A local swim coach joined some very elite company recently.

Phil Emery, Bangor High School boys swimming coach, won the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association of America Outstanding Service Award for 1992.

Emery was presented with the prestigous and exclusive award at the NISCA’s annual awards banquet in Indianapolis, Ind., March 27.

An NISCA member can receive the Outstanding Service Award only once, and only a maximum of five people may receive the award each year.

Once a member has been nominated for the award, he or she remains eligible to win it for three straight years. If they don’t win, their names are taken off the nomination list and they become ineligible for nomination again.

“It’s pretty exciting to win this award,” said Emery. “It’s really pretty neat because you get to see your name on the permanent trophy displayed at the Swimming Hall of Fame (in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.).”

The NISCA was founded in 1934 to coordinate and regulate all aspects of high school swimming at the national level.

The organization sponsors individual and team awards to honor noteworthy accomplishments in the sport of interscholastic swimming.

Emery has been a member of the NISCA and head coach of the Bangor High boys varsity team for the last 23 years.

“I graduated from Southern Connecticut State College in February of 1969 and took the Bangor coaching job in September the same year,” Emery explained.

“The excitement is still there. You don’t get quite as high or low as you did when you started out, but the excitement makes it worth it.”

Emery’s swimming biography – the main credentials used to judge a nominee’s merits for the Outstanding Service Award – is extensive.

He was president of the New England ISCA and is currently president of the Maine ISCA (four years). Emery has also been the director of the Penobscot Valley Conference and state meet director for the last 15 years.

As a coach, Emery has compiled a 157-22-1 dual meet record and won 11 state championships, one New England championship (1975), and 12 PVC titles. Bangor has finished as state runnerup four times.

The veteran coach has been named Maine coach of the year seven times and has coached four high school All-American divers.

Currently the president of the Maine Swim Coaches Association, Emery rewrote the MSCAC constitution.

“I’m real proud of being associated with them (MSCA),” said Emery.

Emery has also founded two summer swim clubs, co-founded the Downeast Swim Clinic, and has been a Maine swim official the last 10 years.

“All this wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my family,” Emery said. “It requires a tremendous amount of support.”

Emery lives in Orrington with his wife Elaine and two daughters – Julie, a senior at Bangor High, and Jenny, a sophomore at Brewer.

When asked why he has been a swim coach for so long and what he considers to be the biggest reward he has received from coaching, Emery’s answer was a simple one.

“It’s fun,” said Emery. “It’s just as fun now as it was when I started.”

Fun seems a surprisingly simple reason to remain so involved in a sport for such a long time. But in order to accomplish what Emery has, and devote so much time and energy to various swimming organizations and clubs, one would have to find it fun.

It seems that Emery’s contributions to swimming – like a mathematical equation – are proportionate to his love for the sport, with his past and present swimmers the ultimate beneficiaries of that equation.