Post & Courier file photo

Snee Farm swim coach Jason Kreutner is shown holding his daughter Kessler after winning the CCAA championship for the 20th consecutive time.

Been to a Snee Farm swim meet lately? If not, schedule yourself an evening next June and stroll amid the hundreds of youthful aquatic competitors; savor the sweet smells of hotdogs and chlorine. Revel in the sounds and sights that subsist exclusively in the domain of summer. Something so special is going on between the pines and clubhouse complex that sooner or later the national media is bound to pick it up. You see, the Snee Farm Swim Team has just successfully defended its Coastal Carolina Aquatic Association championship for the 22nd consecutive year!

Sure, quite a few athletic clubs have put together a string of wins. Harvard's wrestlers slammed down their 23rd regional championship. A few miles away, the Williams College thinclads sprinted to their 22nd league title. La Salle College High School owns a 22 year swim team record in the Philadelphia Catholic League. And the winningest tradition of any program in the country belongs to Indian River Community College in Ft. Pierce, Florida--they've won 36 back-to-back swim and dive competitions in the National Junior College Athletic Association. Yet, what makes Snee Farm's 22 year streak unique is that they've won 21 of their titles under the same coach--Jason Kreutner.

Coach Kreutner is not one to toot his own horn when it comes to his accomplishments; however, his assistant coaches and swim team participants are eager to praise his leadership style. Jason Kreutner was just 18 and barely out of Porter-Gaud when he helped coach Snee Farm to its first league title. That was back in 1989, when George H. W. Bush was president. Danny Ford was still coaching at Clemson.

What's Jason Kreutner's secret? As coach he welcomes approximately 190 youngsters each year, ages four to 18, many of them siblings of older children who've been swimming competitively on his team for years. Jason's own daughter, Kessler, was on the team this year. So how does any one person go about organizing, coaching, mentoring, and developing a winning strategy for this diverse an age group--and win consistently in a highly competitive league of 24 teams?

"Create the conditions where the kids will want to succeed," says Jason emphatically. When asked about his coaching style, which centers heavily around mentoring and motivating, Jason emphasizes that his young charges learn the value of deferring pleasure for long-term gain. He is constantly building for the future--investing in the slower swimmer who will likely mature in two or three years.

Kreutner credits his older brother Erik with providing the framework for his own coaching philosophy. Growing up in Creekside in the 1980s, Jason, Erik, Kara, and Kevin Kreutner spent their summers competing at the pool. Erik, in 1987, took on the task of turning around a 1986 team that had gone winless. Three years later, Jason stepped into the leadership role.

The Snee Farm Swim Team website states that the team won championships in the 1970s and 80s, but the victory in 1985 came at a costly price and disrupted the longstanding traditions of the team. Overzealous team organizers used special "summer club memberships" that year to bring in fast swimmers from other areas--to the detriment of good sportsmanship values as well as to the neighborhood kids. In 1987, Erik Kreutner was hired to recenter the program and return it to its roots of neighborhood competition. Jason Kreutner took over the program in 1990 and built upon brother Erik's foundation.

Jason evolved as a coach over the years, and in the mid-90s focused on training the older swimmers in his program into hands-on role models. On any given summer day Snee Farm's team practice consists of little groups of youngsters paying rapt attention to an older mentor. It's abundantly clear that the winningest swim coach anywhere around this region has devised a method to build character traits such as determination, self-sacrifice, personal discipline, and team spirit. Many times over the years Snee Farm has come back to win big after initially being down in the rankings. Jason attributes the team's resilience to the character of his swimmers.

One assistant coach who competed 12 years for Snee Farm is local Mount Pleasant resident David Thomas, 2010 graduate of the College of Charleston. I caught up with David by cell phone this week, as he is doing work for the National Park Service out in Utah.

"He's probably the humblest person I've ever met. He's always honest and upfront with us," David said of Coach Kreutner.

David Thomas is a natural athlete who ran track and played soccer at the Academic Magnet High School before becoming a miler and 8K man on the College of Charleston Cougar track team. However, it was his 12 years as a swimmer that shaped much of his competitive spirit as well as philosophy of life. David recalls being outscored by Coosaw Creek Swim Team in a key match and hearing Coach Kreutner above the din of the crowd saying, "Hey guys, you've got to pep it up and swim better than you ever have before!" David said that as corny as it sounds, when Jason says that, every swimmer reaches deeper to find power to swim faster.

As for his future, David Thomas wants to follow the example of Coach Kreutner and go into teaching and coaching. "He's helped me more than just about anyone I know. Every job I've ever gotten, Coach Kreutner has written recommendations for me and made phone calls. He's definitely shaped who I am today."

"One thing to remember," Kreutner added, "is that these kids come together as a team for two months out of the year. Few of them swim year round. They move on to play other sports in the fall and spring. Yet, in the summer all of their focus and intensity is on making Snee Farm the best team in the league."

Walking around the Snee Farm Country Club, one would expect to see a trophy wall containing the dozens of championship awards that the swim team has garnered over the last couple of decades. That is not the case. The trophies are tucked away in the attic, for Coach Kreutner wants his team humble and always mindful of the work ethic that has brought success to approximately 1500 swimmers before them. When you swim for Snee Farm, you know what is expected -- hard work, tremendous self-discipline, and teamwork -- there are no superstars, and there's no gloating over victories.

Chelsea Joyner is another of Jason Kreutner's proteges. She and her older sisters, Lindsay and Lisa, grew up spending their summers competing in league meets at Snee Farm. Now a sophomore at the University of Georgia, Chelsea considers Kreutner "almost like a second father to me." She began swimming with the team at age 5 and was at the pool cheering on her sisters practically from birth. Since 2007, Chelsea has served as coach and mentor for swimmers six and under, a role that she cherishes. One of her young swimmers this year was Jason and his wife Tasha's own daughter, Kessler, age 5.

Like David Thomas, Chelsea echoes the idea of older teammates coaching the younger ones. She remembers looking up to Kelly Vance and Kelly Kiggans as two older swimmers who really inspired her to excel.

"Jason's technique," Chelsea said, "is to teach the older swimmers and younger coaches how to teach. He's really good at that."

As for coaching from the sidelines, "Coach Kreutner always has his eye on us. When we are on the blocks just before a start, he makes a point of calling each of us by name and telling us good luck. That little moment means so much," said Joyner.

"He instills pride in us," Chelsea said. "We won the Good Sportsmanship Trophy again this year, as well as the League Championship. The Sportsmanship trophy is a huge thing for us, for he instills that in us at every practice and meet. We always stay late to help clean up not only our side, but the other side as well. Being courteous and supportive of the other teams is something he emphasizes daily."

Can Snee Farm ever be beaten in a championship meet?

Some opponents roll their eyes and lament that it'll never happen. However, Kreutner says with a laugh that it will happen.

"Coosaw Creek trounced us in the regular meet this summer," Kreutner said. "And it was a tremendous accomplishment to beat them in the league championship."

For Coach Kreutner, giving 100 percent, never giving up, being "in it to win it," is a personal way of life. Following graduation from Porter-Gaud, Jason pursued the USC Honors College's most difficult degree (Baccalaureus Artium et Scientiae) and a history M.A. at Emory University. He's taught history at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, Porter-Gaud School, and Charleston Collegiate School. He's been Dean of Students in all those schools, as well as chairman of the history department at Porter-Gaud. For the last three years, Jason Kreutner has served as Headmaster of a school he founded, University School of the Lowcountry, located on the campus of Hibben UMC on Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant. It's a co-educational, non-sectarian, non-profit independent school geared to high-achieving students who learn three global languages and take weekly field trips to explore the world outside the classroom.

All the while, Jason continues to produce championship teams that demonstrate the highest level of character and citizenship at the pool where he has spent every summer since 1986. I predict that this is a story headed for national prominence.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant). Visit www.historyslostmoments.com.