Renowned Pine Crest Coach Jay Fitzgerald Retiring After 2017-18 Season

Jay Fitzgerald will step down and retire after 23 years as the program director and head coach of Pine Crest School in Florida.

Pine Crest has enjoyed more than two decades under Fitzgerald, and is known as one of the top high school swim programs in the entire state of Florida. The list of accomplishments garnered by Fitzgerald and his swimmers since his first season at Pine Crest includes:

  • 21 Girls and 21 Boys District Championships
  • 12 Girls and 10 Boys Regional Championships
  • 10 Girls and 16 Boys State Runners-Up
  • 53 Individual State Champions
  • 251 High School All-Americans
  • 30 state records
  • 17 School records

Fitzgerald’s swimmers regularly go on to swim in the NCAA, with USC’s Marta Ciesla serving as one of the most recent swimmers to move on to D1 swimming after working with him. He’s coached 16 Olympians, with two gold medals and two silver medals being produced by them, along with a Special Olympian.

Fitzgerald was inducted into the American Swim Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame in 2012, and he was named the Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald’s County Coach of the Year 16 times during his tenure at Pine Crest.

Starting in June of 2018, Associate Director of Aquatics Mariusz Podkoscielny will take over the program. Podkoscielny is a two-time Olympian from Poland and a former University of Arizona swimmer.

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Benjamin
6 years ago

I think he was and is a truly great coach. I swam under him while he was with the Cincinnati Marlins and learned so much from him. It makes me happy to see someone like him do so much for so many swimmers of all ages.

Fly100
6 years ago

Congratulations Mariusz !

PC Swimmer
6 years ago

Marta swum for Jay ?!!!

Former Camp Counselor
6 years ago

Awesome run Coach Jay
If PC kept the dorms I believe you would have grabbed multiple state titles. Thanks for everything.

Dan
Reply to  Former Camp Counselor
6 years ago

Maybe a few but Bolles is still in the same State meet, which makes it very hard.

Jim Nickell
6 years ago

Congratulations Jay – A hero for swim coaches across the country!

Stan Crump
Reply to  Jim Nickell
6 years ago

Agreed! Well said, Jim.

About Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon studied sociology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, graduating in May of 2018. He began swimming on a club team in first grade and swam four years for Wesleyan.

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