Steve Vick wrapped up his Haines Dolphins swim team head coaching career last month in Whitehorse Y.T., at a meet open to rookies.

Fifteen Dolphins made the trip.

“This is a good meet for new kids coming up, trying to go to their first away meet, because it’s pretty easy travel for us,” Vick said.

Vick, who recently became the Haines Animal Rescue Kennel’s executive director, decided to leave his Dolphins head coaching position after seven years.

“It’s time to move on and do new things,” said Vick, who also is a member of the Haines Borough Assembly.

The Whitehorse meet was a fitting end, he said, because for some of the team’s newer swimmers, “by the time they’re done with the meet and having swum four or five events, the nerves are gone and they’re excited and they can’t wait for the next time.”

“I really like seeing the kids grow with the sport; I like watching them grow outside the sport,” Vick said. “When you see the kids graduate as seniors and you see them go on – whether they go to school or they go to work and they leave town – it’s just neat to see them go off on their own.”

Longtime Dolphin Blake Hamilton, a Haines High School senior, attended a track event in Juneau the weekend of the Whitehorse meet. Hamilton earlier this year earned acceptance to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

“Blake Hamilton is going to Annapolis, and he’s been swimming for seven years, so swimming helped shape him, I’d like to think physically and mentally,” Vick said.

At the Dolphins’ season-ending banquet last week, Vick honored Hamilton with a lifetime achievement award, which included a trophy and a poster of Olympian Michael Phelps. Hamilton joked that the Naval Academy would be “simple” compared to his time with the Dolphins.

Athletes from Haines and Whitehorse at the April meet competed in a 25-meter pool, a bit of a change from the Dolphins’ usual 25-yard course.

Vick said he saw big gains from Rin Hamada, 17, and Natalie Humphrey-Kauffman, 10.

Hamada is an exchange student from Japan.

“She went to this meet, seven months after she started, and swam the 50 free, the 50 fly, the 50 back and the 100 breast,” Vick said. “Every single stroke, she swam at this meet, and she just learned half of them seven months ago.”

Humphrey-Kauffman went to Whitehorse for her first away meet, he said.

“There was a total change in her demeanor and energy,” Vick said. “She went in nervous and she came out relieved with what seemed to be a heightened sense of accomplishment.”

He also credited Dylan Palmieri, 12, for braving the 400-meter individual medley, “probably one of the most grueling events.”

Vick undertook a grueling swim of his own a few years ago, when he covered about 90 miles in nine days from Skagway to Juneau to promote improved ferry service.

During his coaching tenure, the Dolphins ranked among USA Swimming’s top teams in money earned per capita from their annual Swim-a-Thon fundraiser.

“Steve was wonderful for the whole program,” said Suzanne Vuillet-Smith, a past board president for the Dolphins. “He just has this knack for relating to kids of any age.”

Vick plans to stay in Haines and keep updated on his past Dolphins.

“I hope I’m in town long enough to see them when they’re 20 or 30 years old and see what they’re becoming and what they’re doing with life,” he said.