the second head coach in Harvard swimming history. He came here in 1946 as an assistant to Hal Ulen and succeeded him in 1959. In recent years, assistants Benn Berritt and Harold Miroff have done much of the work, especially at practices, and Merritt is a likely successor to Brooks.

In the last nine months. Brooks has been honored three times. At last year's NCAA's he was given the "Forty Years of College Coaching Award." Before coming to Harvard he had been a coach at Rider College and the University of Detroit.

On December 4 in New York, Brooks was given an engraved watch as a 25 year award, and he was an honored guest at an Associated Harvard Alumni Dinner in Cambridge a few days later.

He had decided to retire last November, but had intended to keep it a secret. Swimming captain Mike Cahalan found out, however, when an alumnus asked him to introduce his retiring coach at the December dinner in Cambridge.

Brooks' warm personality was a major factor in Cahalan's decision to apply to Harvard instead of Yale. "He's the kindest, gentlest guy I've ever met," Cahalan said last month.

One of his projects in recent years has been to provide Harvard students' to teach swimming to children at Perkins Institute for the Blind. Brooks said recently that he hopes to work there himself one day a week after his retirement.

During his 13 years as head coach. Harvard's record has been 87-30 overall and 62-30 in the Eastern League. His most exciting season was 1961-62, when Harvard went undefeated and beat Yale, 48-47, in the final meet. "My profession has been a blessing to me," Brooks said in January.

Born in Chester, England, Brooks came to the United States when he was four and won his first swimming medal at 13 for coming in third in a three-man race. In 1930 he turned to coaching, and in 1936, 1948, and 1952 was head coach of the Bermuda Olympic team. He received three bronze medallions.