Krause: Swampscott sports struggling lately, but hopefully will rebound

A rather interesting question was posed on our paper’s reader’s blog Tuesday. What has happened to the Swampscott athletic program?It’s a good – and legitimate – question. There was a time, and not so long ago either, that Swampscott set a pretty high bar when it came to sports. Whether it was football, baseball or basketball, if you looked at the standings in the Northeastern Conference, you’d see “Swampscott” at, or near, the top.Now, the Big Blue seem to have fallen back to the pack.But there are no easy answers, just as there were no easy answers 20 years ago when Lynn Classical was trying desperately to dust itself off after a steep general athletic decline and reassert itself as a major player in high school sports.The Rams did exactly that. And today Classical, by and large, sets a pretty high standard when it comes to high school sports – both in the way they’re played and the way the players are coached.Such peaks and valleys are often cyclical. They reflect changes in student population, student priorities, the amount of available money a particular school, or city or town, can devote to sports and – most of all – the stability of the coaching staff.Swampscott always had a leg up on many of its competing schools because it had – for many years – the most stable of coaching staffs. Many of these coaches grew off the tree that Stan Bondelevitch planted back in the 1950s, and many of them stuck around for a long time.There was Bondy himself – a legend in everyone’s minds. There was Dick Lynch, who was a Bondelevitch assistant and the school’s basketball coach. There was Frank DeFelice, the baseball coach. And there was Fran York, who coached over there and became the school’s athletic director after Dick Baker retired.Even later descendants from the Bondy coaching tree found success. The football program enjoyed much success under Bill Bush. And now, Steve Dembowski – perhaps the last leaf from that tree – has kept the Swampscott football tradition very much alive.Swampscott, too, was fortunate to have Brian Bagley – a disciple of former English coach Ron Bennett – coaching basketball, and achieving success, for over a decade. And after him, Paul Moran – another person well schooled in the Big Blue legacy.The girls basketball team emerged as a force under the capable, stable guidance of Julie Halloran, and made several trips to the North sectional final.You also have to consider that some of the town’s best athletes all came from athletic families – and they all went through the school system. There were the Jaurons, the Lynches, the Losanos, the Beatrices, the Toners, the Woodforks ? and you can just keep going. Even recently – particularly with the 2009 state championship girls basketball team – you had Tara Nimkar (older brother Sean; twin brother Mike), Allie Beaulieu (older brothers John Beaulieu and Mike Smiley) and Marissa Gambale (from another athletic family).There’s a lot to be said for tradition, whether it’s in the coaching or the families. Tradition dictates how things are done, and it keeps the kids home (as opposed to in the private schools).Those days are over. And it’s sad ? even for this Lynner who grew up with the whole “Swampscott” thing very much a part of my life. When I was in high school, Swampscott was the New York Yankees of high school sports. Everybody wanted to beat the Big Blue ? and nobody could. And only a total, incurable homer couldn’t ultimately develop some respect – albeit grudging – for what tiny Swampscott was able to accomplish.Obviously for a small town to be as dominant in sports as Swampscott was, there has to be a concerted, coordinated effort to put athletics on the front burner. But once that effort is no longer expended – either due to economic necessity or more consistency in coaching turnover than coaching longevity – a town the size of Swampscott is going to lose some of that edge.Coaches who are less established tend to be less inclined to go with their instincts and mo