After waking up early for morning practice and staying late after school swimming miles in the pool, it’s understandable for members of the swim team to simply head home to rest and do homework. However, this is not the case for everyone. Junior Keeley Shields and Senior Henry Lyness are two swimmers to stay on the pool deck after practice to coach the younger athletes competing for Center Grove Aquatic Club.
Shields began her coaching career almost four years ago. She said her goal in mentoring young athletes was to create the same passion for swimming her coaches had instilled in her.
“I’ve always really enjoyed working with kids and have always wanted to impact them the way I was when I first joined swim,” Shields said. “I also hoped to give them the knowledge and skills they need in order to be the best they can be at swimming.”
Lyness, who started coaching a year ago, decided to start coaching to give back to the club and to help his teammates become faster and stronger.
“I wanted to start being a coach because of giving back to my own team,” Lyness said. “It’s amazing to give feedback and help the younger kids grow in the sport.”
Lyness’ training focuses on building an athlete’s endurance in order to help them drop their time at meets. Specifically, kick sets and focusing on underwaters emphasize building athletes’ stamina in preparation for future teams and challenges.
“I am responsible for coaching the challenge level which is the highest in our age group program which is kids 10-14,” Lyness said. “I mainly coach endurance and practice endurance because the group above will always be doing more and doing harder practices. I get them ready to move up to the high school level or next group.”
In order for Lyness’ athletes to gain endurance, speed and strength, they first need to learn the basics. At the younger level that Shields coaches, the focus is to introduce the students to each stroke. This way, they are prepared for more intense training.
“I coach all ages when it comes to lessons. However, when it comes to coaching discovery red, our next level team after lessons, I tend to coach ages 6 to 8,” Shields said. “We teach the basics of freestyle, backstroke and introduce butterfly and breaststroke. We focus on getting the kids ready to move up to the higher level groups and help them get ready to train all four strokes.”
For Shields’ swimmers, learning four new strokes at one time can be difficult to grasp. As a coach, Shields has to find many ways to teach the strokes to the athletes who may not understand the first time.
“The biggest challenge I’ve faced is trying to find different methods of teaching in order to help kids who need a little extra assistance,” Shields said. “When it comes to teaching the basics, sometimes kids don’t always understand, so having to overcome that barrier and use different techniques to help them learn is a bit tricky sometimes.”
Ultimately, Shields says the thing she most appreciates is meeting new students and creating new relationships with teammates.
“My favorite part is definitely getting to have new experiences and opportunities with the athletes,” Shields said. “I have also enjoyed connecting with my coworkers/teammates and the kids I teach. It overall brings our club closer together and I really enjoy getting to be a part of it.”
As for Lyness, staying after practice to coach the swimmers all pays off when the kids drop time, and earn new opportunities.
“I enjoy seeing them all drop time and swim fast at meets after putting in work at practice.” Lyness said. “My favorite part is when a kid gets a new cut like state cut, zone cut or divisional cut.”
