He Made a Splash
The Butler County Family YMCA, located on McKean Street, hired a lifeguard in 1957.
The facility's new employee was 17. His name was John McLaughlin. He was paid 50 cents an hour.
What a bargain.
Better known as “Pump” McLaughlin would go on to serve as the YMCA's aquatics director for 45 years. He was credited with teaching more than 50,000 people — mostly children — how to swim.
David Napora, now a dentist in Butler, was one of them.
“He saw me at a summer exhibition swim meet,” Napora recalled. “I was a little kid swimming for Butler Country Club and we were at Penn Valley. Pump served as the starter for the meet.
“After the meet, he approached me about joining the Y swim team. I guess he saw something in me.”The pool at the Butler Cubs Hall was “cold and murky,” Napora said. He swam a single lap and got out of the pool.“I started to sob,” he said. “I didn't want to get back in the water. I was done. Then Pump walks over, puts his arm around me, talked with me ... he got me to keep going. I don't even know he did it.”Napora wound up swimming for the University of Pittsburgh.Jack Gibbs was a youth swimmer for the Butler Y. He recalled McLaughlin as “a quiet guy, timid, didn't like to talk in front of crowds.“Yet, you felt comfortable around him. You just knew he loved you. He was like a big kid himself.”Gibbs wound up swimming for the University of South Florida.
Mike Kristufek was a youth swimmer in McLaughlin's program. He now serves as an aquatics director in Mount. Lebanon and coaches high school swimmers there.“Pump just had a way about him,” Carol Kristufek, Mike's mother, said. “He was very good about getting kids to do their best.“He never had kids of his own, but he understood how to talk to them, motivate them. He was always on their side. The kids knew that.”McLaughlin died in March 2004, succumbing to cancer at age 64. His funeral was held at the Butler Family YMCA, as a funeral home could not hold the crowd.A bronze statue depicting McLaughlin sitting on a bench between a couple of kids — one of them being the image of Olympic silver medalist swimmer Eric Namesnik — sits outside the YMCA's main entrance. It was dedicated in May 2007 and constructed through donations from more than 150 people.Namesnik was one of McLaughlin's thousands of swimmers through the years. He was killed in an automobile accident in January 2006.Namesnik's sister, Leesa Allen, spoke at the statue dedication ceremony.“When he was little, he didn't like the water. He didn't even like to take a shower,” Allen said of Namesnik. “Pump coaxed him into the water. Eric learned from Pump ... If you believe in something, you can make it come true.”So it was with McLaughlin.“Pump was the face of the Y for so many years,” said Fran Randall, an aerobics instructor there whose daughter was coached by him. “I worked with him for several years.
“I saw so many times ... a kid would be timid around the water and Pump could coax that kid to jump in. He built a trust. He had a mental connection.”Randall said McLaughlin communicated with children through “open arms and a smile.”“As big as that smile was, his heart was even bigger. He had a presence. The kids trusted him,” Randall added.Even when he started teaching swimmers, McLaughlin had 1,400 kids involved in the Y's Learn to Swim program.“I remember when they opened the new YMCA (on West Penn Street),” Napora said. “Pump took a bunch of us down there to show us the new pool and the new locker rooms.“He was so excited about that facility. He felt like he died and went to heaven. I'd never seen him happier.”McLaughlin coached a number of swimmers who went on to become collegiate All-Americans. Others became lifelong swimmers.“His practices were pretty intense,” Napora said. “Pump was a disciplinarian when he had to be, but mostly, he was your friend.”Gibbs was impressed by how McLaughlin could work with so many kids at one time while making each feel special.“He treated everyone the same,” Gibbs said. “He knew their names. He put in extra time with kids — his own time — if they needed it.“He was one of a kind. College swim programs at Pitt, Syracuse, other programs ... They all knew who he was.”McLaughlin paid the membership fees for numerous kids who otherwise couldn't afford to be part of the team through the years.“He was there year after year — a true institution,” Kristufek said.“Pump never changed,” Napora said. “He just got older.”
