B lair Bagley couldn’t make up her mind. The South Davis Masters coach was going through all of the facial-hair styles Jason Coyle had worn to find one to add to the club’s Mr. Krab logo in advance of the 2019 U.S. Mas- ters Swimming Spring National Championship in Mesa, Ariz., in April. There were a lot. She eventually decided to go with a handlebar mustache. This was her swimmers’ way—in addition to participating at Spring Na- tionals—to honor their former teammate, who died Jan. 3 of a con- genital heart problem. “I feel like a lot of people were ho-hum about the idea [of compet- ing at Spring Nationals] and then after Jason passed, we came togeth- er and said we’re going to do this and we’re going to do this together,” Bagley says. “Everyone who could’ve possibly have gone went. “To bring 16 of us to Nationals was unheard of. I feel one of the reasons is the camaraderie. We bonded over this tragedy. We have been able to come closer together as a team.” Coyle’s propensity for styling his facial hair in wacky ways was one of the many things Bagley liked about him. Another was his humor. When she met him, Bagley assumed he was a long-haul truck driver because of his facial hair, and he played along. She began wondering how a truck driver was able to regularly make their workouts—Coyle kept the joke going for nearly a year—but was in disbelief when she learned Coyle was actually a middle school English teacher. Ever the teacher, Coyle used lengthy words in conversations and told people to look them up if they responded with confusion. When- ever he’d see his former students, he’d tell them to read a book. “He was the teacher all the kids flocked to,” says Joe Linford, a member of South Davis Masters, a club in the Salt Lake City area. “He was the teacher that said profound things like, ‘Do your home- work,’ and the kids were like ‘Oh, I should do my homework.’” On the night his close friend died, Linford remembers talking with Coyle about the treehouse Coyle was planning to build for his four children. Linford, who works in construction, had extra lum- ber from a job he had completed. Just days after Coyle’s funeral, the Coyle family received more bad news. Anita Coyle, Coyle’s wife and a fellow South Davis Mas- ters member, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This led their club to rally around the family, which meant building the treehouse Ja- son wanted for his three sons and daughter. “We have just amazing people and resources on our team,” Bag- ley says. “We have a couple of construction contractor guys, and we have engineers. We have some architects. We have all these amaz- ing professionals on our team that have come together. They’ve gotten the supplies donated, and the extra money we needed, the team has collected. “This is just how people are on our team. They come together, and they’re there for you in death, weddings, divorce, births. We’re there for each other. I feel this has been a great group of people to be involved with.” The impact Coyle made on his teammates made it easy for them to swim at Spring Nationals in memory of him. Linford re- calls time after time that Coyle would be cheering for him and other swimmers at a meet, even if Coyle had just finished a race. South Davis Masters earned a medal in the mixed 200 freestyle relay in the 35+ age group, a relay that Coyle would’ve been on had he competed at Spring Nationals. Bagley gave one of the med- als the relay earned to Anita. After having just one person compete at Spring Nationals in 2017 and four in 2018, South Davis Masters was able to get a much bigger group to go this year—all for Jason. “Nationals was an opportunity for us to come together and get together for a weekend and race and think about how wonderful our life is and how grateful we are to be able to swim and be able to do the things that make us happy to be together,” Bagley says. “That’s what Jason would’ve wanted.”—DANIEL PAULLING SWIMMING LIFE Swimming for Jason South Davis Masters honors deceased teammate at Spring Nationals Thomas Woods Members of South Davis Masters competed at the 2019 U.S. Masters Swimming Spring National Championship in honor of former teammate Jason Coyle. 6 usms.org