Throughout the summer, we'll be checking in with the Brandeis Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The ceremony will be held in conjunction with Homecoming on October 11, 2025. Registration is now open! Check out the full schedule of events here. 

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NAME: Jim Brainerd, Diving Coach
SPORT: Swimming and Diving
CURRENT JOB: Retired Diving Coach, Lawyer and Real Estate Agent

Jim Brainerd spent 40 years as a diving coach, including 20 seasons with Brandeis from 1990 through 2010. In his tenure with the Judges, Brainerd had three divers compete in the NCAA Division III Championships with another selected as an alternate including a string of nine-straight years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. His divers were named All-Americans six times, and won 10 All-University Athletic Association honors, including three UAA titles. Brainerd was twice named to the UAA Coaching Staff of the Year and helped Michael Goldfarb '99 represent Ireland at the World Diving Championships. After his retirement, Brainerd was inducted into the Eastern Massachusetts Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Q: How did you get into diving, and what led you from there to coaching?  
A: I first started diving in high school in 10th grade. Our team shared the local public pool with the other public high school in town. Each team got one hour of practice during dinner time. Our team had a swim coach, but no diving coach. On the first day of practice, the swim coach introduced himself to the two new beginner divers. He told us to be careful not to injure the swimmers swimming up the sides of the lanes under the diving board. And he told us to be aware of the backstroke flags out in front of the diving board, since the swimmers needed those to know where the wall is to make turns. Those were the first and last bits of advice he gave the divers in my first year of diving. 

Through the years, that coach treated divers as an afterthought, so I started watching the other high school divers practice and tried to emulate them. I listened to every other diving coach I could during meet warm-ups. After my first season of diving, I started helping out one of the more experienced divers from the cross-town rival teach "Learn to Dive Lessons" for the town recreation department. After the end of my second season of high school diving, I was the experienced teacher running the Saturday morning program. 

That taste of teaching, along with the poor treatment from my high school coach, planted the seed of coaching in me. The seed sprouted in college, and in graduate school, I realized just how passionate I had become about coaching. In 1979, I moved from Connecticut to the Greater Boston area to attend law school. All through law school, I worked as a high school diving Coach after classes. In my last year, I also started working as the diving coach for Regis and the Bentley College club team. 

My passion for coaching developed into what I term a "Life Mission." My negative personal experience as a diver did not detract from my love of the sport. It actually provided the impetus for the kind of coach I strived to be my entire 40-plus years in the business. I was bound and determined to provide a far more positive experience for the divers I coached to learn new skills in a safe environment, for them to have fun being part of a team, and for them to learn "Life Lessons" that they will utilize out of the pool and after graduation.

Q: How did you first arrive at Brandeis?
A: My contact with Brandeis and Coach Jim Zotz began in the early 1980s when I was the Diving Coach at Regis College. The two schools had dual meets against each other, and both schools attended the New England Championships. Twice during that period, Brandeis and Regis went on semester break training trips together, and I coached both teams while we were both in Puerto Rico.

Q: Do you have any advice for current or future Brandeis Student-Athletes?
A: Two things became apparent to me during my time at Brandeis. Being a part of a team provides the framework and structure for student-athletes to handle the rigorous schedule that is part of attending an elite institution like Brandeis. I know this because of how many of the 40 semesters I was working at Brandeis the swim team was recognized for having an outstanding team GPA by the National Swim Coaches Association of America (CSCAA). Secondly, the bonds you make with your teammates who are there to support you after each race, during practice, and on campus away from the pool, will be some of the best life-long friends you will ever have.

Q: Do you keep in touch with any of your former Brandeis student-athletes? How?
A: Yes, though not as many or as often as I would like. Mostly by phone and email, but there are several individuals in the coaching business that I used to see frequently on the pool deck before I retired when Covid hit in 2020.

Q: Looking back on your career at Brandeis, do you have any moments that you look back on and cherish?
A: It's hard to narrow them down when I think back on 20 years of coaching, but here are three of my favorites.

While attending NCAA Nationals with Mike Goldfarb (Class of 1999; Hall of Fame Inductee in 2013) at the University of Minnesota, I was approached on the deck by a former Chinese Olympic diver, Kong Zheng Li, who was working as the Minnesota diving coach. The thrill of meeting him and the fact that he had come out on the deck specifically to inquire about a diver in Division 3 that he heard was performing a reverse 3.5 twister. He asked if I knew who that was. Of course I did - it was Mike!

Another cherished memory comes from one of the UAA championship meets. That year, one of the divers on our squad was brand new to the sport. As Isabelle Arditi (Class of 1997) readily admitted to me when she asked if she could join the team at the start of the season that she had no experience diving and was never very athletically inclined, but that she really wanted to try. She started out learning the six dives she needed to be able to compete in dual meets. Having accomplished that goal, she wanted to try and learn the 11 dives required to compete at UAAs. She never gave up and came to practice every day determined to succeed. The moment after she landed her 11th dive without failing a single one is one of my fondest memories as a coach.

The final memory I will share happened at the New England Championships. Hannah (Johnson) Bornstein (Class of 2002, Hall of Fame Inductee 2008) narrowly finished second in the one-meter competition when one of the other divers received an unusual score on a dive. Instead of getting angry or letting disappointment affect her in the three-meter event, Hannah went right back to work. She outperformed the field by such a large margin, setting a pool record at Bentley that was still on their record board nearly 20 years later. She left absolutely no doubt who the best diver was that day. Shaking her hand and giving her the Gold Medal that meet was a very proud moment for her, me, and BUSDT.

Q: What do you think contributed to the success of divers at Brandeis?
A: First and foremost, I believe that much of the success was due to the quality student-athletes I had the good fortune to work with. I had the pleasure to coach so many dedicated, responsible individuals who genuinely loved to dive. Everyone experiences fear and challenges in the sport of diving, but Division III student-athletes participate because they want to be part of the team, not because their education depends on their involvement, like scholarship athletes. Quality individuals lead to success, and talented, quality individuals like those I encountered at Brandeis made it truly enjoyable to come to work.