Outgoing Franklin College swim coach Andy Hendricks was named the HCAC men’s and women’s coach of the year at last month’s conference championship meet in Terre Haute.
Submitted photo | Zayne Spangler
Even though Andy Hendricks had been planning his exit from coaching for quite some time, the end came somewhat unceremoniously and unexpectedly.
He’d been planning to go out by taking a group of Franklin College swimmers to the NCAA Division III championships next week in Greensboro, North Carolina, but the Grizzlies didn’t qualify anyone this year — one relay missed out by a mere .03 seconds — and so Hendricks’ career quietly came to a close in late February with a last-chance qualifier at Kenyon College in Ohio.
As busy has Hendricks’ life has been over the past two years, reaching the end of the line might be more a relief than anything.
“I’ve already found five hours a day new to my life here in the last week,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve caught up on about four projects I had outstanding, I’m caught up on every email. It’s amazing what you can do with an extra five hours a day.”
Hendricks was named the school’s new vice president for enrollment and marketing last August, at which time he announced that the 2023-24 season was to be his last as the Grizzlies’ coach and that one of his former swimmers, 2020 graduate Zach Rayce, would take his place at season’s end.
There just weren’t enough hours in the day for Hendricks to keep coaching. After a year of trying to juggle his roles as coach, athletic director and vice president (he’d been serving in that last position on an interim basis since the summer of 2022), he knew that something had to give — but he still wasn’t entirely sure he could let go of coaching a swim program that he’d led since its inception in 2008.
Confidence in Rayce, he says, was what made him feel like he could move on.
“I think you know when it’s time and you’ve found that special person in your life, and you know you’re going to get married to her or whatever,” Hendricks said. “(But) this was an example of a time when I just didn’t know. What made me feel a lot better about it was the fact that it was Zach.”
This past season served as an extended passing of the torch between the two. Rayce, who had returned to Franklin in 2022 after one year as an assistant at Centre in Kentucky, took on more of the daily responsibilities this winter in preparation for the future.
“I think day to day, he’s trained me pretty well to kind of take over in that aspect,” Rayce said of Hendricks. “The first year getting here was learning a lot of the day-to-day; I was just ignorant to it. This year, it was to make sure I did the day-to-day right, and now it’s going to be, okay, I’ve got it figured out. It’ll just be, ‘Hey, can you double-check this to make sure?’ once in a while.”
The swim campaign is a grind for swimmers and coaches alike. Up at 4 a.m. in the dead of winter to practice before school, then another practice after class in the evening. During that December-January slog, Hendricks surely felt ready to be done. But that stretch run, when the workload lessens as the team tapers for championship season, brings everyone’s energy level back up — and suddenly “I’m ready” becomes “Well, maybe …”
Moments like the one Hendricks had on Feb. 17, when he and the Grizzly women’s team jumped into the pool at the Vigo County Aquatic Center in Terre Haute to celebrate another HCAC title, can make a coach want to keep going.
“It’s times like that you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I’m done; I’d love to keep doing this,’” Hendricks said. “But I’m good with where I’m at and where we’re heading.”
Wherever the Grizzlies are heading, it’ll be Rayce behind the wheel from now on. Much like a teenage driver going from learner’s permit to license, Rayce has now been handed the keys — and he’s ready. But while he is eager to take full control, he’s not planning to make wholesale changes to a program that has won all six HCAC women’s championship meets and claimed men’s titles in 2019 and 2020. That, he says, won’t be necessary.
“It’ll always have imprints of coach Hendricks throughout my entire tenure here, however long that is,” Rayce said. “Just because, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — and it’s not broke. So there’s not a whole lot for me to do or to change from that aspect. He’s handed me a pretty nice little car, if you want to stick with the metaphors, and I’ve just got to keep the thing clean.”
That and keep the thing running. One of the biggest parts of any college coaching job is keeping your roster well stocked through the recruiting process — and Rayce has attacked that part of the job with vigor. During the girls and boys high school state meets last month, he could be seen working the bleachers at the IU Natatorium, engaging with swimmers and their parents.
Closing the deal on some of his recruiting pitches over the past year has truly helped make Rayce feel like he’s taking ownership of the program.
“I’d say it was probably when a girl I’d been recruiting committed to me for the first time,” he said. “I think that was a huge step; I’d been recruiting her for a year, and she reached out to me first. I think that’s what really opened my eyes the most … like, ‘Okay, I guess this is my team now.’”
Ownership will feel more and more solidified for Rayce with each passing year; the upperclassmen who might have still viewed him as more of a friend than a coach will gradually be moving on, and incoming swimmers who were recruited and will be coached only by Rayce will barely know Hendricks — who can detach himself more and more as time goes by.
But that doesn’t mean the old coach is completely abandoning ship; his role is just changing. Hendricks plans to offer Rayce as much support as he can through fundraising and alumni networking, and he says he’ll always be there as needed for his successor and for the swimmers he brought to Franklin — just not in quite the same way.
“I will always be around for them if they need something outside of the pool,” he said, “but I’m not going to give them split advice, or ‘softer hands on your butterfly.’ Those days are pretty long gone for me.”
From this point forward, those responsibilities belong to Rayce and Rayce alone.
“(Hendricks has) prepared me extremely well to take over the program and keep moving in the right direction,” he said.
