Melissa Warnke '04

Lawrence Boyle has been a swim coach, track coach, cross country coach, Latin teacher, friend, and Deerfield legend for 45 years. Even after all of this time, he maintains that "if I had the chance to do it again, I'd do it the same way."

Born in Boston, Mr. Boyle found his talents early in life. At the age of nine, he was already a member of the swim teams at the YMCA and Boys' Club. A few years later, he realized that diving was his true passion.

A quick learner and a devoted athlete, Mr. Boyle won the New England Junior and Senior AAU Championships, as well as the National Boys' Club Championship, in both his junior and senior years at public high school. One day while practicing in the Harvard University swimming pool, he was singled out for his talent by the varsity diving coach. Called over to the side, the coach told Mr. Boyle to wait for the varsity divers to come in for practice. When they arrived, he went up onto the board and did the dive that had first wowed the coach.

Mr. Boyle recalled, "Little did I know that his best diver had broken his hand doing the very same dive. So, when I went up and did it, the coach called me over and said, 'How old are you?' and I said fifteen. He turned to his diver and said 'How old are you?' and he said, 'Twenty-one, and I can do that dive, too.' Ever since that time, I was allowed to come and train at the Harvard pool with the Harvard coach. That's when I made my step into the big league."

With such accomplishments already, he chose Bowdoin College for its "very good swimming team and excellent academic reputation." While at Bowdoin. where he majored in Latin language and Classic literature, Mr. Boyle received, rather than a letterman's sweater with a "B,"a sweater with a "B" inscribed in a circle. Since these sweaters were only given out to special athletes, including Olympians, it was a tremendous honor. This honor was well-deserved; he remained the New England Intercollegiate champion in his sophomore, junior, and senior years at Bowdoin. He never lost a meet.

During Mr. Boyle's junior year at Bowdoin, Mr. Jack Pidgeon, a teacher at Deerfield, visited Mr. Boyle's room-mate to ask whether he was interested in teaching. According to Mr. Boyle, "My roommate said 'No, not really,' and I said, 'Tell me about it!" However, he had already enlisted in the army. Promising to keep in touch with Mr. Pidgeon, Mr. Boyle went off to the military.

While in the army for two years, he was stationed in Greenland, Virginia, and New York. At Fort Hamilton in New York, he was General Douglas MacArthur's club officer. After this brief career, Mr. Boyle called Mr. Pidgeon back and arranged to take his place as a Latin teacher and to coach swimming, cross country, and track at Deerfield Academy.

When Mr. Boyle came to Deerfield in 1957, he was first met by Headmaster Frank L. Boyden who told him to "treat [students] like young men, but never forget that they're just boys." Mr. Boyle took this to heart. "If you don't change, you're going backwards. People ask me, 'How can you teach Latin for 45 years? It must be so boring.' and I say 'Wait a minute! I'm not going to teach the same way to the same kind of students because they're not the same students."

Mr. Boyle has also been a successful coach, leading his swimming teams to win the New England championships for seventeen consecutive years, from 1974 to 1990. When asked his fondest Deerfield memory, Mr. Boyle replied, "It's the whole thing. When I think about everything that's gone on, everything that I've been involved with, I think of it as a whole. It's almost as if time stood still, and that the period of time from 1957 to 2002 is a package.. .How amazing it is for me to be teaching the sons and daughters of the first students I taught when they were here at Deerfield. It's a wonderful feeling to know, and this has happened to me: that I can travel anywhere in the world and run into a student, either from class, or from a team, or from my table in the dining room-those are the high points."

Next year, Mr. Boyle plans to go to Florida and "be more busy than I am here, if that's possible."

"Carpe diem," he said. "There are so many things for me to do. I can't wait to get up in the morning, I can't wait." Though next year Mr. Boyle will miss the "total immersion" of life here, he will always remain with those he has taught in or out of the classroom. From now on, Mr. Boyle, "Tibi faciendum est; it is up to you."