After a successful summer season with the Nocatee Blue Tide Shannon was asked to help start a year round swim program in Nocatee.  Prior to Nocatee she was the Head Age Group Coach for Mandarin Aquatic Club and an Assistant Coach with the Episcopal Amberjax.  She has coached year round and summer teams in the Jacksonville area for the past fifteen years.  Shannon has had swimmers qualify for several Championship meets including Sectionals, Senior Champs, FLAGS, Jr. Nationals, and the FL Swimming All Star Team.  She looks forward to building the Blue Tide Swim Team and having swimmers represent our team frequently at these meets. Shannon is a Jacksonville native who lives in Jacksonville Beach with her husband and two sons.

Amy is the Silver Group Coach.  Amy has 20 years of experience in both swim instruction and competitive swimming.  She worked as a volunteer coach and swim instructor with the YMCA, teaching both children and adults with special needs.  She also participated as a volunteer instructor in the aquatics portion of the Special Olympics through the YMCA.  This led to her becoming the Aquatics Director for The Villages at Carver Family YMCA in Atlanta, GA.  From there, she started the Pirahnas Swim Team in Atlanta compromised mostly of children who had never swam before requiring developmental coaching and extensive training.  With the YMCA core values at the heart of everything she does, Amy is passionate about the sport of swimming and looks forward to seeing what the Nocatee Bluetide Swim Team will accomplish in the coming years.

Passionate about all things water, Coach Sam comes to the Nocatee Blue Tide a product of Steve Lochte's nationally recognized training program , a division one athlete, and an internationally recognized coach from her work in the middle east. The wealth of international swiming knowledge Coach Sam brings from living and coaching in the middle east, and Swimming in College has molded her coaching philosophy to be social-emotional/process based, but with a strong foundation of drill-work and endurance training. Coach Sam has produced many FLAGS qualifiers in the United States, Senior Champs qualifiers, and a plethora of National Age Group Champions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Excited to bring her experience to the Bronze Group of Nocatee, Coach Sam can not wait to start developing the future of Blue Tide Swimming.

My name is Phil Squatrito, also known as Coach Squats. I am the Head Coach and owner of Training For Warriors, Ponte Vedra Beach and Girlpower Flag Football. I have over 22 years of experience in fitness, training and health since I graduated from William Paterson University with a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Physiology. I have been blessed to coach tens of thousands of children, adults, and athletes of every age. The passion for fitness I have helps drive and motivate me to bring out the best in others. I believe that our physical and mental health are the most important attributes we possess. They should be taken care of and protected at an early age so we can be the very best versions of ourselves in adulthood. My biggest mission is to help empower our kids with an enthusiastic approach and to teach them the importance of exercise, training, proper nutrition, sleep and hydration. This will lead them on the path of great health, teach them discipline, give them confidence, and set them up with a great foundation of healthy habits as they all move forward in life. I am married and have 4 children, three amazing young daughters 12, 9, 7 and an incredible son age 4. Together we all fight the good fight of fitness and health. It’s not an easy one all of the time, but anything easy simply isn’t worth doing.

I BELIEVE that with the right coaching, culture, community, and training environment it’s impossible not to see extraordinary change and results. “It’s bigger than me, it’s bigger than you, but it ain’t bigger than US.” Together we can achieve so much more!
 
I BELIEVE now more than ever the world and our children need more great coaches; leaders that can help bring out the best in people to ignite change from the inside out. Through positive encouragement, enthusiasm, and passion for helping others, there are few obstacles too great to overcome.
 
I BELIEVE that strength, conditioning, and fitness is for EVERY age, EVERY level and EVERY ability. It’s never too late to start your journey towards a stronger, healthier version of you!
 
I have a passion for fitness and tend to get people a little bit excited about training and eating broccoli. Bringing out the best in people through positive encouragement and enthusiasm are some of my greatest strengths. I’ve always felt that building strength improves mental fortitude, a stronger body and a stronger mind leads to a stronger spirit. Life is full of challenges and in order to overcome many of them we need to arm ourselves with the proper tools of physical and mental strength, which improves through training. If you make time for your fitness, you will have more energy and time for everyone and everything else in your life.

Tom is a 1974 graduate of Appalachian State University, in Boone, N.C.  After graduation, he moved to Jacksonville, Fl., where he taught P.E. and coached swimming at Jacksonville (formerly Southside) Country Day School.  The club team, Southside Swimming Sharks, later merged with the Bolles School and became the Bolles School Sharks, where he served as the head age group coach.  Tom moved to St. Augustine in 1982 and became head coach of the St. Augustine YMCA’s summer team which he developed into a year round team.  He was also the head coach for St. Augustine High School and Pedro Menendez High School.

After retiring from teaching and coaching, Tom accepted the position as Aquatics Operations Manager at Georgia Institute of Technology.  This continued to fuel his interest in competitive swimming as many of the nation’s best swimmers regularly competed there.  Tom currently serves as aquatic coordinator for the St. Augustine Y.  His grandson is a member of the Nocatee Bluetide.