Coaches and Directors
Coaching Staff
Head Coach - Coach Barry joined the Marlins as a coach in 2014 after nearly 10 years in the YMCA in a communications/marketing role. A former high School (Wyoming Valley West, Plymouth, PA) and college (West Chester University) swimmer, Ocean Lifeguard (Barnegat Light Beach Patrol) and a veteran of the local open water circuit, Coach Barry brings a technique-heavy philosophy to his program development. Joining the coaching ranks as a second career, Coach Barry brings multiple perspectives to the position including: athlete, sports parent and his YMCA background to his leadership approach. His number one goal is to help WCAY athletes grow and excel as swimmers while creating life-skills and forever-relationships with teammates and the sport of swimming.
Coach Katie
DiJiacomo
Coach Katie’s list of
swimming accomplishments are many! A competitive swimmer since the
age of 10, Coach Katie swam for Waterview Swim Club and was
designated MVP during her 7 year tenure with the team! She also
broke many club records. She swam during the winter seasons for
Malvern Swim Association and Golden Ram Aquatics where she was a
Junior Olympics finalist. She was a four-year varsity swimmer at
West Chester East High School, an All American Athlete and PIAAA
District Champion in the 200 Free Relay,setting a school record
with her team. She was also a two-year member of the State Team.
She continued swimming at Kutztown University until she decided to
focus strictly on her academics.
Coaching has been part of
Coach Katie’s life since her days at Waterview. With 26 years
of coaching and teaching experience, Coach Katie is certified as
both a YMCA and USA coach. She began coaching for the Marlins
in the spring of 2017.
Originally from West
Chester, Coach Katie now resides in Downingtown with her husband
Chris, their two sons, Michael and Matthew and their yellow lab,
Summer. As the youngest of four children, Coach Katie has a
familial connection to the Marlins as her two (now adult) nieces
were Marlins themselves.
Coach Katie says,
“What motivates me to coach is a love and gratitude for the
sport. Swimming helped guide and prepare me for adulthood, provided
me with a lifelong skill, taught me self-motivation and.
organization. It has provided me with a supportive community of
swimmers, parents, and coaches that are still a part of my adult
life, and introduced me to my passion for
teaching young swimmers how
to be their best. I hope I’m giving back to youth swimmers by
guiding them with those skills I acquired and have learned from
participating and studying the sport, providing them a safe place
at the pool where they feelsupported, an important member of the
team, and successful.”
Coach Cyndi
Yori
Coach Cyndi’s swimming
career began at the age of 6 when she joined a summer league. A few
years later, as a 3rd grader, Coach Cyndi started training in the
winter season and continued competing through high school and
college. She has been coaching since the summer of her senior year
of high school and has taught swim lessons.
At the start of the
2016-2017 season, Coach Cyndi joined the Marlins as a Level 1
coach. She followed her first group of swimmers through Level 3 and
has been a Level 3 coach ever since.
Coach Cyndi earned her
master’s degree in education and has been teaching 5th grade
for 4 years. She was married in October 2021 and has a yellow lab
named Ziva.
When asked about why she
coaches, Coach Cyndi said, “I coach because I love swimming
and wanted a way to continue with the sport beyond my time as a
competitive swimmer. I enjoy working with young swimmers and
watching them grow in the sport and as individuals over the
years.”
Coach Amanda
Dunlap
Coach Amanda brings with her
years of experience as a swimmer and a coach. She began her swim
career as a five year old and continued as an age group swimmer at
various local clubs. In high school,Coach Amanda swam for Conestoga
where she was a two-time PIAA State Qualifier while swimming for
her club team. She attended Bucknell University and swam as a proud
Bison!
Coach Amanda previously
coached Penn Charter’s Middle School Team and also worked
with swimmers at Upper Merion Aquatic Club and Episcopal Academy
Aquatic Club. A Level 1 coach for the WCAY
Marlins since 2020, Coach
Amanda also coaches Westtown School’s Upper School and Middle
School Teams.
For the past 16 years, Coach
Amanda has been a middle school and high school math teacher and
currently teaches at Westtown School. In the summer, she works as
the Aquatics Director for Westtown Summer Camp. She has two
children, Brooklynne (a WCAY Marlin!) and JJ along with two cats
and a dog.
Coach Amanda says, “I
have always loved swimming; it is such a great sport and really
sets kids up for success in other areas of their lives. It was a
big part of my childhood/teenage years and I want to pass this
passion along to the next generation of kids! I have always enjoyed
working with kids in the classroom and on the pool
deck.”
Fun Fact: Coach Amanda met
Michael Phelps at Sectionals in Virginia when they were both 16
years old. Michael had just competed in his first Olympics in 2000.
Coach Amanda says, “He was most definitely the fastest person
at this meet!”
Starting at the young age of five, Coach Dan enjoyed 13 summers
swimming for the West End Swim Club. He began swimming year-round
as a middle schooler and swam for West Chester East High School for
four years.
A natural around kids, Coach Dan started working with kids as a
math teacher and quickly moved into the sports realm. He was a golf
course instructor for 22 years and spent a total of 28 years
working with kids and preparing them for a better future.
Coach Dan has proven himself as a swim coach and took a floundering
high school team from a history of 3 wins in 8 years to claiming
the Del-Val title multiple years in a row! He developed his team
into PIAAA district swimmers for the first time in the
school’s history!
In 2016, Coach Dan joined the Marlins as a “Swim Dad”
when his son Ryan was six years old. Coach Dan volunteered on the
team and trained as a Level 1 and Level 2 YMCA swim official and
began coaching for the Marlins in 2021.
Swimming is a family affair! Coach Dan’s wife Dee volunteers
as a certified Administrative Assistant (AO), an integral position
necessary for running a meet! Dee and Dan have filled many roles
over the years including deck-parenting, coordinating apparel
vendors for meets, lining swimmers up on the ready bench, baking
cupcakes and creating exciting motivational posters for the team.
Coach Dan says, “We work together to make the Marlins a
better place for kids and coaches. It is important our son sees our
commitment to the YMCA, and as he grows, he develops that
understanding.”
As a coach who knows swimmers’ times and meet qualifying
times off the top of his head, Coach Dan says, “I enjoy
seeing kids succeed where they have continually failed. The moment
the light bulb goes off, and their confidence is boosted. Swimming
has a lot more failures than successes, and the only way to grow is
to be surrounded by coaches, friends and family who support the
young athletes.”
Fun fact: Coach Dan’s mother and aunt were on the PTA that
created the swim teams for West Chester School District. At the
time, it was just West Chester East and Henderson!
Coach Kristen
Ladd
Coach Kristen has been
around the pool since she began summer swim at age 7 and by the age
of nine, was a year-round age group swimmer. Coach Kristen and her
high school team were District
Champs for four years
straight and experienced the thrill as high school State Champs.
Her freestyle relay team was named All-American. In college, Coach
Kristen provisionally qualified for
Nationals in the 200
breaststroke all four years and won the Conference Championship in
her senior year while captaining the team.
During high school, Coach
Kristen worked at her local YMCA in Boston and after college taught
swim lessons from “Parent and Me” all the way to
classes for adults. She joined the Marlins
in 2021 and coaches Level 1
White and Mini White.
Employed full-time as an
attorney, it was her daughter and Marlin Senior, Caelen, who
brought Coach Kristen back to the pool deck. Kristen and her family
are very sports oriented! In addition to swimming for the Marlins,
Caelen also swims for her high school team. Kristen’s son
plays soccer and enjoys cross country running and her husband owns
his own business doing timing and event management for road races,
track and cross country competitions. Coach Kristen enjoys running
herself and finds her two Vizslas great running
companions!
Coach Kristen says,
“It is very rewarding to see improvements in kids' stroke
mechanics and eventually, time drops, and know that you had a part
in helping make that happen. I want to help each child that I coach
achieve their fullest potential in swimming.”
Coach Jeremy
Lisnoff
Swimming is a life-long
sport, chock full of many valuable life lessons. Coach Jeremy is a
shining example of this truth. First introduced to swimming at the
age of five through his local YMCA, Coach Jeremy fell in love
with the sport and is still competing today! He attributes his
experience as a swimmer to the person he is today and credits
swimming for shaping much of who he is as it relates to his values
and work ethic and acknowledges the many lessons he learned about
teamwork and leadership over the years.
A skilled breaststroker,
Coach Jeremy swam Division 1 at Boston University where he
graduated with a BA in Psychology. He went on to earn his MBA from
Columbia Business School.
Coach Jeremy is still in the
pool training! He has competed in endurance events involving
swimming, including the Ironman Triathlon and actively competes in
U.S. Masters Swimming. He placed
5th in the nation in all
three breaststroke events at the 2021 U.S. Masters National
Championships!
In September 2022, Coach
Jeremy joined the Marlins as a coach for the Level 1, 2 and 3
swimmers. Growing up, he spent his summers teaching swimming in his
local community and recently decided he wanted to give back to the
West Chester community in the same way.
Coach Jeremy lives in
Malvern just down the road from the WCAY. He is married to his best
friend, Silvia, who was also a Division 1 college swimmer. They are
raising two daughters and have a French Bulldog.
Coach Jeremy says,
“Swimming transformed my life, and continues to do so, in so
many positive ways. There are incredible life lessons that I
learned in the pool as a kid. I want to give
back to my community and
also help show new generations of swimmers how to reach their full
potential as well-rounded, confident, hard-working, and humble
people.”
Coach Kris
Swindler
Since 2017, Coach Kris can
often be found in the water of the rec pool teaching swim lessons
to the youngest members of the YMCA. Patient, kind and caring,
Coach Kris is the perfect fit for the Pre-Team and Mini
Marlins.
A cross country runner for
Henderson High School and the US Merchant Marine Academy where she
attended college, Coach Kris enjoys swimming recreationally and is
a proud parent of Marlin
Senior Middle School
swimmer, Lila. A member of the Marlin Family since 2016, Coach Kris
began coaching in 2021. Prior to her dedication to the WCAY, Coach
Kris was in marine engineering and sales. She sailed on a merchant
ship in the late 1980s and worked on a sailboat in the
1990s.
In addition to daughter
Lila, Coach Kris and her husband have an older daughter, Isabella
who attends West Chester University. They also have two orange
cats: Stanley and Thomas. Coach Kris’s husband is also a
regular volunteer for the Marlins and can be found behind the
blocks with a timer in hand.
When asked why she loves
coaching, Coach Kris says, “I have really enjoyed working
with the team's youngest swimmers and helping them make the jump
between swim lessons and swim
team. It's really
gratifying to see the kids progress from swimming half a lap to
successfully competing in their first competition and beyond. I
love watching them gain confidence!”
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