The permanent closure of Maguire Pool in Hagan Arena ends another chapter in a long history of swimming at St. Joe’s, one that did not always involve a pool.
While the university has had a varsity or club swim team since at least the early 1940s, the Hawks did not have access to a home pool for many decades.
Instead, the team practiced at other local pools, like the John B. Kelly outdoor pool near Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, next to the Please Touch Museum, according to Don DiJulia ’67, special assistant to the president and former athletic director. The team also used the pool at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School and at Episcopal Academy, located where the Merion side of campus now is.
In a Feb. 28, 1968, issue for The Hawk, then Coach Frank Keefe, remarking on the recent success of the team, observed, “Pretty good for a team who knows no home pool and hosts its dual meets in a pool different from which it practices.”
In the St. Joe’s Athletics Hall of Fame, there is only one swimmer from the St. Joe’s College varsity men’s swim team, which existed until 1973. Wilson “Buddy” Peck ’42, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999, became the first National Champion swimmer for the school, and went undefeated in the 220 and 440 yards during the 1941 season. The Hawks also won an Eastern Catholic College Swim title that season.
DiJulia said the Hawks’ most competitive seasons as a team were during the 60s under the coaching of Keefe, who also coached at St. Joe’s Prep at the time, and who went on to become head coach of Yale University’s swim team for 30 years.
Once St. Joe’s opened its doors to women in the fall of 1970, athletics followed, and the men’s swimming team became a co-ed team in 1971.
The swimming program was dropped in the spring of 1973, however, “when the college disbanded it in an economy move,” according to an Oct. 19, 1973, article in The Hawk. A club swimming program began a few years later.
Following DiJulia’s arrival at St. Joe’s in the fall of 1976, the university began plans for construction of a rec center. But, according to DiJulia, space restrictions prohibited construction of a facility large enough to restore the varsity swimming program.
“We were kind of landlocked and knew even when we finished building the rec center on 54th that given the space and the angle of how the fieldhouse was built, it was an awkward layout and was going to limit the space,” DiJulia said.
But the new facility, which finally opened in 1982 as the St. Joe’s Sports Complex, now Hagan Arena, did have a certified 25-meter pool, providing the university with the opportunity to host meets.
When former aquatics director Bob Krotee arrived on campus in the fall of 1988, students like Santo Donia ’91, now a lifeguard at the Maguire Pool in Hagan Arena, approached him about swimming on a competitive level again.
“We figured out a way we could make it happen,” Donia said. “At the time that [solution] was the master program.”
Under the masters program, swimmers competed as individuals under the St. Joe’s team in the U.S. Masters Swimming, a program that allows adult swimmers to compete.
“In a lot of ways it was ‘The Hawk Will Never Die’ kind of attitude,” Donia said. “We couldn’t have a swim team, but we weren’t going to not swim.”
In addition to St. Joe’s athletes and community members, the pool in Hagan was also utilized by a number of other organizations, teams and even Olympians. When John du Pont’s legendary private swim club, Team Foxcatcher, disbanded in the early 1990s, one of the team member’s parents called Krotee and asked if he would give the swimmers somewhere to go. Krotee began recruiting for the team in 1994 and in 1995 changed the team’s name to Hawk Hill.
“We opened up the doors to Team Foxcatcher, and I was invited to coach and gladly did so because that program produced three future Olympians,” Krotee said.
One of these Olympians was Havertown native Brendan Hansen, a captain for Team USA in the London Olympics. Hansen won three gold medals and broke a world record in the medley relay with Michael Phelps, Aaron Piersol and Jason Lezak.
“It was good for us and it was good for them,” Krotee said. “Every time Brendan Hansen got his name in the paper, he mentioned Saint Joseph’s University.”
But for Krotee, the pool represents more than just competitive swimming. Krotee, who served as aquatics director at the university for 25 years, said his favorite part was the university’s partnership with SwimAmerica, offering youth from West Philadelphia, Overbrook and Merion a chance to learn to swim.
“We had one of the largest SwimAmerica programs in the area,” Krotee said. “We provided the opportunity to learn to swim for thousands of local kids”
Krotee said that part of swimming’s legacy in the Hagan pool is one of its most important.
“There was a lot of history that happened there,” Krotee said. “Our pool did an awful lot of good for an awful lot of kids.”
With Hagan pool closed and the O’Pake pool on the Maguire campus under renovation until at least fall of 2024, the St. Joe’s Swim Club is on the hunt for a pool once again.
“We went from two pools to none in a year,” said Taylor Stech ’25, a member of the SJU Swim Club Team. “That’s also just really upsetting.”
