Coaches and Directors
Head Coach John Roy has been leading the WAVE swimming
program since his arrival in 2006. Since then, WAVE has grown in
size, sportsmanship, and accomplishment. WAVE has proudly won the
NC Swimming Open Water Championships, placed a number of athletes
on collegiate swim teams, and moved up in the USA Swimming Virtual
Rankings under the leadership of Coach John.
Prior to coming to Raleigh, John was the head coach at Bengal Tiger
Aquatic Club (BTAC) and Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge, LA.
From 1996-2002, Coach John was the head coach of The Baylor School
in Chattanooga, TN. In TN, he earned Tennessee High School
Women’s Coach of the year, was president of the Tennessee
Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association, and chaired the
Southeastern LSC in 2002. In 2001, Coach John was an American Swim
Coaches Association Award of Excellence honoree. He has
coached Olympic Trial Qualifiers, National Finalists, National
Junior Team Members, and Junior National Record holders.
Coach John is a proud graduate and fan of the University of
Tennessee. John is married to Nancy , they have a daughter
Maggie, and son Matthew.
Zach Murray began coaching year-round with New Wave Swim Team in 2008 after 4 summers coaching city league in Greensboro. In 2015 he moved to Nashville with his wife and coached for Nashville Aquatic Club jump starting their seasonal program. In 2016 he moved to Atlanta and was the head age group coach for Swim Atlanta at Georgia Tech. For the 2016-2017 season he moved back to Raleigh and returned to New Wave for his 7th season with the team at our Optimist location. During his career he has coached all ages and abilities ranging from novice to masters, state/sectional qualifiers, state high point winners, zone team qualifiers, national top 10, state record holders and Olympic Trials qualifiers. While in Raleigh he has continued to support the swimming community coaching TSA teams every summer.
Jonathan Bescher originally started swimming in
Connecticut where he swam for 14 years and helped coach young
swimmers the last couple of years. He then went on to becoming a
Manager at NC State where he was able to watch and talk to many
great coaches and swimmers. He graduated from State in 1998
with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics along with a minor in Computer
Science. Jonathan then started to help coach at the Garner Road
YMCA, where he helped them to 3 straight Division Championships.
Along with coaching at the YMCA, he also became Head Coach at the
Garner Dolphins and his last year helped them go undefeated and win
the Division.
Coach Bescher has beem coaching with WAVE for over 20 years. He has
coached all levels within the team. For the first 5 years he has
worked with the Senior Level swimmers and in 2006 started working
with the Age Group level swimmers. In his time with WAVE, he has
help coach many Junior Olympic swimmers, Sectional swimmers and a
Top-16 Nationally ranked swimmer and relays ranked in the Top-5
Nationally. He also has had four swimmers get High Point
between the NC Short Course and Long Course Age Group
Championships. In 2018 he was an Assistant Manager at the National
Open Water Select Camp. He is currently working with the
Senior swimmers.
In 2022 Jonathan was recently awarded the Phillips 66 Volunteer Award from NC swimming.
He lives in Clayton with his wife Kendra and his dogs. Jonathan and Kendra have a daughter Kaylea.
Macon Crowder is from the town of Zebulon, NC where he began his swimming career with the Zebulon Dolphins summer league team. He continued swimming for the New Wave Swim Team as well as the YOTA Swim Team. After high school, Coach Macon went on to swim at East Carolina University (GO PIRATES!) where he graduated in 2016 with a B.S. in Sports Studies and minor in business.
Once graduating college, he began coaching for the YOTA Swim Team where he was Site Director and started a new team site for the team at the Ingram YMCA. Macon coached for 3 years for YOTA before moving to the Cayman Islands to become Head Assistant Coach for the Stingray Swim Club. There he had the opportunity to work with multiple Cayman Island National Team members as well as National Jr. Team members. These swimmers went on to break multiple national records and participate in International swim meets such as Island Games, CARIFTA Championships, PAN American Games, and World Championships.
Coach Macon believes in building a solid aerobic and technical base in all four strokes early in the season and transitioning into race specific work in the pursuit of developing the best all around swimmers. During his free time he enjoys cycling and spending as much time outdoors as possible!
Laura Goodwin has been coaching for Wave since 2020, when her Masters and Winter Imps groups merged with Wave, and she is currently coaching the Varsity group at CSC as well. She has been coaching since she was 12, heading up her own groups starting in 2003. Some of her focuses are stroke and technique and helping swimmers of all ages and ability levels reach their goals.
Marcella Christensen is a newcomer to the Triangle area. She moved from New York where she grew up swimming for the Cornwall Sea Dragons and New York Sharks Aquatics (NYSA). During her time with NYSA, she qualified and competed in multiple bronze and silver championships.
She attended Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY where she swam as a dolphin all four years (‘Phins Up!), graduating in 2022 with a B.A. in Cybersecurity and a minor in Risk Management. While at Le Moyne, she specialized in distance freestyle and volunteered her time to teach adults and children with disabilities how to swim.
Coach Marcella wants to use her passion for swimming to help further develop swimmers’ technique and swimming knowledge to help them reach their goals and feel confident during competition.
Daniel Baldwin started swimming competitively for his
neighborhood swim team when he was 5 years old. His time swimming
for his summer league team introduced him to year-round swimming,
specifically New Wave Swim Team. Daniel swam on Wave for over a
decade from age 8 until he graduated High School in 2020. After he
graduated, he attended Gardner-Webb University for 2 years.
While as a student-athlete for their swim team, they won a
conference championship his freshman year. After those two years,
Daniel decided to call it quits and put a finish to his swim
career.
Daniel is currently a student at NC State University where he is
studying Meteorology with a minor in Computer Programming. This is
his first season coaching for Wave and looks forward to working
with the Varsity and BC groups.
Mikaela Fullerton started swimming competitvely with WAVE at age 13 and continued until she graduated high school in 2019. She went on to swim at the collegiate level for 4 years. She completed 1 year at Queens University of Charlotte where she swam at the 2020 D2 NCAA's, then transferred to the University of North Carolina - Asheville for her remaining 3 years, where they went undefeated for the rest of her career. As a student-athlete at UNC-Asheville, she volunteered in the YTL swim lessons with her team and gained experience coaching younger swimmers. This is her first season coaching for WAVE and is looking forward to working with the BC and Bronze level groups.
Mikaela graduated from UNC-Asheville in May with a Bachelors in Health Science and plans to continue her studies in Fall of 2024.
Hyoseon (Hue-son) started swimming for Wave at the age of 9 until he graduated high school in 2021. He swam at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA for his freshman and sophomore seasons, specializing in Breast and Fly, until stepping away from swimming and retiring. He is currently attending NCSU where he is studying Electrical Engineering. This is his second season coaching at Wave and he is excited to coach the Gold group.
Kendra has been coaching with WAVE for over 10 years. She coaches Beginning Compettive group at NRCA. She has coached with Garner Road Y and ran the lesson program at the Finley YMCA for many years. While at the Y, she started the Finley Fliers team. Kendra currently is the Aquatics director at HealthQuest in Smithfield. She is also a certified cpr, lifeguard and first aid instructor through the American Red Cross.
She lives in Clayton, NC with her husband Jonathan. Kendra and Jonathan have a daughter Kaylea.
