It was an appropriate way to christen the new Manteca High swimming pool.

Manteca High hosted Sierra High on Friday afternoon for the Valley Oak League opener. It was the first official swim meet in the pool.

Both teams have assistant coaches who are the grandkids of the man for whom the old swimming pool was named and who devoted 38 years to Manteca High as part of the faculty including five years as principal.

“It’s going to be great for the community,” Steve Winter, said of the new swimming pool that was part of an initial $41 million Measure G bond project that included the new large gym behind it.

Although Winter stressed he was “extremely proud” of both grandkids who competed for Ripon High, he confessed “deep inside” he was pulling for Manteca High.

Sierra’s varsity teams, however both prevailed.

The Manteca High gym/swimming pool project is arguably the highest profile project among those undertaken with the $156 million Measure G bond.

Among the touches included in the new gym/swimming complex are:

*An electronic scoreboard for swim meets complete with the timing system that’s encased in an exterior brick wall.
*A shallower area in the pool adjacent to the competitive area that is designed to teach students swimming.

*Mounted cameras that can feed live action of basketball games to large screens in the gym, in the lobby and even inside the snack bar so boosters staffing the snack bar won’t miss out on the action.

*A glass window bank on the eastern wall by the eastern basket that does double duty — better security and sightlines plus allows fans to see the action while using a raised counter to stand at that they can place sodas and such on.

*Six oversized ceiling fans in the gym that also have UV technology designed to kill airborne viruses as well as keep air circulating better.

*Coaches/PE teacher offices have glass walls that do double duty as white boards during the halftime of games.

*Locker rooms with a built-in ventilation system that drops directly into banks of lockers.

Winter was thrilled several years ago to hear that Manteca Unified was going to demolish the old swimming pool that carries his name and build a new one.

That’s because it meant his beloved Manteca High would have a modern regulation pool students and the community could use.

The old pool was torn out to make way for an expansive student plaza. 

Winter left his mark on Manteca High before he was even a student.

Winter was an eighth grader when Dave Honey — a high school buddy who was a freshman on the swim team— talked him into coming watch him compete as part of the Buffalo swim team.

Buffalo coach Don Reed knew Winter could swim and he had a few holes to plug on his “B” team. So, he told Winter he had a pair of trunks if he wanted to compete.

Winter — during a 2012 interview when the pool was named in his honor — said they he said “why not” even though he hadn’t swimmed for at least six months. His buddy even had to show him the strokes because he wasn’t sure which ones were used in the intermediate medley.

By the time the meet was over on that spring day in 1964 Winter had shaved 40 seconds off the school record and he still had months to go before he was even in high school.

Winter started his Manteca High career as a history and physical education teacher in 1971 and ended it in 2009 after a five-year stint as principal.

In between his impact was felt from the classroom to the basketball court. That included 15 years as the varsity boys’ basketball coach with championships in 1980 and 1981, two years as swim coach and 24 years as golf coach.

Then there was his high school career that started as a freshman in 1965.

“I loved baseball but there was one problem, I couldn’t bat or throw,” Winter recalled in 2012.

It’s why Winter stuck with swimming and played basketball as a forward. He ended up holding several records in the 100 fly, breaststroke, freestyle and the 140 IM. The 140 IM record was the last to fall. It happened while he was coaching the boy who broke it – Jeff Walker.

Went to Manteca High

games with his father

Winter’s connection to Manteca High goes back even earlier than that.

He attended his first Manteca High football game as a 10-year-old with his father Dr. Robert C. Winter who for years was an icon on the campus volunteering his services so games could be played.

Dr. Winter’s service as team physician and dedication as a Buffalo fan was legendary. It was what led to the main gym being named in Dr. Winter’s honor back on April 3, 1979 when his son was in his eighth year of teaching.

“I always told student teachers you never know when you are going to say something that has a lasting impact on a student,” Winter said in 2012.

Winter said the greatest reward of teaching is having a former student come up to you years later and telling you that there was something that you said that helped make a big difference in their life and that they remember it ever since you said it.

Teaching – or returning to Manteca High in any form – was the last thing on his mind when he graduated from Manteca High in 1965.

What got him hooked on teaching were two things. He discovered he enjoyed working with kids when he taught swimming lessons while going to Delta College. The other were two stints at LOOF glass plant in Lathrop in the summer of 1967 and again in the summer of 1971 in a work program designed for college students.

 Winter credited high school coaches like Vic Walker and Dino Cunial as well as history teachers like Terry Fix and Phil Harmon for having made a big influence on him.

His one regret about being principal is the fact that the farther he went up in administration, the farther he got away from regular daily contact with the reason he went into teaching – the students.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com