It was a fall day in 1975 when Barry Parenteau found himself alongside his father, Paul, in the office of then-Holy Cross Athletics Director Ron Perry Sr. ’54. The elder Parenteau was head coach of the Holy Cross men’s swim team and Barry was a volunteer assistant, expecting to talk about practice schedules and travel logistics for the upcoming season.
“Mr. Perry handed my dad two pieces of paper — one of them was the men’s schedule and the other was the women’s schedule. And my dad looked at [Perry] and said, ‘I’m good, but I’m not that good. You’ve got the men swimming against Brown and the women swimming against Smith and Dartmouth. I can’t be in two places at the same time. So Mr. Perry looked at me and said, ‘You wanna coach?’ I said, ‘Sure.'”
The brand-new women’s team needed a coach and Parenteau’s short answer launched a long career stretching from his role as coach of that inaugural team to his retirement this June as head coach of the men’s and women’s teams and director of aquatics at the Hart Center at the Luth Athletic Complex.