Q&A with Jamie Bloom, Head Coach of the YMCA of the Triangle Area

Q&A with Jamie Bloom, Head Coach of the YMCA of the Triangle Space

Jamie Bloom has devoted his private {and professional} life to swimming and the betterment of all who observe the game. Not only a practitioner, she is the voice of the game’s underserved populations and continues to serve on the native, state, regional, and nationwide committee ranges.

Jamie Bloom
Nationwide Crew Head Coach
YMCA of Triangle Area
Raleigh, North Carolina

• Slippery Rock College, BA, well being and bodily training, 1982; Western Maryland Faculty, MA, bodily training and sports activities administration, 1989
• Head coach, nationwide staff, YMCA of the Triangle Space (YOTA), 2016-present
• Swimming operations supervisor, William Peace College, 2016-23; head coach, 2016-19
• Head coach, Higher Westfield YMCA (Mass.), 2005-16
• Assistant coach, College of Tennessee girls’s swimming, 2000-05
• Head coach, James Buchanan Excessive Faculty and Mercersburg Space Swim Membership, 1982-2000
• Coach, Slippery Rock Eels, Slippery Rock, Pa., 1980-82
• Head coach and director of the Nationwide Range Choose Camp, 2022
• Vice-chairman of the USA Swimming Coach Advisory Committee, 2022 to current
• USA Swimming nationwide staff supervisor for the 2013 Duel within the Pool, 2015 and 2017 World Junior Championships, amongst others
• DEI chairman, North Carolina Swimming Board of Administrators

S. WORLD OF SWIMMING: Swimming has turn out to be a lifestyle for you. How did you begin?
A. COACH JAMIE BLOOM: I used to be a swimmer rising up and likewise performed many different sports activities. Initially, I swam for the North Suburban YMCA in Woburn, Massachusetts, after which transitioned to the New England Barracudas, an AAU membership.

SW: A swimmer and water polo participant in faculty, how did you begin teaching?
JB: My first yr with the nice Dr. Richard HunklerHe was additionally a water polo coach. He was ready for the swimmers to play water polo! Once I determined to not compete in swimming anymore, “Doc” informed me I used to be going to be the swim staff supervisor. I began studying in regards to the teaching enterprise as a supervisor! My first teaching “job” was with native US membership Slippery Rock Eels.

SW: Who have been some early teaching influences?
JB: My highschool basketball coach was very demanding and engaged. My highschool tennis coach was somebody I knew I by no means wished to emulate. For him, sports activities have been all enterprise and definitely not leisure. Profitable was undoubtedly crucial factor. “Doc” Hunkler taught us to be good individuals, teammates and actual individuals.

SW: You’re a profitable mentor. Who guided you as a coach?
JB: Dan Colella He was an important buddy and mentor. His newest loss is deep. He was one of many actually good individuals in teaching. My expertise with him in Tennessee contributed to my progress as a swimming coach. Extra importantly, his each day instance of how you can deal with and deal with individuals made me suppose I might do the identical.

SW: You argue that ladies should be courageous to maneuver ahead and be keen to take action. How might you try this in YOTA with 600 swimmers?
JB: I’m a assured, assertive chief and customarily have a reasonably good concept of ​​what my objectives are and the trail it takes to succeed in them. One factor I’ve realized as a lady is the significance of getting an important assist community.

SW: What are YOTA’s objectives for the Y Nationals this yr?
JB: To be in unity and competitors. We connect nice significance to excessive character and staff tradition. We wish to end within the high 10 mixed and be within the high 5 in each relay.

SW: How does it really feel to teach a staff with such an important custom and historical past?
JB: Excellent! I’ve been concerned in Y swimming for the final 17 years and knew that YOTA is a program with unimaginable custom and success. It’s a nice honor for me to observe in his footsteps. Brooks teal— at the moment on our employees, Bruce Griffin, Meredith Griffin, Ron Turner and final Chad Onken-The explanation I got here to YOTA. We actively create our personal, whereas following earlier traditions.

SW: You’re director of operations on the comparatively new William Peace College.
JB: I began out as the top coach at Peace, however when Chad left YOTA, I briefly oversaw the complete staff together with teaching at Peace. It was actually an excessive amount of, so we promoted our volunteer coach who did an important job rising the aggressive program. As director of operations, I care for planning, services and hiring and am on deck as soon as every week. Our progress is steady. After the break with COVID, we’re precisely the place we should be and we’re excited for the longer term.

SW: You’ve got been concerned in all ranges of sports activities. What have you ever realized essentially the most as a staff supervisor at varied USA Swimming worldwide groups and camps?
JB: It’s a nice honor to be a part of the employees that works with our greatest promising athletes and nationwide teammates. I realized that it’s important to take loads of initiative, anticipate the wants of athletes, coaches and employees, and be the primary to go away and the final to go! I immediately realized how you can examine flight cancellations, the place the very best native cafes are, and what pre-race snacks every athlete prefers! As a supervisor, it is a good suggestion to all the time have some type of USA Swimming trophy in your pocket, and it is best to befriend somebody from the host nation as quickly as you arrive on the venue!

SW: You’re additionally very lively on varied USAS committees and in government roles. One was head coach and staff supervisor on the nationwide Range Choice Camp. How was that for you and the swimmers?
JB: It has been really transformative for me. I’m honored to be head coach of Range Choose Camp. We have been on the stunning Chula Vista coaching heart with an important camp staff and a few actually nice athletes. It’s a super and galvanizing expertise for youngsters to swim with others from their ethnic and racial background and to take action at such a excessive degree.

As for range on the whole, I’ve invested rather a lot to find alternatives for ALL to compete on this sport. I believe it’s best to be capable of be part of if you wish to swim! For underrepresented communities, offering swimming is crucial and even lifesaving. Limitations are sometimes attributable to a scarcity of entry. Simply as essential, however not all the time seen, is that we cope with historic traumas associated to water and entry, particularly in black and brown communities. These components should be thought-about when making an attempt to convey swimming to everybody.

SW: You took half within the Girls’s Management Summit and at the moment are a member of the newly fashioned USAS Coach Advisory Council. Second, how is it progressing in its short- and long-term objectives?
JB: Not solely do I sit on USA-S committees and in government roles, I am additionally concerned in Y Swimming on the nationwide degree. Certainly one of my strengths is that I’ve a voice in each organizations and that has been fairly optimistic. Typically we attempt to obtain the identical issues, and sometimes with the identical athletes. YMCA Swimming and USA-S have made nice progress in working collectively for our sport. One of many causes I wished to be voted into the CAC was as a result of we misplaced our vote and our voice within the Home of Representatives in Y. It is rather essential that now we have the voice of Y coaches. I hope there can be extra Y coaches coming to CAC within the years to return.

SW: Trans athletes wish to really feel revered and protected. How can coaches assist them acquire these qualities?
JB: This challenge is not any completely different from what coaches concerned do with another athlete. It actually relies on the tradition you create in your staff. Trans athletes need the identical issues as everybody else: to be acknowledged, to be handled pretty, to have entry and alternatives in a protected and acceptable surroundings.

SW: How do you make time for such initiatives and why do you connect a lot significance to them?
JB: I’m a swimming coach! Knitted with every part! I discover time as a result of I believe it is essential. I’m acutely aware of the alternatives given to me to assist me make a distinction within the lives of younger individuals, within the households they arrive from, in groups and organizations, with different girls, within the LGBTQ group, and even perhaps on the planet. If I may help change one thing for the higher, encourage somebody, or level me in a optimistic route, I’ll proceed to teach!

SW: For some {golfing} coaches, cheering for the Crimson Sox or coaching black labs can appear therapeutic. Two of the three sound like potential adventures in frustration. Is that this the case for you?
JB: I am a lifelong Crimson Sox fan. To be fully sincere, I NEVER thought they’d win a World Sequence, at the very least in my lifetime. It was very thrilling after they gained in 2004 and so they’ve added a number of extra since then. Because of the nature of all true Sox followers, I am all the time certain this season will suck and we’ll by no means win once more! I do not see a lot hope for the 2023 season however I can inform you that Truck Day is February 3 and shooters and catchers are reporting on February 15!

I am not breeding labradores anymore however it was a enjoyable time in my life! I at the moment have a rescue canine – her identify is Suki and she or he is a Black Mouth Cur! As for golf, I obtained a brand new hip a bit over a yr in the past. I’ve performed 3 times since I obtained the exercise allow and I really like golf as a lot as ever! Let’s simply say it is good to have a daily day job!

* * *

Michael J. Stott is an ASCA Degree 5 coach, golf and swimming creator. The critically acclaimed coming-of-age golf novel “Too A lot Loft” is in its second version and is on the market from retailer.Bookbaby.com, Amazon, B&N and distributors worldwide.