Louis Demetriades was named the new head coach of the Cypress Fairbanks Swim Club (Fleet) in a message sent out to families from the board of directors and Demetriades himself.
The club, stationed in Cypress, Texas, said “effective immediately, Louis Demetriades will be our new Head Coach. We know he is the leader to take our Club forward and achieve our immediate and future goals.”
Bocci joined Fleet in June of 2016, effectively only completing one full season with the Fleet team.
Bocci has been removed from the Fleet website and replaced by Demetriades.
While Bocci isn’t mentioned in the announcement sent out to Fleet membership, the transition between coaches is. “During this transition, Fleet will continue to meet and exceed the needs of your athletes. We have a short term plan in place to address coaching adjustments. Louis will be working with the board to address the long term solutions needed.”
The statement goes on to say, “As we move forward, we would like to encourage everyone to be positive and supportive of our team, Board, coaches, and direction.”
Before joining Fleet Demetriades was the head coach of Memphis Tiger swimming for five seasons before joining the NGSV Gator Aquatics as head coach for eight seasons. Demetriades also boasts a stint as head age group coach at Nashville Aquatic Club where he was named the Age Group Coach of the Year for the Southeastern LSC in 2000.
Fleet was named a bronze medal club in the USA Swimming Club Excellence rankings in 2018 ranking it as one of the top 200 clubs in the United States.
See the press release below:
Start by saying I do not know why he was fired, haven’t heard rumors, and do not car. I have never been so happy my kid is an Age Group Swimmer. Y’all teenage parents and swimmers are a bunch of drama…..Maybe I am different, but Bocci wasn’t my kids coach and outside of capital improvements to the club, I know of nothing he did that had any effect on my swimmer. If you have an issue with the existing board members who have kids on different teams vote them off. Yes one left because of Bocci (even though two kids stayed), the other left two years ago because he didn’t like the Best Head Age Group Coach in the Gulf.… Read more »
Louis is a great guy! He ran a great program at NGSV and I had the privilege to watch several of his practices back in 2006. He is personal, genuine, and knows what he is doing.
Congrats man!
It doesn’t matter if he was the best coach for the job. It was the way it was handled.
Again hearsay …
Very vague comment….please explain. How ‘what’ was handled?
Totally agree with longtime swimfam! The way this was handled was just wrong. Two board members resigned during all this because they didn’t want to be a part of the undermining that was going on and two board members have kids on other clubs. Just sad is what it is.
swim parent/wow/past member (along with several others) – please adhere to SwimSwam commenting policies and refrain from using multiple user names in the same comment section. Otherwise, your comments will be deleted.
I would encourage swim swam to get the rest of the story and speak to parents and the board of this club. This was done behind the coaches back while he was at a coaching conference. Now they have a coach that broke a commitment to another club to stay, probably named his price, and a board that was desperate to keep him- and gave up any credibility they had. Says a lot about the the character of a person when they pull thier swimmer from the club because they were unhappy with his coaching, and have gone to another, yet still sit on the board with an axe to grind, waiting to get even. Wonder how this board can… Read more »
That’s all hearsay… unless a Board Member divulged information no other member was privy to.What does that say about the character of the Board Member?
You seem to be making a lot of baseless assumptions. Maybe the new head coach was worth fighting for and the offer was too good for Louis Demetriades pass up. Do you blame him for accepting? I certainly can’t fault him for that. Maybe the old head coach that was fired for good reason. Can one not be fired because they’re out of town? Do you even know why the head coach was fired or are you just assuming it was because someone on the board had an ax to grind. Must have been a pretty influential board member if that’s the case.
Well said.
Hope they realize that many swimmers left after this transition. Also people that didn’t like him never had him. It’s sad is what it is. They handled the situation terribly.
Interesting, because some of the swimmers that left after the transition were also some of the ones who used to talk bad about his coaching style to others. Many of those who chose not to move up into the National group under Bocci did so because they were influenced by some of those who also left after the transition. Kind of ironic don’t you think? Unfortunately his days were numbered either way with what (Another) Fleet Swammer and DirtySanchez said above and with other reasons that came to light recently. As to how terrible the situation was handled, well, we’re not sure about that really. Since the membership was not privy to the investigation details and to what was discovered,… Read more »
swim parent/wow/past member (along with several others) – please adhere to SwimSwam commenting policies and refrain from using multiple user names in the same comment section. Otherwise, your comments will be deleted.
Transition is never easy. The article states that the board of this club decided what was in the best interest of it’s future. The future of the club includes 14 and under swimmers. Numbers and stats, folks, do not lie. Good luck to the TEAM. Swim hard. Swim fast. Swim your hearts out.
The way they handled letting Jim go was less than professional.
swim parent/wow/past member (along with several others) – please adhere to SwimSwam commenting policies and refrain from using multiple user names in the same comment section. Otherwise, your comments will be deleted.