Courtesy: Fitter and Faster and ASCA
TOP 10 GROUP COACHES OF THE YEAR FOR 2023
Announced by Fitter and Faster and ASCA
Fort Lauderdale, FL – The American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) and Fitter & Faster Swim Camps are pleased to announce the TOP 10 AGE GROUP COACHES OF THE YEAR FOR 2023.
Congratulations to the following outstanding coaches (in alphabetical order):
| Coach | Club, LSC |
| Shannon Cowley | Club Wolverine, MI |
| Joe Finke | Saint Petersburg Aquatics, FL |
| Chrissy Gentry | Lakeside Aquatic Club, NT |
| Rod Hansen | Irvine Novaquatics, CA |
| Reed Miller | DART Swimming, SN |
| Matt Paige | Crow Canyon Sharks, PC |
| Brian Pajer | Aquazot Swim Club, CA |
| John Poorman | Dynamo Swim Club, GA |
| Doug Reed | Terrapins Swim Team, PC |
| Gabi Sofia | Long Island Aquatic Club, MR |
The national winner of the Fitter and Faster/ASCA Age Group Coach of the Year for 2023 will be revealed at an awards ceremony on September 7 at 5:30 p.m. at the 2023 ASCA World Clinic at the Dallas Sheraton. For more information on the ASCA World Clinic go to www.ascaworldclinic.com. The Top 10 finalists will be introduced and honored at the Awards Ceremony.
The Top 10 age group coaches were selected based on USA Swimming’s National Rankings data from May 1, 2022 through April 30, 2023 for both LCM and SCY for 11-12 and 9-10 age groups. Coaches received bonus points for number of swimmers with a #1 ranking, and for number of different swimmers ranked.
The whole ASCA level, like other ASCA programs and policies, were implemented by John Leonard to personally enrich himself. This fraud later came to fruition when, in advance of his “retirement”, he systematically drained the ASCA bank account & ran off with a huge chunk of assets. Back then I’m 100% sure, since it was all about the $, a coach could submit an application to attain a higher level, pay the fees and then be granted a higher level without any due diligence being done by Leonard or his staff. I know the ASCA staff and leadership is trying to do better now, but I still have a problem that ASCA never took civil or criminal action against Leonard… Read more »
I know you’ve posted this a bunch of times but I’ll upvote it every time I see it. There are a lot of ASCA Level 5 coaches who are utterly incompetent and can’t even consistently qualify swimmers for their LSC championship. I don’t think anyone honestly believes John Leonard was doing anything beyond greenlighting credentials for the people who sent him checks. Even if the new leadership improves the standards, there will still be way too many older coaches with BS ASCA credentials for them to ever be taken that seriously.
I totally agree. They need to throw the baby out with the bath water in regards to the ASCA levels. It’s a very dishonest and misleading system that victimizes clubs, swimmers and deserving coaches. This was such a blatant and brazen scam perpetrated by John Leonard that he double dipped and not only got money from undeserving coaches, but from USA Swimming for the ASCA levels.
im sorry but the ASCA is garbage. Has to be some other agency rating swim coaches. Ratings shouldn’t come with taking their courses
Yeah, it’s hard to put much stock into these ratings when I’ve personally coached at 2 different clubs where the head coaches had themselves named to this list instead of the assistants who were actually coaching the 12 & Unders. Seems like ASCA doesn’t ever bother to question, “Why are you listing yourself as the primary coach of these 10 year old kids when you’re the head senior coach? Shouldn’t your head age group coach be getting the award?”.
What would be your solution of choosing the best age group coaches?
I think age group coaches should be judged on retention and the overall improvement of their swimmers, from the beginners to the elite athletes. These lists generally favor having 1 or 2 stud swimmers on your team. I’m not sure that’s the best metric because, more often than not, you’re talking about kids who would excel at any club in the country.
I think it’s a good start. My idea has been to use VCC scores and ASCA would need to do VCC points for 10&Us which would be easy to get power points. I think the VCC would be a good start toward finding coaches and teams with a wide variety of quality kids in this age group over just 1 or 2 superstars.
Yeah Shannon! Terrific coach and the kids love swimming for her 🙂 go cw!