By the time I met John “Swisher” Mitchell, he had already been a basketball star at Rhode Island State College – now the University of Rhode Island – and was a sports legend in Maine, where he grew up.

In the spring of 1969, I knew none of that, or that he would be responsible for one of the highlights of my athletics career. I just knew that John Mitchell was my freshman baseball coach at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. 

Swisher died on July 25. He was 91. His funeral and a reception were Wednesday in Waterville. Without a doubt Swisher stories flowed like the Kennebec River through town. For John Mitchell, athlete, teacher, coach, mentor, friend, husband and father was a man admired, respected or beloved by just about everyone who met him. 

So popular was John that his brother George, even as Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, introduced himself as “Swisher’s brother.” 

Mitchell, a playmaking guard, led Waterville High School to an undefeated season and the New England Championship in 1944.  After a stint in the Navy, he enrolled at Rhode Island State in 1947. The Rams posted a 64-35 record during his four years in Kingston. They were 17-6 under Frank Keaney, father of the fast break, in 1947-48, his last of 28 years on the bench. They finished second in the Yankee Conference to Connecticut, also 17-6.

Rober Haire succeeded Keaney in 1948-49, and the Rams were 16-6, again second to UConn, which finished 19-6.  In 1950 they were 18-8 and Yankee Conference champions. In 1951 they slipped to 13-15 and third place.

Mitchell was selected All-Yankee Conference twice and in 1950 received honorable mention in All-America voting.  On Feb. 17, 1950, Mitchell played the great Bob Cousy of Holy Cross even, but the Crusaders beat the Rams in overtime, 70-62.

After URI, Mitchell became a history teacher and a coach. He joined the Colby staff in 1967 as a part-time coach and remained for 44 years, working with head basketball coach Dick Whitmore for 40 of those years. He is a member of the State of Maine Hall of Fame and the New England Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2002 he was inducted into the URI Athletic Hall of Fame.

Mitchell’s task as coach of the freshman baseball team was to ease us into the college game and prepare us to play for the varsity coach, John Winkin, already a giant among college baseball coaches who would later burnish his reputation at the University of Maine.

I was the shortstop on that 1969 team, and Swisher was patient with me as I struggled to field the strange bounces on the still bumpy and frosty infield. Snow mounds covered the earthen bank in right field that spring. I had a strong arm and could hit, so I stayed in the lineup.  

Maine was a baseball powerhouse in those days. The freshman team boasted a 27-game unbeaten streak when it came to Waterville on May 14, 1969. For reasons unknown to me, Mitchell decided to have me pitch.  I had pitched in summer ball back home but never in high school or, to that point, in college. 

I scattered nine hits, walked three and struck out one and was 2-for-4 at bat. We won, 7-3. I still have that game ball.

Twenty-five years later, at a fund-raiser in Portland for Sen. George Mitchell, my wife and I just happened to be in the hotel lobby when the senator and his brother arrived. Swisher’s face lit up when he saw me. We shook hands, and he introduced me to his brother, who already knew Anne, president of Fleet Bank of Maine at the time. While several hundred supporters waited, Swisher told George about that long ago freshman baseball game against Maine, how he was a coaching genius for pitching his error-prone shortstop against the Black Bears and how Colby won. And then he laughed, as he usually did at the end of a Swisher story.