On Bergman's plaque: A four-time EARC Coach of the Year, he had an immediate impact as head coach, leading the Quakers to their best season in 16 years with an 8-1 Cup record, an Ivy championship, silver medals at the Amsterdam Invitational, and a finalist in the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in just his second season. His 1990 Varsity Eight finished with an 8-0 Cup record, just the second in Penn history. Won the National Championship in 1991, two IRA Chamionship titles in 1989 and 1992, and four Eastern Sprints titles (1986, 1991, 1996, 1998). Overall, compiled 110 victories in his 22 years and coached five rowers who went on to compete in the Olympic Games.
 
By Marc Narducci
 
Stan Bergman's record alone has made him a Hall of Famer, but the essence of his success goes well beyond the W's and championships as Penn's heavyweight rowing coach from 1984-2006.
 
In his 22 years, he won the collegiate national championship following a victory at the prestigious Cincinnati Regatta in 1991. He also led Penn to IRA championships in 1989 and 1992. In his second season he led Penn to its best record in 16 seasons with an Ivy League championship and an 8-1 Cup season while competing in the Henley Royal Regatta and Amsterdam Invitational, where the Quakers finished second in both. Then in 1990 he topped that feat by guiding Penn to an 8-0 Cup record, just the second in the Quakers' storied history.
 
Under his guidance, Penn won four Eastern Sprints titles—in 1986, 1991, 1996 and 1998. The top Ivy League team in the Eastern Sprints is considered the Ivy League champion. Bergman compiled 110 career victories in 22 years of guiding the Quakers.
 
It is a resume so shiny that it has earned him the honor of being among 11 inductees into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame on May 7 in a ceremony to be held at The Inn at Penn.
 
Bergman's many achievements are fitting tributes, but how he accomplished his feats is even more impressive, especially to those whose lives he touched. Whether it was one of the five Olympians he coached, or the person at the bottom of the depth chart, Bergman always used a simple but poignant strategy: He made everybody on the team feel special.
 
"Stan's story is about the impact he has had on so many people, and that ripples out to them hopefully touching others," said Mike Peterson, Class of '89, who went on to compete at the 1996 Olympics. "He made the world a better place and didn't waste that opportunity as a coach. He made such a difference in people's lives, and not many people can say that."
 
Garrett Miller, a 1999 Penn graduate who competed in the 2000 Olympics, had a similar experience.
 
"Everybody I knew who rowed for Stan said that rowing for Penn was like getting a great experience in the sport, with a side of 'Life 101,'" Miller said. "What an amazing person he is."

The secret was getting the most out of his rowers.
 
"He was able to win without heavily recruited class, although I was more the exception of that rule," Miller said. "He took guys who were athletic but had limited to no experience in rowing and was able to win."
 
When Bergman had a star rower such as Miller, he also knew how to get the best out of them.
 
"Part of why I was able to be successful is that Coach Bergman really supported me in my endeavors," Miller said. "My experience with other coaches is they would drive you into the ground, but he gave me the freedom and understood the mentality of the elite athlete. He cared so much about everybody and that was the key."
 
Bergman's passion for the sport stood out, whether he was coaching an early morning practice, or in some of the biggest meets the sport had to offer.
 
"Just the experience of being there, I loved to go to work every day," Bergman said.
 
Bergman was not a rower himself growing up, simply because the sport didn't exist when he attended Atlantic City (N.J.) High School, graduating in 1959. Instead, he was a football, basketball and baseball player. It was baseball that he played at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University.
 
He later became a club rower and that was where he learned about the intricacies of the sport. Yet the reason he related so well to both the stars and the lesser contributors in the same manner is that during his athletic career, Bergman was both.
 
After his freshman season of playing baseball at Glassboro State, Bergman signed a baseball contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. At that point there was no Major League Baseball Draft, so he was able to sign with anybody. The Dodgers were the team to ink him, thanks to a $4,000 signing bonus.
 
In 1962 he began his minor league career. He was 21 years old with big dreams, a catcher with a rifle arm and potent bat. By the age of 23 he was an unemployed baseball player, released by the Dodgers after playing less than two seasons in the minors.
 
Bergman initially caught in the minors but was moved to the outfield and even tried pitching, to no avail. He had given his big league dream a shot, but now he had to change course.
 
"The competition in the minors was incredible," Bergman said.
 
He taught at various schools in the Jersey Shore area—with an emergency teaching certificate—while finishing his education at Glassboro State. Holy Spirit High School in Absecon, N.J. started a rowing program in 1966, and Bergman became the first head coach. (As an aside, to this day he still helps as a volunteer coach at Holy Spirit.)
 
After a few years of coaching at the high school level, Bergman spent one season as an assistant at Columbia, then returned to Holy Spirit to resume coaching and teaching there. He became the freshman coach at Penn in 1977, stayed there for two-and-a-half years, and once again returned to Holy Spirit until he was hired as Penn's head coach in 1984.
 
The rest is rowing history.
 
One of the reasons his former rowers remain so loyal is the way they were treated by Bergman during their careers.
 
"Rowing under Stan Bergman was not only a benefit for me as a student-athlete, but a benefit for me for my entire life," Miller said. "The things and lessons we learned from him, you take to heart; they are timeless, and in this day and age they are needed."
 
So while all the wins and titles are impressive, the lasting impression he left on his rowers made a much bigger impact.
 
"A lot of coaches focus on winning and certainly he wanted to win, but for Stan, the most important thing was that people left him better than he found them, and that to me is his greatest gift," Peterson said. "I try to do that with my life as an example."
 
Bergman, who turns 81 on May 30, is a married father of four who has also worked at the Ventnor (N.J.) City Beach Patrol for 64 years, beginning as a lifeguard. In 1987 he was elevated to Chief of the Ventnor Beach Patrol, a job he still holds today.
 
In other words, he won't slow down and he can't stay away from the water.
 
This Hall of Fame induction means a great deal to Bergman, but ever so humbly he attempts to shift the credit.
 
"It is a great honor, but it is all about the student-athletes I coached," Bergman said about his rowers. "The reason I am there is because of them."
 
He said the greatest gift has been the lifelong relationship he has enjoyed with his rowers.
 
"I loved those guys and respected them, they were great young men who worked so hard in a tough sport where you have to have discipline," he said. "What's great is that for me, they are friends for life. When they would graduate, I would have tears in my eyes."
 
Those emotions will likely be displayed by his former rowers during Bergman's Hall of Fame induction.