Grafton swim adds some star power

One of Grafton High School’s former swimming stars is now at the head of the pool.

Bailey Bodart, a state champion swimmer in high school who swam for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before graduating in spring, has taken over for longtime coach Mark Minz.

“It’s a full circle experience coaching for my former high school. It’s definitely helpful that I’m familiar with the facility. It’s also helpful that I am familiar with the training the boys are used to since I did it myself not too long ago,” Bodart said.

For Bodart, landing the Grafton job was special.

“Coaching at Grafton is definitely something that I was interested in, and it was sort of a perfect coincidence that my high school coach Mark retired just after I graduated college. Grafton as a community has given me a lot over the years so it’s nice to start giving back,” he said.

Bodart is applying what he learned under Minz.

His old coach, Bodart said, “made sure we all had a good attitude. Everyone who’s there wants to help their teammates improve.

“Being a good role model was what I got from Mark. Mark’s a really great guy. He always was interested in swimmers’ lives outside the pool.”

In the pool, Bodart was a beast for the Black Hawks. He was a USA Swimming All-American swam in the Division 2 state meet all four years, from 2013 to 2016 and won state titles in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle races, and the 200 medley relay. Bodart swam in four events at state in each his junior and senior seasons.

At UWM, Bodart was a two-time Horizon League All-Academic swimmer. As a senior, he scored in all three of his individual events at the Horizon League Championships, taking 14th in the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke and 16th in the 50 freestyle.

Bodart graduated in May with an engineering degree. He is a product engineer for Quest Engineering in Richfield and lives in Shorewood.

This isn’t Bodart’s first coaching experience. He has coached youth for Ozaukee Aquatics for four years.

“It’s kind of cool to be coaching high school kids now,” Bodart said.

At least one of the 20 names is familiar to Bodart. Todd O’Connor is the younger brother of Sean, a former star swimmer and one of Bodart’s former teammates.

“It’s a pretty good group of boys. It seems like they enjoy it and enjoy being there,” Bodart said.

He starts his high school coaching career in a bizarre season. The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered some adjustments.

“Everyone is experiencing a bunch of new stuff. Maybe it was a good time to join,” Bodart said.

Besides wearing masks outside the pool, Bodart has put swimmers into small groups with each assigned a lane for practice.

“If one kid in the lane gets (the coronavirus), we only have to quarantine that lane,” he said.

Large weekend invites are limited to one — the Bulldog Invite at Cedarburg on Jan. 9 — which cuts down on swimmers getting experience.

“It’s cool that they could still have a season,” Bodart said.

Among his top swimmers are O’Connor and Andrew Slagter, along with diver Caden Starr, who excels in the 50 freestyle.

“I’ll throw him in any swimming event,” Bodart said. “He’s quite a sprinter for a diver.”

Since he excelled at sprints, Bodart said, he is comfortable coaching the short distances. But he swam longer races in club swimming throughout high school so he can coach those as well.

Bodart said he is focused on individual goals with each of his swimmers. He said he would like to get at least one relay to qualify for the state meet.