Lynn Tech assistant swimming coach Charlie Rowe was done with the sport – focusing more on baseball, his second passion in life – when he met up with his old coach and mentor one day at a meet.”I swam for Peter Sawin at Classical,” says Rowe. “The great Peter Sawin. He was my mentor, without a doubt. One of the best guys ever.”Sawin, by this time, was a swimming official, and he corralled Rowe and convinced him to become a certified official, too. So he did.”And as a result of officiating meets, when the assistant’s job opened up at Tech, I applied for it and got hired,” Rowe said.That was 14 years ago. And Rowe cannot be happier that he’s back into the swim of things, as they say.Rowe began swimming at the Lynn Boys Club, and competed in some meets. There, he also met Sawin – who could be considered the guru of Lynn swimming – and it was Sawin who convinced him to join the Classical team when he got to high school.Rowe had an illustrious career with the Rams, holding the school’s diving record for 10 years, and setting city marks in the medley relay and the 100 breaststroke.”Once I got out,” Rowe says, “I wasn’t involved in swimming anymore, because I got involved with baseball.”But now that he’s back, he’s once again embraced the sport with the vigor he demonstrated when he was president of West Lynn National Little League and Lynn Babe Ruth and the manager of Connery Post 6 baseball. He began swimming again himself in 2005, and has joined the New England Masters program.”If there is anybody in this city who deserves recognition for what he does, it’s Charlie Rowe,” says Tech head coach Brad Tilley. “He’s just a tremendous guy.”Rowe has virtually become Tilley’s right-hand man at Tech.”You pretty much do everything as an assistant that a head coach does,” Rowe said. “You train kids, perfect their skills ? for a lot of my early years there, my role was to introduce the newer kids to competitive swimming and get them ready for meets.”You work on stroke details, starts, turns, technique ? every little detail that makes you swim faster.”In his 14 years, Rowe says the nicest thing he’s experienced is Tech’s victory last year at the City Swim Meet.”Yes, that was great,” says Rowe. “As much as I’ve loved baseball over the years – and I do – my real passion was always swimming. I was on a team that won the city meet in 1972. Brad and I weathered the storm through some pretty lean years, and it was nice to see it pay off ? and also nice to see us go undefeated in the league and win the Commonwealth Conference Small.”Rowe says he’s had three coaching mentors in his life: Sawin, Tilley and Dick Champa (the legendary Connery coach).”In a way, they were all the same,” said Rowe. “I never saw Peter yell at a kid, never saw Dick yell at a kid, and have never seen Brad yell at a kid.”Brad is a great teacher of sport,” Rowe said. “We’ve had good seasons, and we’ve had some lean ones, but no matter how they’ve gone, we’ve always approached it the same. We swim to win. The goal is to get everyone to swim right away.”Rowe enjoys every part of it – especially the camaraderie shared by all three public schools.”You often see kids from one school at the other school’s meets, cheering the swimmers on,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone ? maybe it’s because a lot of them swam for the YMCA. But it’s a very close community.”Indeed, the three schools combined forces at the end of the year for one huge banquet.For years, Rowe was very visible as part of the city’s baseball cognoscenti, rising to the level of Connery manager after Champa died in 1999 and Mickey Wladkowski retired.”That was such a nice crew of coaches and coaches’ wives,” said Rowe. “Those were such good days. We were all friends, and it was just a thrill to be a part of it.”Dick was unique,” Rowe said. “I’ve never met anyone who knew more about baseball than he did. He was just a natural born teacher of the game.”Now that he’s back into swimming full force, you’d have thought he’d have b