Inside the island-themed Bakersfield College Cafeteria on March 5, family, friends, supporters, and members of the BC swim team congregated to help raise funds for the team and commemorate the school’s first swim coach, Jim Turner.

Turner, who passed away eight years ago, was BC’s first swim coach. Initially brought in as a line coach for the football team, Turner was asked a few years later if he would like to coach the newly started swim program.

“He wasn’t a swimmer, he didn’t have any swim coaching experience – just kind of figured it out,” said Bill Moseley, BC computer science professor and grandson of Turner.

But despite his inexperience with swimming, Turner persisted as coach, ending at retirement with 35 years as the BC swim coach.

“I think his thought on it was, ‘a coach is a coach, if you know how to coach and motivate people and get people excited about working hard, then you could be a good coach,'” said Moseley.

“A lot of his swimmers will tell you that his practices were a lot like football practices in the water.”

After Turner retired in 1989, the swim team continued until it was canceled in 1993 and would not be reinstated until 15 years later.

In 2008, soon-to-be-retired Athletic Director Jan Stuebbe, along with the current BC swim coach Charlie Pike and BC Aquatics Director Tina Cummings, revived the program from its 15-year hiatus.

“Jan Stuebbe was one of the main guys behind getting the swim programs back,” said Pike.

Having insured funds for the swim program and requesting reinstatement from the Board of Trustees, Stuebbe asked Pike if he would like to coach, in which Pike said, “I’d love too.”

Now, currently in its fourth season since reinstatement, the BC swim team, along with the other sport’s programs at BC are adapting to the current college financing cuts, as well as talk of possibly canceling athletic programs at the community college level.

“It’s scary when they’re talking about eliminating athletics in the entire state,” said Pike. “That’s what we’re all worried about, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

“It would be a shame,” said Pike. “I think some of the better students are involved in the extracurricular activities.”

With the team’s scoreboards currently inoperable and out-of-date, the fundraiser is an attempt to secure the estimated $4,000 required for the purchase of new scoreboards.

In regards to the record board inside the Physical Education building, Pike said, ” It’s kind of run down and falling apart a bit, so we’re going to try to get some newer ones and something to put out by the pool so that they’re out there for people to see when they swim.”

Funds generated from the event will also go to paying for traveling expenses when the team has out-of-town meets.

BC women’s swim team captain Brigitte Alexander said, “We have a big meet in Cuesta [coming up], and so we just want to make sure that next year we have some left over so we can just keep sending it on, year after year.”

Including the initial $25 cover charge for the event, the team also held a silent auction, consisting of a television, gift certificates, and gift baskets obtained by the students, to help generate the needed funds.

“The real reason was to get people together and get the word out that Bakersfield Swimming is back,” said BC Aquatics Director Tina Cummings.

The swimming team will travel to College of the canyons on March 18.