MOTIVATOR: Quick was known for being cheerful at 5:30 a.m. Gonzalesphoto.com

The varsity women’s swimmers hauled up at the end of the pool, dug into huge mesh bags and pulled out . . . snorkels. Strapping them onto their heads, they kicked off another challenging set, churning up and down the lanes in Belardi Pool.

“We’ve taped over [the snorkel] and then put a very small hole in the tape, which forces you to push the air out farther and suck the air in farther,” Richard Quick says, puffing out his cheeks like a tuba player. “Research says that has the chance to increase oxygen utilization, and it actually strengthens your breathing muscles.”

Two weeks after announcing that he was retiring after 17 seasons as head coach of women’s swimming, Quick was still at it. Still looking for that competitive edge, whether it was snorkels or a muscle-vibration machine that builds strength. “I’m kind of known for taking a look at new methods of training,” he says. “I think we’ve maximized the [practice] time we can ask athletes to give us, so the important thing is to make that time more efficient. You’ve got to stimulate the body in new and different ways.”

Quick, 62, and his wife, June, are moving to Texas, where he says he wants to spend more time with grandchildren Emily, 10, and Blake, 13. Former Cardinal swimmer Lea Loveless Maurer, ’94, MA ’95, who swam on three of Quick’s championship squads (1992, ’93 and ’94) has been named as his replacement.

In his years on the Farm, the man who wanted to be a swimming coach since age 12 led the Cardinal to seven NCAA titles (1989, 1992-96 and 1998). Quick coached at six different Olympics, serving as head coach for the women’s squad in 1988, 1996 and 2000. “In ’92 we had four girls on the team from our program—over one-quarter of the whole team,” he says. “That was the year Summer Sanders [’94] won gold and Jenny Thompson [’95] broke the world record in the 100-meter freestyle, so that year has a special memory.”

Swimmers have their own memories, many of which begin at 5:30 a.m. on a misty morning. “Richard would be cheering us on to take the pool covers off when we’d rather be knocking him in the teeth,” Sanders recalls. “When he was super-excited, we knew we were going to have an extremely hard workout, which made us even more grumpy.” She pauses. “It was great, though.”

Sanders says one key to Quick’s success as a coach is the you-can-do-it bug he puts in swimmers’ ears early in their collegiate careers. “He’d give us an incredibly difficult set, and I’d look at him like, ‘Are you kidding?’ ” she says. “But you’d end up doing it, and you’d realize, ‘You know what? I could go faster. The world record could be something that’s within my reach.’”

Long before Olympian Michael Phelps took home gold with the technique in the 2004 Games, Sanders had learned from Quick to breathe on every stroke she took in the butterfly. “Summer went right by two girls from China who were bigger and stronger and more powerful, because they went into oxygen debt and she didn’t,” says Skip Kenney, head coach of men’s swimming. “Back then, it was very rare, and I [thought], ‘Wow, I have a couple of guys who could use that.’”

Kenney was instrumental in bringing Quick to Stanford from the University of Texas, where he’d led the Longhorns to five straight NCAA titles (1984-88). Quick still shows an affinity for the Lone Star State. “We always play country music there, and he’ll grab you by the hand and start jumping around on the deck,” says Olympic silver medalist Tara Kirk, ’04. “He’s a passionate, excited kind of guy, and some of the funniest things he does involve dancing.”

Indeed, Quick is known around the athletics department as an exceptional motivator. He spoke to the football team that went to the Rose Bowl in 2000, and in 1990 he gave a pep talk to the women’s basketball team, which was in pursuit of its first NCAA title. “His message was to get comfortable with the idea that you can win,” says associate head coach Amy Tucker. That slogan—“Get Comfortable With It”—was posted on the women’s locker room door and now hangs, framed, in head coach Tara VanDerveer’s office. Did it help? “We won,” Tucker says.