Konkrete Kids and residents in Northampton Area School District will remember a legendary coach every time they swim at the Gwen L. Whildin Natatorium at Northampton Area Middle School.

The NASD Board of Education voted unanimously 9-0 at the June 24 meeting to approve a proclamation honoring Whildin, a Northampton Area High School swimming coach for 25 years and NAHS physical education teacher for 32 years.

Whildin, 66, died Jan. 21 after battling diabetes. She was on dialysis, waiting for a kidney. After being taken off the waiting list, her health quickly deteriorated. Whildin lived in Germansville before retiring to Pompano Beach, Fla.

Friends of Whildin filled the audience seating area of the June 24 school board meeting in the administration building, where they shared anecdotes and extolled her career.

Scott Miller started a petition to request that NASD name the swimming pool in Whildin’s honor. The petition had 3,090 signatures, according to Miller.

Whildin, who began at NAHS in 1981, coached 72 state finalists, 18 state champions, the 1993 PIAA boys state championship swim team, eight Mountain Valley Conference title swim teams and was named Coach of the Year in 1993.

She was inducted into the NAHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010. She founded the KIDS US Swim Club, with five U.S. Swimming All-Americans and a 2000 paralympic world champion.

Whildin’s combined boys and girls record was 379 wins, 228 losses and five ties.

“What really hits home is what she has done for each swimmer who she coached. She changed lives. She molded us into young men and women that we carry to this day,” Miller said in an email about the petition.

“She treated national and paralympic athletes the same as a beginner swimmer - and pushed them just the same.

“She was influential. She was old-school. She was exactly who you would want coaching your child and more,” Miller said.

Friends, coaches, fellow teachers and former students were effusive in their praise of Whildin, while noting that she could be a stern taskmaster.

“We worked together, and she was also a friend,” said Susan Transue, of Lehigh Township and a Northampton Area Middle School earth science teacher.

Deb Halliday, also of Lehigh Township, said she was also a friend for many years.

Denise Scotland, formerly of Allentown, drove in from the Harrisburg area to hear the proclamation read at the school board meeting.

“I’ve known Gwen for many years,” she said, “and I also coached the summer league and the age groups club.”

Sissie Welsh drove in from Hillsborough, N.J., for the meeting honors.

“I’ve known Gwen for almost 30 years. I helped build her kitchen. I think we all helped her build her kitchen,” Welsh laughed, looking over at Scotland, Halliday and Transue.

“I swam for Gwen, and I coached for her for four years,” said Kelly Witt, NAHS Class of 2008 and a sister of Miller, attending with her daughter, Charlton.

Witt’s and Miller’s mother, Nancy Miller, of Allentown, was a varsity swim team scorekeeper for 20 years.

“I was a swimmer of Gwen’s,” said Scott Miller, NAHS Class of 2001, who went to states to compete in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle. “I met her when I was 8 years old.”

Mel Lebo, of Northampton, said, “I helped Gwen coach swimmers since 1985. I volunteered, and I gave it up five years ago in 2014.”

Melissa White, NAHS Class of 2010, of Kunkletown, NAHS assistant swimming coach for three years, said, “She was my coach the last year of high school, and I coached under her since my graduation.”

White competed in districts in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle events.

“And she didn’t yell at you all the time?” asked Welsh, turning around in her seat at the meeting.

“Of course, she did,” White replied.

Cullen Mentzell, of Lehigh Township, NAHS swimming coach for three years and assistant swimming coach for four years, also competed in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle.

“She did everything whole-heartedly. She put her life into being head swim coach. She was a great example,” he said.

“She showed us how to be a team,” White added.

Elek Erdosy, NAHS Class of 1975, of Moore Township, said, “I coached with her for a couple of years, and I had three kids who swam for her - Matthew, NAHS Class of 2002; Mark, NAHS Class of 2005; and Alexis, NAHS Class of 2007.

“She’s a throwback to the coaches Al (Erdosy), my uncle, and Pete Schneider. She was so good with the kids. I have a lot to be thankful for. She was such a model. She taught the work ethic, goals and always had a positive attitude,” he said.

School Director Robert Mentzell said, “What cannot be quantified is the esteem that she was held in by her fellow coaches.”

School Director Chuck Longacre, whose son Benjamin was a diver in his senior year on the NAHS swim team, added, “When he became an Eagle Scout, he gave his mom pin to his mother, his dad pin to me and his mentor pin to Gwen.”

Prior to reading the proclamation, NASD Superintendent of Schools Joseph S. Kovalchik said, “I knew Gwen for many years - as a colleague when I was a teacher at the middle school and then principal and then superintendent.

“She cared deeply in the success of her students,” Kovalchik said.

After the proclamation was read, Scott Miller said, “On behalf of her sister Sara, who couldn’t be here tonight, I want to provide you with this picture of Gwen.”

Kovalchik said the photograph will be placed in the Gwen L. Whildin Natatorium at the Dec. 12 dedication ceremony. Details of a scholarship for swimmers in Whildin’s honor are expected to be announced at the ceremony.

“I still remember when my son came home with information about an after-school swim program,” Nancy Miller said of her son. “We went to the pool. Gwen scared me. You could hear her. But she cared about the kids. And the kids loved her.

“I didn’t know when I went to the pool that this would begin a 20-year friendship,” she said.

“[The teams Whildin coached] were not only a team in the water, they were a team outside the water, and I am so glad that you’re naming the pool after her so her name won’t die,” Nancy Miller said.

The board of education holds one meeting in July - 6:30 p.m. July 15 - in the administration building, 2014 Laubach Ave., Northampton.