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 Group Head Coach
YMCA of Triangle Area
Raleigh, North Carolina

• Slippery Rock College, BA, well being and bodily training, 1982; Western Maryland School, MA, bodily training and sports activities administration, 1989
• Head coach, nationwide workforce, 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 College 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 workforce 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 grow 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.

GB: A swimmer and water polo participant in faculty, how did you begin teaching?
JB: My first 12 months with the good 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” instructed me I used to be going to be the swim workforce supervisor. I began studying concerning the teaching enterprise as a supervisor! My first teaching “job” was with native US membership Slippery Rock Eels.

GB: 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. Successful was undoubtedly a very powerful factor. “Doc” Hunkler taught us to be good individuals, teammates and actual individuals.

GB: You’re a profitable mentor. Who guided you as a coach?
JB: Dan Colella He was a fantastic good friend 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 development as a swimming coach. Extra importantly, his each day instance of easy methods to deal with and deal with individuals made me suppose I may do the identical.

GB: You argue that ladies must be courageous to maneuver ahead and be prepared to take action. How may you do 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 achieve them. One factor I’ve realized as a girl is the significance of getting a fantastic help community.

GB: What are YOTA’s objectives for the Y Nationals this 12 months?
JB: To be in unity and competitors. We connect nice significance to excessive character and workforce tradition. We need to end within the high 10 mixed and be within the high 5 in each relay.

GB: How does it really feel to teach a workforce with such a fantastic 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 unbelievable custom and success. It’s a nice honor for me to observe in his footsteps. Brooks teal— at the moment on our workers, 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.

GB: You might be director of operations on the comparatively new William Peace College.
JB: I began out as the pinnacle coach at Peace, however when Chad left YOTA, I briefly oversaw your complete workforce together with teaching at Peace. It was actually an excessive amount of, so we promoted our volunteer coach who did a fantastic job rising the aggressive program. As director of operations, I maintain planning, amenities and hiring and am on deck as soon as every week. Our development is steady. After the break with COVID, we’re precisely the place we must be and we’re excited for the longer term.

SW: You have got been concerned in all ranges of sports activities. What have you ever realized probably the most as a workforce supervisor at varied USA Swimming worldwide groups and camps?
JB: It’s a nice honor to be a part of the workers that works with our greatest promising athletes and nationwide teammates. I realized that you need to take lots of initiative, anticipate the wants of athletes, coaches and workers, and be the primary to go away and the final to go! I immediately realized easy methods to examine flight cancellations, the place the most effective 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 kind 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 might be additionally very energetic on varied USAS committees and in government roles. One was head coach and workforce 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 lovely Chula Vista coaching heart with a fantastic camp workforce and a few actually nice athletes. It’s a large and provoking expertise for youngsters to swim with others from their ethnic and racial background and to take action at such a excessive degree.

As for variety typically, I’ve invested loads find alternatives for ALL to compete on this sport. I feel you must have the ability to be part of if you wish to swim! For underrepresented communities, offering swimming is crucial and even lifesaving. Limitations are sometimes attributable to an absence of entry. Simply as necessary, 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 must be thought of when making an attempt to convey swimming to everybody.

GB: You took half within the Ladies’s Management Summit and are actually 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. One in all my strengths is that I’ve a voice in each organizations and that has been fairly constructive. Usually 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 vitally necessary that we’ve the voice of Y coaches. I hope there can be extra Y coaches coming to CAC within the years to return.

GB: Trans athletes need to really feel revered and secure. How can coaches assist them acquire these qualities?
JB: This situation is not any totally different from what coaches concerned do with some other athlete. It actually will depend on the tradition you create in your workforce. Trans athletes need the identical issues as everybody else: to be acknowledged, to be handled pretty, to have entry and alternatives in a secure and acceptable setting.

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 the whole lot! I discover time as a result of I feel it is necessary. 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 neighborhood, and even perhaps on the earth. If I will help change one thing for the higher, encourage somebody, or level me in a constructive course, I’ll proceed to teach!

SW: For some {golfing} coaches, cheering for the Pink 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 Pink Sox fan. To be fully trustworthy, I NEVER thought they might win a World Collection, not less than in my lifetime. It was very thrilling once they gained in 2004 they usually’ve added a number of extra since then. As a result of nature of all true Sox followers, I am all the time positive 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 let you know that Truck Day is February 3 and shooters and catchers are reporting on February 15!

I am not breeding labradores anymore nevertheless it was a enjoyable time in my life! I at the moment have a rescue canine – her title is Suki and he or she is a Black Mouth Cur! As for golf, I obtained a brand new hip just a little over a 12 months in the past. I’ve performed 3 times since I obtained the exercise allow and I like golf as a lot as ever! Let’s simply say it is good to have a daily day job!

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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 offered from retailer.Bookbaby.com, Amazon, B&N and distributors worldwide.