COACH MELISSA –
Melissa joined the Sharks in the fall of 2015. She began swimming for MGC Swim club at the age of 7. She swam there until 15 when she moved to NHCP Swim club due to MGC closing. While swimming for those clubs she was a Multiple Minnesota State Champion in the Minnesota LSC of USA Swimming and competed at Junior Nationals for multiple years. For high school, Melissa lettered two years at Osseo High School and three years at Maple Grove High School. At Osseo she earned rooking of the year and MVP honors. At Maple Grove she earned MVP and was a NISCA All-American for three straight years 2005-2007. Earned All-Conference honors from 2003-2007. All-State Selection from 2005-2007. Member of the Minnesota Class AA State Championship team in 2007.
After high school, Melissa competed for the University of Minnesota for four years from 2008-2012 specializing in Sprint free, fly, and back. She was a two time Big ten Swimmer of the Week. Academic All-Big Ten 09-10 and 11-12. Part of the 2012 Big Ten Championship team and was voted Most Improved during the 2009-2010 season.
Her passion and knowledge for swimming led to numerous coaching opportunities after college. She volunteer coached for Breck during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Melissa became an assistant coach for them during 2015 season. For one season from 2014-2015, Melissa was the 8 and under coach for Phoenix Swim Club. In 2016 and 2018, Melissa was selected for the National YMCA Coaches leadership development camp that was held down in Florida.
Melissa has a fun and inviting coaching style the focuses on good technique and the fundamentals of the sport.
Melissa works full-time for UnitedHealth Group as an Operations Manager.
She enjoys spending time with her family and friends in and out of the water. In her spare time she enjoys working on her house, working out, cooking and doing arts and crafts.
COACH ANDREW –
Andrew has been coaching with the Sharks since 2022 and coaching swimming since 2019 . He's been swimming competitively for nearly three decades, beginning with his local Y's team in Rochester, MN. He placed in the top ten overall at the 2024 Open Water National Championships in both the 1 mile and 5k races, and he's broken multiple Minnesota state swimming records for his age group (it's a really old one).
In addition to swimming, he enjoys running and tennis and lives in Minneapolis with his wife and daughter, who's a Shark (the team, not the animal).
COACH BETH –
COACH ERIN –
Erin has been in the competitive swimming world since she was 8 years old. Swam for two competitive swim teams in Minnesota, continued swimming in high school and at the collegiate level with UW-Milwaukee. Main events were the 500 and 1000 freestyle.
Following college Erin was not ready to leave the swimming world and started coaching for the Piranhas Swim Team in Richfield as the novice swim coach for about five years.
Erin was excited to come back into coaching once her daughters were ready to take the plunge into the pool. Now you can find her being a full time mom, working for Anoka County as a Juvenile Probation Officer, and still in the competitive world but now her focus is on land, running long distance runs.
She loves guiding and building the confidence of young swimmers to find their passion in the pool.
COACH KIT –
Born in Southern Illinois, Kit participated in swim team through High School, and coached my summer-league swim team after High School. While pursuing classical music performance degrees in college and graduate school, Kit raced triathlon.
As a coach, Kit applies the lessons he learned pursuing a career as a classical musician to swimming. His main focuses are efficiency of strokes, incremental improvement, and fostering a life-long love of physical movement.
COACH LILAH –
Lilah started competitively swimming when she was 8 years old on a club team in Southern California. She swam all through high school too. She was recruited to swim for Hamline University and swam there from 2018-2022. She swam mostly distance freestyle in college, got thrown into some butterfly here and there too!
Lilah was a lifeguard and swim instructor at her local YMCA in Santa Rosa, CA for her high school years as well. She has always had a love for the YMCA ways.
She is very excited to be coaching at Southdale YMCA!
