Former Arizona Coach Rick DeMont On-Deck At Team Elite West

by Retta Race 8

May 10th, 2018 International, National, News

Storied coach David Marsh spoke with SwimSwam last year regarding his Team Elite West outfit based out of San Diego, California, a squad composed of a wide range of talented swimmers from around the world. Since that time, the Team Elite group has grown and established its presence on both coasts, attracting more national and international talent to the squad.

Along with Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte giving the club a try earlier this year, American World Championships medalist Hellen Moffitt has joined the Team Elite East squad, while USA National Teamer Kendyl Stewart now trains with Team Elite West. Olympic medalist Kathleen Baker has also returned to the Team Elite group for summer training.

The West team also hosts a ‘Project Rising Star’, which is a collaboration with the Israeli Swimming Association to help develop the talent of key athletes such as David Bamburg and Andi Murez.

Things are also evolving on the coaching side, as former University of Arizona Head Coach Rick DeMont is, on occasion, on-deck in San Diego. “He coaches for a week or so at a time,” is how Marsh describes the commitment thus far. DeMont is not yet listed on the Team Elite website’s coaches page.

DeMont was with the Arizona program for 30 years, including 4 as Head Coach, before resigning in 2017.

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Lanolin
6 years ago

KG down in SD

Steve Wilson
6 years ago

Awesome. For the athlete aspiring for Olympic medals, can’t image a better situation than working with Marsh and Rocket!

Superfan
Reply to  Steve Wilson
6 years ago

Agree for 100s and below. Not so much for 200s and above!

CraigH
Reply to  Superfan
6 years ago

Marsh has had pretty good success with 200s. Agree that neither is known as a distance guru.

Superfan
Reply to  CraigH
6 years ago

Maybe i should have qualified the 200 part and say there are better coaches for 200 and above…..clary and lochte did better with other coaches. Baker and Meili can do a great 200 of their stroke…..Meili is bit inconsistent in the 200! That might be just her

Yooz
6 years ago

Does anyone know why Kathleen Baker chooses to swim with Team Elite so often during the summer?

swimcoach
Reply to  Yooz
6 years ago

Why change it up when swimming with Team Elite during the summers has paid off significantly the past two summers. I believe at one point she spoke about change in scenery.

coacherik
Reply to  Yooz
6 years ago

She came out of swimMAC while Marsh was there.. don’t think McKeever is going to be overly upset if one of her best swimmers is training with Team Elite, as swimcoach said, doesn’t seem to be hurting at all.

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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