This season the Tritons' three coaches, Kate Montague, Heather Burhans and Alex Ramsvig, are looking to create a fun environment for the swimmers to learn the sport and have fun in the pool.
"I hope that all of them continue to love swimming," said Ramsvig. "By the end of my career I was pretty burned out, so I want them to enjoy it and hopefully be swimmers for their whole lives."
The three coaches bring a lot of different experience to the team, but all three have a background in competitive swimming. Ramsvig was a competitive swimmer in Calgary, Canada, while Montague swam for the Tritons and Burhans swam for the Bennington Marauders.
For Montague and Burhans this is their second year coaching, while Ramsvig is joining the coaching ranks for his first season.
"We'll talk before and during practice about what we are going to do," said Ramsvig of how the three coaches work together. "We have a longer term plan and a shorter term plans but we try and coordinate so that swimmers are doing similar things at the same time."
The team is made up of 92 swimmers from age five to 19, which can make practice interesting as the coaches work with swimmers of all different abilities.
"It's hard to find a balance between giving kids individual attention when they need
In order to balance out the different age groups and abilities, the coaches will break out the swimmers so that each group can work on skills that will help them improve.
"Every kid on the team, we try to make them feel important," said Burhans.
With so many different levels to work with, the coaches have different goals for each swimmer but they have one goal for the whole team: have fun.
"That is a big thing for me, Alex and Kate, that they are having fun while they are swimming," said Burhans. "I think that's our big expectation, that they have fun."
Combining competitive swimming with fun is something that the Tritons have embraced since Dennis Marchetti, President of the Friends of the Manchester Tritons Swim Team board, took over the team 25 years ago. Marchetti, who coached the team for 16 years, likes the experience in the coaching staff and he thinks that they will help continue the strong reputation that the Tritons have built.
"We're unlike any other team. Other teams have age limits, you have to qualify for a team. With us, it's five years to 19 years old, boys and girls, of every ability, all working together, cheering each other on," said Marchetti. "I really like to see the kids come back. They start at five, 15 years they could be with the team. No other team are you even close to that."
Marchetti started with the Tritons with 21 swimmers, but the numbers slowly grew through the years and got to the current high levels after the team fundraised money for a pool heater.
"I started out all by myself, I was the coach, I was the manager," said Marchetti. "Then we brought on our first paid swim coach. We went from volunteer parents to having paid coaches."
The Tritons still try to focus on developing strokes and mechanics, which is something that Marchetti has long emphasized.
"A bunch of happy kids having a good time at the meets, cheering each other on," said Marchetti of what he hopes to see from the team. "[I want them to] have fun while they learn, and learn the strokes and get them down."
Something that Marchetti has tried to keep with the team is allowing the kids to enjoy the swimming, not pushing them to hard, which was a change for the former coach, who coached at the college level.
"I think that the team has a reputation," said Marchetti. "The kids going from swimming a lap to swimming 1/2 mile to a a mile everyday, I think we have picked up a reputation for teaching the kids."
For more about the Manchester Tritons Swim Team, go to www.tritonswimteam.com.
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