I swam for Head Olympic Coach George Haines in my youth at Foxcatcher. I have been to Senior Nationals and NCAAs as an athlete. I have coached Olympic swimmer Ian Crocker as an age group swimmer in Maine. I developed and coached several Junior National swimmers as an Age Group Coach who went on to have successful careers in the sport after leaving the Age Group program. I was a full scholarship athlete at the University of Virginia.

George Haines, because he was George Haines (USA 1960 -1980). He was the best at the time. Olympic coach Joe Bernal (Seoul 1988) with Bernal’s Gators taught me how to run a successful team early in my coaching career.

I am an over achiever and try to present this to my athletes at the level they are at. I try to bring the athlete up to their individual level of expectation. The athlete has to want to be where they are going in order to work together towards their goal.

I started coaching while in graduate school at UVA. I started with a local club in Charlottesville. From there I met me husband, British Olympisn Martin Edwards and we moved around the country to coach, Boston, Portland Maine, Paso Robles California, and back to the east coast to Richmond, where I currently reside. Along the way I experienced a lot of amazing teams, athletes, peers, and swimming. I learned a lot from these experiences which form my coaching style today.

By listening and paying attention to where the athletes is currently, and where they want to go. They have to have a “roadmap” of how they are going to get there. That is where the coach comes in, to help navigate them to the place they want to go.

Depends on the level of athlete. I adjust training based on the current needs. I find out where the athlete is on any given day and try to have the training mirror that. If the athlete is struggling, find out how the training can help them overcome whatever is getting in the way of a successful training. There is no need to beat an athlete down but try to find out, by trying different things, how to have them leaving the training session feeling great about themselves. Training needs to be positive in approach, but honest and growth oriented.