Coming back for her 2nd year of coaching swimming at Galileo, Kaitlyn Tse, a former competitive swimmer, who was part of Chinatown’s YMCA club team, the “YPAC Pirates”, in 2016, and now works for the YMCA team as a swimming instructor and lifeguard. As the swimming coach for Galileo, she’s been preparing the swimmers for the upcoming season to help them improve their swimming skills before their first swim competition on their way to taking home some individual medals at all-city .
In order to meet these goals, Coach Kaitlyn holds practice on Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, and Thursday’s after school at North Beach to improve as a group as well as help everyone on the team to reach their potential. She said “The main goal is to improve everyone’s swimming skills and grow as a team, I want everyone on the team to support each other and work together more.”
Those who are returning for the swim team are excited about having coach Kaitlyn back and have nothing but good things to say about her. Junior Gavin G. says, “She is nice and very supportive, always helps the team out and helps them get better, and also very positive,” while senior Andrew L. adds, “She’s really chill, super nice, & has a lot of experience. She’s also really cool because she can relate to you like a friend.”
Last year, coach Kaitlyn recalls some challenges with communication between her and the school, since Coach Kaitlyn didn’t have any to communicate with any of the other coaches, although she did mention that athletic director, Mr. Keough was able to get her around these issues and the swim team finished last season off great.
In order to make sure these issues don’t happen again, an important swimmer on the team this year is senior Zoriana Mui, the captain of the term. ReNaissance,the new assistant coach, also has been helping Coach Kaitlyn with organization. Coach Kaitlyn said, “both Zorianna & ReNaissance have been helping with organization which I have trouble with, and also with the communication to the team. With all this help, everything has been easier for the swim team this year and now they are more than prepared for they’re season.
This season will allow the swim team to show their full potential and let them explore some new challenges that are waiting for them later in the season.
