How Fast is Your Water?: MASI Visits Shippensburg Aquatic Club

Resilience, care, well-being, focus, positivity, preparation, joy, intention, and perseverance are the nine-team values Shippensburg Aquatic Club embodies. Nine posters are hung on the wall at their pool, handmade as a reminder of what the team stands for. The team came up with these core values together, stemming from their individual goals. Head Coach Jonathan said they spend time each week discussing one of the values so swimmers know what the value means and so they know how they can be caring, focused, or positive.

Coach Jonathan brings over 15 years of coaching experiences, previously coaching Ultimate Frisbee at Shippensburg University. Swimming may not be a native sport to him, but he said, “What happened pretty quickly is I fell in love with the sport of swimming and the individual aspect of it that combines with the team aspect of it.” He stepped up to be the head coach in 2022, two years after the program had shut down due to COVID-19.

The goal was to build to the team back up to establish a swim program in the community that would feed into high school teams. As the program took off, they added a lessons program as well. With a dedicated group of swim families, they grew the team and have since hosted meets, and became part of our Middle Atlantic Swimming LSC. Jonathan and his wife Debra, an experienced competitive swimmer, have been working with a team of 7 coaches comprised of assistant and junior coaches. They each bring unique swimming and coaching backgrounds giving them the tools necessary to run a successful and growing swim team. 

Attending a Ship practice brings a sense of community, the Shippensburg area may be comprised of small rural towns, but the swimmers come together to share their love of swimming in their hometown pool. Assistant Coach Alyssa hopes that “beyond the pool they learn to work hard…[and] they are having fun while doing it.” This hope has already come to fruition. Young swimmers give their best effort at practice, swimming fast when given a set. The smiles on their faces express their joy as they work through practice. The older swimmers express their determination to reach their goals they’ve set all the while embracing their teams’ values.

How Fast is Your Water? Is a part of the club visit initiative Middle Atlantic Swimming is starting in Summer 2025. We have over 115 clubs in our LSC and want to highlight the amazing members who make our organization a community. Check out our video on YouTube for interviews with the Ship Swimming swimmers and coaches!