A top-ranked competitive swimmer who swam for Tigard High School and spent decades swimming and teaching at the Tigard pool came full circle when he became aquatic director for the Tigard Tualatin Aquatic District in October 2024.
John Ruzicka’s family moved to Tigard when he was 5 years old, and with both his parents working, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents, who lived in nearby Summerfield, during the summers. “I learned to swim in the Summerfield pool from Gurney Day,” Ruzicka said. “He taught the ladies aerobics and got tired of watching me hang onto the ladder, so he put me in the deep end and taught me to swim. Later a neighbor was swimming in the THS pool and brought me along.”
Ruzicka, who attended Templeton Elementary and Twality Middle School, joined the Tigard Aquatic Club in 1980 and swam in that club all through high school until he graduated in 1993. “That was 12 years of swimming,” he said.
As a club swimmer, he was one of TAC’s first Junior National Qualifiers. In 1993 he swam to an Oregon state title in the 200-individual medley in high school and was selected an All-American in two events. He continued competing in the NCAA Division I for Iowa State University. While there, he broke four school records, earned All-American honors and qualified to compete at the 1996 Olympic Trials.
Ruzicka began working as a swim coach during his senior year of college as a student assistant with his team and worked with both varsity teams. He also worked in a competitive swim-lesson program called Swim America that was designed to promote the sport of competitive swimming.
After earning a degree at Iowa State in city planning, Ruzicka moved back to Tigard. “I dipped my toes in the planning world, but sitting behind a desk was not for me,” he said. “I came back to what I love. I started working here at the Tigard pool full time in 1998.”
Ruzicka also started coaching at THS, became the head water polo coach in 2001 and then head swim coach in 2008. “Through 2003 there was a program where second- and fourth-graders got two weeks of swim lessons, and I taught every morning,” he said.
The walls of his office in the Tigard Swim Center are lined with photos of THS swim teams over the years, and Ruzicka, who stopped teaching about five years ago, still swims laps twice a week.
Mike Branam was his high school swimming coach and a former TTAD aquatic director. “He was a good mentor, and he still comes to swim here twice a week,” Ruzicka said. “I learned a lot from him, and I still enjoy asking him questions to glean what he knows. I want to keep this place running as well as it has been.”
As aquatic director, Ruzicka said he “does a little bit of everything.” He is in charge of both the Tigard and Tualatin pools, hiring and firing staff, working with the Board of Directors on budgets and other issues, and keeping the pools operating. The district has eight full-time employees, and Ruzicka said he gets over to the Tualatin pool a couple times a week.
“It’s a challenging job but a lot of fun,” he said. “There’s a lot of variety, and I do what needs to be done. I do everything around the pool from painting and weeding to scheduling.”
He also has big ideas for the future. The Aquatic District, which follows the Tigard-Tualatin School District boundaries, is run very efficiently and has built up substantial reserves while continuing to levy the original tax rate of .9 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, which amounts to about $35 annually for the average home.
“I have a vision for this pool,” Ruzicka said. “The City of Tigard deserves a community pool. It has lots of parks, and I would like to see the aquatic district partner with them to create a sports complex. There are only two Olympic-sized pools in the metro area, and it would be great to have a third one here. We would get more community usage, hold competitions and draw in more people to the City of Tigard.”
He even has the location picked out – the empty field next to the Tigard Swim Center that he said is rarely used.
Ruzicka’s personal life also has come full circle. At his 10-year THS reunion, he connected with a fellow graduate, Jaime, who he first met in fifth grade. He asked her out on a date, and they later married and had two daughters. The family lives in Tigard, and one daughter will be a freshman next fall and the other will be a seventh-grader, but alas, they are into dance, not swimming, Ruzicka said.
