TAMPA, Fla. - In a sport where timing is everything - time sure is flying for Plant High coach Gil Gonzalez.

For 28 years, Gil has kicked off every school season on the pool deck. The Panthers coach can’t think of a better way to set a tone for the year.

“It gets me ready to go back to school each fall,” Gonzalez said. “The motivation to go back for another school year, it’s the swimming that drives me.”

Gil is somewhat of a dying breed. There aren’t too many lifers in the high school coaching business like him. Too many last a couple of seasons and then fade away. But for nearly three decades, Gil has been a fixture on the Bay Area pool scene.

This season, Gil’s coaching career has come full circle. He’s got a second generation Panther on his team. Adley Zamore is a sophomore whose mother swam for Plant during Gil’s first year as a coach. 

“She told me that he started off like really young and he didn’t really know what he was doing,” Zamore said. “But they kind taught him everything he needed to know. And I see him now and he’s like a super good coach.”

That first year, Adley’s mom was one of four club swimmers that helped set a standard of consistent winning. Though the team state championship has eluded Gil, he has helped produce more than a dozen individual state champions.

“We started small and it grew,” Gonzalez said. “And we built the program.”

Now Gil and the Plant Panthers are gearing up for another run at state titles.  For the past 28 years, he has been exactly where he wants to be, poolside, and can’t imagine being anywhere else.

“I’m not sure what I would do,” he said. “To see them excited about swimming and constant improvement and the fun and enthusiasm that I get, it’s fun. It’s fun.”