Faces of New Canaan: Rich Ludemann

This week’s “Faces of New Canaan” subject is someone New Canaan residents will recognize as a figure around town for more than 25 years—and 40 years in lower Fairfield County for the swimming community.

After successful stints in Darien and Wilton, among other places (such as at UCLA, coaching under the late great Ron Ballatore), Rich Ludemann coached the senior team at the New Canaan YMCA from 1987 to 1996.

This will become clear from parts of our interview—transcribed in full below—so I’ll say now that I swam under Rich myself in the early 1990s and gratefully count him as an influence in my own life, as many of his athletes seem to (see below).

Last fall, the Y managed to land Rich again, as director of competitive aquatics, and scores of young athletes in New Canaan and surrounding communities now coming up through the program will avail themselves of his all-encompassing approach to the sport. I’ll note too (with a nudge to far more talented swimmers than I) that part of what motivates Rich is getting rid of some of those early-90s era names from the massive records board that looms over the pool.

During our conversation, I learned some things about Rich—widely known as “Doc,” a college nickname that stuck—that I didn’t know, such as where he’s from and the influence his grandfather, a U.S. Navy man, had on his own powerful work ethic.

We spoke in the corner office just off the deck itself, and here’s what was said.  

New Canaan Patch: Let’s start with the news here: You’re back. What years were you here coaching at the Y for your first stint?  

Rich Ludemann: 1987 to 1996.  

Where did you go from here?  

I started my own fly fishing business.  

What’s that called?  

Atlantic Fishing Charters. There’s a picture of me right there. (Points to a newspaper article up on the wall.)  

Do you still have it?  

No, I sold it to a guy in Darien years ago.  

Where else have you been in the interim, these 17 years?  

I also worked at Gates, part-time managing the bar for six or seven years. From there I went to Sacred Heart University. I was head coach of women’s swimming.  

Not men’s?  

They don’t really have a men’s team. Tried to start a men’s team but it was tough going.  

How long were you there?  

Seven years.  

Then you came directly here?  

Right.  

How did you end up back in New Canaan?  

I was looking for a position, and looked at the ASCA (American Swimming Coaches Association) job service. I applied for it and luckily, here I am. I’m very happy to be back.  

And your coaching all the teams or overseeing the coaches and coaching?  

My title is director of competitive aquatics.  

Talk to me about how the swimmers have changed in the interim.  

One of the things I had to do here was reassess the program and that was a good hunk of time, to change the fabric of the program where everybody is not just doing one thing. I really want to have a more well-rounded team where instead of just focusing on one, two, three events, there’s a general philosophy to be good at what you’re good at and let these athletes explore what that is. So far it’s moving in the right direction and I’m really pleased with where it’s going right now. We’ve introduced kids to new events and broke a 25-year-old record that was left over from your guys’ days.  

What was that?  

Katie Bell, 500 free. One of my goals is to get rid of your faces up there, some of those records have been there way too long.  

Just tell me that the Randall Proswimmer record isn’t up there.  

What’s that?  

I think it was a butterfly record, maybe 200. Was up there since 1982.  

We’ve got one up there from 1986. Need to get rid of some of that. So we’ve set six team records in different events and five age-group records, so it’s a personal goal to have all new names up there.  

Tell me when exactly did you start back here?  

Late September of 2012.  

Who are your major influences as a coach?  

Ron Ballatore and Frank Keefe. Stix [Ballatore] was probably the guy who really taught me the substance of all this, and Frank, when I worked with him at Yale, did all the high polishing. Those guys really put me on the right path to train and develop athletes and to be a gentleman in the sport.  

Where are you from originally?  

Brooklyn and Queens. Bellerose, Queens.  

Where did you go to college?  

Fulton-Montgomery College in upstate New York.  

What did you study?  

PE.

And did you go right to UCLA then?  

No, actually from there, I was living in New Haven for a while and started coaching with the Darien Piranhas in 1974. I was at the Orange Rec Center and they moved me down to Darien. I was probably there three years, and then Dave Reilly and I took a lot of kids and went to the Wilton program.  

And that’s become a storied swimming program.  

Charlie Skovgaard was there, he was head coach there and the program was low-key. We brought 45 kids to his program and we pretty much started the program there. I was there for three more years and then went to UCLA in 1978.  

Where you were assistant coach under Ballatore.  

I was an assistant coach at UCLA and ran every group, worked with record-holders and Olympians. That was the learning curve of my life, the best years. When you work with elite athletes it brings something out of you as a coach, when you see what goes into it. Without a doubt it was the pinnacle of my career at that time. We won the NCAAs in 1982.  

After that?  

From there I went to Yale for three years with Frank, and then came here. A job opened up and I applied for it.  

Right, that brings us to 1986 or so. Who was head coach here when you arrived?  

Bob Thomann. He was best man at my wedding.  

When did you get married?  

1981.  

Kids?  

Two kids, Cait and Jake. That’s Cait, C-A-I-T.  

Got it. How old are they?  

Cait is 28 and Jake 24. Cait is in Boston.  

Oh boy.  

Yes, after I heard what happened [Monday], the first thing I did was pick up the phone and see if she was OK. She was not working in Boston that day. And Jake is living in the Fairfield County area, working in Milford.  

When did you start swimming yourself?  

Not till I was 13.  

Wow. That is late for this sport.  

It really is. You know, I never had that option where I was. And then I was lucky enough they built a Y right behind my house. I started taking lessons and loved it.  

Was it like an ‘aha’ moment where you just took to the water?  

No, not really I just checked it out and loved it, the pool, the practice, the lessons. The whole deal.  

You were 13. What sports had you been doing up to that point?  

Just playing sandlot baseball and soccer.  

What was your baseball team?  

Yankees.  

I guess the Dodgers had been gone out of Brooklyn at that point. When were you born?  

1952.  

And you discovered swimming in 1965 or so.  

I just found that I really liked being in the water. I had a feeling for it, I was basically a kid and it was just like this magical little thing. The pool was a great place to be and I really enjoyed the work ethic of it all, the dedication it took.  

Let me ask you about this. I mean, for a lot of us who swam for you, we realize at the time or later that getting on deck at 5 a.m. and then back in the afternoon and evening is something unusual for a job. That work ethic is something I definitely associate with you. Where did you get it from?  

My grandfather, I think, more than anything else. He was a Navy guy who basically brought me up. He was just like, ‘This is what you do if you want to be good at something, you work at it.’ Showing up is 95 percent of it. He taught me that you’ve got to be there, and that you put in the effort and focus all the time, and you’ve got to have the same focus day after day. You know, like just sitting here talking about you, it’s not easy to be a distance swimmer. You’re there with your head under water for two hours at a stretch and all you hear from me is whistling and yelling to go harder. But I think one of the things you take from swimming is that if you can handle this, and academics, and a social life, with sports, then later on in life it’s a piece of cake. It’s a great foundation to set yourself up in, you have that mindset where you have this task and once that task is complete, you move on to the next thing.  

So you had a work ethic and you also developed as a swimmer, but what made the connection between those two?  

I put my focus on swimming because I wanted to be really good at it and excel at it. I started late but I think sometimes that was good because I had that enthusiasm all through high school and carried into college, whereas some kids when they start early and go hard, they’ve had enough by the time they get to college.  

So you swam in high school.  

Martin Van Buren High School in Queens. Yes, high school swimming.  

How did you do?  

I was probably a mediocre middle-distance freestyler and then I found I liked the longer distances better than the short distances. The high school program wasn’t much help, they didn’t do the long distances, so I got involved in a Y program.  

You left the high school program?  

Right, I didn’t swim the last year with the high school time. At the time I was with Don Galluzzi at the Flushing Y. They had events I wanted to do, the 200 fly, 400 IM, 1000 and 1650 freestyle, and I found that it was something I could do well, so my focus shifted more to what we called AAU at the time, now USS swimming. Then I went off to college and swam there.  

Was swimming part of why you went to Fulton-Montgomery?  

Yes, I was recruited as a swimmer.  

Were you on scholarship?  

It was a state school and there was very limited funding. It was NCAA, and I did the 1650 and 200 fly.  

What were your times?  

Not great compared to what kids would do later, that’s for sure. I think I was a 2:08 200 fly and a 17:40 something in the mile. Now there’s kids in high school, boys and girls, who could kick my butt with those times. But at the same time, that’s what happens in the sport: Times get faster. We really didn’t have quite the same training regimen, never lifted weights and stuff like that.  

So I have to ask then, now that we’re talking about training. Where did you get some of these totally outrageous, demonic, sadistic workouts? I’ll take my revenge here now as a reporter. I mean, I’m in one lane with Munger and Fine and we’re doing a 5,000 free for time, and next lane over is Pierce doing a 4,000 butterfly for time. I mean, where did you come up with this stuff?  

(Laughs.) A lot of it you take from other coaches. I think one of the things was being around guys like Ballatore and wanting to see how far we could push the limit each time. How far can I take an athlete to the breaking point without crossing it? The 5,000 for time, for example, I think one good thing about coaching is you get to be creative. The only constraint you have is time. How much can you fit into a 2-hour window each day? One of the joys of coaching is that you can put that workout in front of your swimmer, but you have to have the athlete’s trust and some kind of reason why you’re doing that. If I couldn’t answer that, then I wouldn’t ask it. I always have a reason, and then it also depends on what time of the season you’re in. What I want to do for an athlete is help find out what your events are. One of the things I also do is train very group-specifically. We break our days up 3-4 days a week working on what you do best, and then at the same time what you don’t do well. We want a full, well-rounded athlete, to have more arrows in the quiver so to speak where you can swim X, Y and Z.  

So all that stuff—spending all that time together training, and sometimes doing these traumatic sets—that’s a connection you forge with simmers. What is your relationship like with your athletes? I mean, you must’ve had hundreds of swimmers in 40 years of coaching.  

You’re a great example. I’m still in touch with so many of my athletes. The mail carrier hates me at Christmastime. Hates me. I get bags of mail from people. One of the best connectors for me where people have contacted me is through Facebook. I stay in touch with 90 percent of the UCLA team to this day and probably close to 50 percent of all my swimmers. I think it’s one of the greatest things and nicest things in my life, is staying in contact with all those people.  

What’s your vision for the Y program here?  

The program has always had a great tradition of excellence. I’d like to continue that and obviously take it to a new level. More athletes scoring at Y Nationals, right now we have just 1 or 2 percent, I’d like to get to 8, 9, 10 percent kids on the team. To focus on that with a positive attitude. The message is, you don’t have to do just one thing, you can handle this and this. And the program goes right up till they go to college. It’s the best thing for the kids. To learn that you can still have a good time socially, still perform as an athlete and do well in your academics so they don’t go into the garbage. That you can put it into compartments where it all works, put in the time every day and still have space in your day for other things. There is a lot of sacrifice in sports: It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it.