Marianne Brogan

It is with great honor O*H*I*O Masters Swim Club posthumously bestows the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award to Marianne Brogan.

Marianne’s swimming journey consists of both personal achievements in pool and open water and includes decades of work to promote the fitness value of swimming and healthy living. Marianne started competing in her late 40’s and by age 47 was already ranked in USMS Top 10. She was a regular participant in competition where she excelled across 8 USMS and 5 YMCA Masters age groups: ages 47 to 76. When her health reduced her competitive participation, she turned to her preferred method of swimming—Lake Erie swims off of Columbia Road Park. Along her journey, Marianne achieved several notable swimming feats*:

  • 4 FINA World Individual Top Ten rankings: SCM
  • 3 YMCA National Masters Championships
  • National USMS All American Rankings:
    1 USMS All American – Individual (50-54 200 Fly)
    9 USMS All American – Individual Long Distance
    5 USMS All American – Relay – (across 5 age groups)
  • World Master’s Swimming Championship, Montreal, 5th place, 5000m Open Water, 1994
  • 2 USMS All Star Long Distance Awards (Long Distance All-Stars are named on a total point basis from the results of all long distance championships)
  • Age 65 and Age 66: 67 Individual USMS Top 10 rankings
    51 Relay USMS Top 10 rankings

*Complete list of Marianne’s USMS Top 10 events, times and age groups is available at:
https://www.usms.org/comp/tt/toptenind.php?SwimmerID=01PKF

Marianne demonstrated good sportsmanship in every level of swimming. She began her career by volunteering at the YMCA before she was employed there for 20 years. She always found a way to get the Y to look at programming that would benefit all Masters. If the local Y did not have a program, she did her best to convince them to start one. Over the course of her career, Marianne joined the advisory board for the Aquatic Exercise Association and was first aquatics instructor to be certified by the Arthritis Foundation. She was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Aquatic Fitness. Nationally, she was awarded the Fitness Committee Award by USMS at the National Convention. All of these events had nothing to do with swimming competition per se, but stressed the value of swimming as a lifelong beneficial experience for many populations of adult swimmers.

Giving back to the community was important to her and she was involved in raising funds for charities focused on children, especially the Malachi Center Summer Camp Swim Program, a learn to swim program for inner city Cleveland children. This program is the current beneficiary of donations collected at the Brogan Open Water Classic.

Anecdotal comments:

This was posted by a friend after Marianne’s passing: “I always admired her lifestyle of health and fitness. Always active—swimming, teaching water exercise, and advocating for organic foods long before there were stores that carried organic products. She inspired me and many others by the way she lived her life. I often wished she would write a book or a blog to document her wisdom, recipes, routines and experience. Such a wonderful legacy of health she left to us all! She always had a witty comment and would kindly inquire about my family and myself.”

Judi Norton submitted the nomination for Lifetime Achievement Award for Marianne and shares this personal note:

Marianne was at the very first Masters practice I attended at Lakewood Y. There were 5 of us at practice (and only 2 women) and the water in the 20-yard pool was about 85 degrees. She was always scrambling for pool time and was the one who convinced Lakewood Y to start a swim conditioning program for adults. She also helped find pool time at the West Shore Y, with about the same conditions. Eventually, O*H*I*O Masters moved into 25-yard pools with some normal temperatures.

Recognizing that one way to grow the program was to add a coach, she asked me to coach O*H*I*O Masters practices at Fairview High School.

Marianne and Doug Brogan attended the 1989 Aquatic Convention in Portland, Oregon, and came away with the idea that O*H*I*O Masters could host an open water event in Lake Erie. Marianne led the charge to get Lake Erie open water swimming on the USMS map by serving on the Open Water committee at USMS Conventions. The inaugural event was held in 1990 at Edgewater Park Beach in Cleveland with Doug and Marianne serving as Meet Directors for the first two years. The race has remained at Edgewater Park each year.

Originally, the event was known as the Lake Erie Open Water Classic. The meet is still going strong and is now named after Marianne and Doug for their countless contributions to the event.

As her health became more of an obstacle she kept a mostly positive attitude. She had more and more trouble moving around, but she still swam as much as possible.

I still wear her training fins at practice.