Apr 15, 2015 By Tim Neral for The Yellow Jacket 5 min read

Standing approximately 5’10” with a short dome of gray hair and thin-rimmed glasses, Jim Goroncy doesn’t look like a swimmer.

His physique represents more closely that of a runner, which he was during high school.

He has the build of a gymnast and he was one during college.

But now, Goroncy has moved on to the next thing, swimming.

Working in the mines of Greene County was Jim Goroncy’s 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. day job.

Planning mine direction, preparing permits, working with land agents and coal properties, purchasing mine rights and incorporating airshafts for ventilation and drainage were his tasks.

For the last eight years of his working life, he was the manager of engineering for CONSOL’s Pennsylvania operations.

“Where we needed to be, what we need to plan for, working with executives, providing details, technical aspects, budget estimates. It was a demanding job, fast-paced,” said Goroncy. “It was nice to unwind, looking at the blue line.”

That blue line runs along the bottom of a swimming pool, specifically one of the five lines that travel the depths of the Waynesburg Central High School.

But Goroncy wasn’t a swimmer.

He treaded water: stepped on water more than pushed it out of his way.

It was not until Betty Walker entered his life that he was able to turn the tide of swimming in his favor.

Walker ran the outdoor pool and the indoor pool and gave Goroncy some tips.

That was when Goroncy became a dedicated swimmer.

Goroncy has been swimming for 34 years now.

Three times a week, he swims 36 laps, the equivalent of a mile.

“The first four are hard, at eight you got a rhythm going. I really have to push myself. 27 is like the home stretch,” said Goroncy.

Three years ago, Goroncy did a weekend session of Total Immersion Swimming, a swimming program designed for triathlon participants.

From that program, Goroncy learned he’d been doing a lot of things wrong.

He had to break old habits that had become muscle memory and build up his lungs.

“It was like trying to learn how to ride a bike all over again,” said Goroncy.

The biggest thing he learned was keeping your head down, that all the emphasis of swimming is on the torso up and your hips, switching from side to side.

“Don’t bring your arm back until the other’s fingertips hit the water,” he explained.

Yet, even with these tips, Goroncy still finds he has to push himself for those first four laps, showing that after years of performing the same task, there’s still a challenge to be found in the routine.

Not every day is a good mile.

“Working out day after day after day, you feel so heavy. Otherwise, you feel so fit, like on an apparatus,” said Goroncy.

“Other times, you just have to work at it, keep going. All the time, when you get to the end, it’s all worth it, like delayed gratification. I’ve got to suffer through this because I know I’m gonna feel so good at the end of it.”

“It’s not so much trying to achieve excellence. It’s trying for productivity. Every day, I question myself, ‘Was I productive today? Did I do enough? When I sit around, I have a feeling of being lethargic. Every day I get up, that’s one of the major things that drives me: did I get enough done today?”

And not very often does Goroncy feel like he ended up not doing enough.

“It’s not often that I feel non-productive because when you run into stumbling blocks, you have to remember there are things out of my control and you can’t fret about it cause it’ll add stress to your life,” said Goroncy.

Here, Goroncy dives deeper, gets a look in his eyes and one gets the feeling that what he’s about to say is him going into himself.

“You don’t have to be the best, but you have to be the best you can be,” said Goroncy. “Everyone needs to realize their God-given talents.”

Swimming serves as a sense of consistency, a foundation that he can go back to while pushing himself in other areas. For example, this year will be Goroncy’s 15 trip to Guatemala.

He serves at the Habitat for Humanity weekly.

“…the reason why we’re here, why God put us on this Earth. I find myself asking myself that more and more every day,” said Goroncy.

“And for all of us, each of us, that’s something we need to try and strive for.”

Arguably his greatest milestone is coming up: Jim Goroncy, a man who says, “I don’t really consider myself a talented perso,” will hit the five thousand mile mark in his 35th year of swimming.

And so Goroncy continues to strive forward with a talent he never knew he had until all those years ago when he fought the tide for the first time.