OMAC Honoree Recalls Those Who Gave Him a Start

At a holiday dinner held at the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett earlier this month, John Broich, a triathlete with more than 100 of those swimming-cycling-running events to his credit, was cited as the club’s male athlete of the year; Shari Hymes and Mary Scheerer, inveterate adventure racers, were honored as its female athletes of the year; Lucy Emptage, who recently signed a letter of intent to attend La Salle University in Philadelphia, where she will play lacrosse, and Geo Espinoza, a key member of Kevin Barry’s championship cross-country teams in the past four years, who’s to go to the University of Rhode Island, received $1,000 scholarships, and George Watson, one of the first here to promote athletic events (including wildly popular boxing matches at his Dock bar before insurance costs became prohibitive), was named as OMAC’s community service award-winner.

Broich, who recently retired as a science teacher at Westhampton Beach High School, but remains on as its girls track coach, during an interview this week said he had lived pillar-to-post during his childhood, attending, in all, 17 different schools as he was growing up. 

“I really owe a lot to the high school wrestling and track coaches I had in State College, Pa.,” one of his stopovers; Mattituck, where his uncle lived, was another. “They were hard on me, but I’m glad they were. I respected them. I was heading in the wrong direction. They made me the wrestling and track team’s captain [he’d caught the track coach’s eye after running a 4:44 mile in wrestling practice] and kept me on the right track. . . . They’re the reason that I became a coach.”

“You know,” he added, “when coaches are hard on you, it’s because they’re not giving up on you.”

He owed a lot to Tim Bishop, the former congressman and Southampton College provost, too, Broich said. 

“I was on my own as far as college went. I improvised, I did what I had to do as far as paying my way went. I started at Columbia and transferred to Southampton, picking up some credits from Suffolk Community along the way. . . . When some of my teachers saw ‘blocks’ on my courses, because I hadn’t been able to keep up with tuition payments, they told me to keep coming anyway, and spoke to Tim Bishop. Larry Liddle, the phycologist, ‘the seaweed guy’ — he’s still around — was one of them.”

As a result, through the provost’s good offices, Broich received a state grant for prospective science and math teachers and began tutoring freshman chemistry students “every night in one of the dorms” — sources of income that enabled him to remain at Southampton, after which — again with Bishop as an advocate — he was effectively assured a science teaching job at Westhampton Beach “before I graduated.”

While retired from teaching after a career of 30-plus years, Broich, whose annual turnouts his peers must view with some envy, continues, as aforementioned, to coach.

“I’ve got 48 on the girls squad this winter, though I’ve had as many as 80, two busloads. Thirty-five was my lowest number.”

Over the years he’s coached a number of county and league-championship teams and six high school all-Americans, including Sarena Choi, the latest, whose winning triple jump of 40 feet 103/4  inches at the state meet last spring is the state’s fourth-best ever. “She won the silver in the long jump, at 19-8. She’s at Kent State now.”

“I’ve got a 4-by-4 indoor relay team that’s second in the state. They did a 4:10 last week. . . . I’ve had four mile relay teams go to the Millrose Games, at the Armory.”

Asked how he got into triathloning, the honoree said, “I ran cross-country at Southampton, and we’d always have a long run on Sundays, after which we’d jump into the bay. A friend of mine said, ‘Let’s do a triathlon.’ I bought a crappy bike. It was 1983, that was my first one — a biathlon, a run-bike-run, in Mattituck. I’ve done 29 Mighty Hamptons, beginning in 1986. I’ve done three or four a year every year since.” 

He started out “a terrible swimmer — it wasn’t until 1990 that I mastered swimming. I did it on my own — I taught myself. Biking’s my best leg. I did the Mighty Hamptons bike — it’s 24 miles, 23.9 miles — in 1:01 this year. I can hold 23 miles per hour.”

While he’s always up there in his age group, “How I do in an age group isn’t my focus — I want to compete against everyone.”

Broich, who, with his wife, Deanna, has three children — Olivia, William, and John Jr., the latter a junior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, where they live — is 56. He feels fine, he said in answer to a question. “I’ve read some of the research on aging and athletics. While they don’t know everything, it seems if you continue to exercise anaerobically — beyond your aerobic capacity — that activates your genes, which makes you fitter. You can do it your whole lifetime.”

Asked if he competes the year round, Broich said, “I’ll take three to four weeks sometimes where I’ll lay low. Mike Bahel calls that ‘living.’ ” 

As for what may be next, “I’d like to do an ultra-marathon really well. I’m not an ultra guy. I’ve done them, but not really well. To run an ultra really well would be a good challenge. Then there’s the 35-mile mountain bike ride on Brian Monahan’s birthday — that’s always on the first Saturday in April — from Sag Harbor to the Montauket on the Paumanok Trail.”

Having coached six all-Americans and all those championship teams would indicate, this writer said, that when it comes to track he must know what he’s talking about.

“Maybe,” Broich said with a smile.