Swimming Background: Jessie started swimming when she was 7 years old for her local neighborhood pool and was introduced to year-around swimming at the Midlothian YMCA. When she was 13, she joined Poseidon Swimming where she fell in love with distance swimming and went on to compete at the Eastern Zone Championship in 2013. in the 1500 and 800 Freestyle. Since then, she has continued pursuing distance sports including open water distance swimming up to 10 miles long as well as triathlons.
Coaching Career: She started her journey as a swim instructor at SwimRVA back in 2012 and then moved onto be the Assistant Coach for the Midlothian YMCA Tidal Waves in September of 2016. Shortly after, she became the Head Coach for the Powhatan YMCA Barracudas where she grew the team from 22 to 87 swimmers from when she started in November 2016 until she left to pursue her college degree in July of 2019. After that, she was an intern then full-time coach for NOVA of Virginia Aquatics (August 2019- July 2022) and graduated Summa Cum Laude with her Bachelors in Health, Physical Education, and Exercise Science in December of 2020.
She is very excited to be at the Powhatan YMCA as not only their Head Swim Team Coach, but also as their Aquatics Director since fall of 2022. She is passionate about helping individuals learn how to swim, improve their technique, and create goals. She is excited to be working with the Powhatan Barracudas once again and looks forward to helping our swimmers reach their potential through developing good practice habits, fundamental techniques, and good sportsmanship.
Assistant Coaches for Summer 2025
Coach Chloe Balas:
Coach Tracy Cook:
In addition to coaching the swim team, you will see that Tracy teaches private swim lessons,group swim lessons, and water aerobics. She is passionate about being in the water and helping others find the same joy. Tracy and her husband have 3 boys. Their oldest is serving in the Navy and their other two boys work in the Outer Banks all year long. When Tracy is not working she enjoys swimming, walking and riding motorcycles with her husband.
Coach Ben Compton:
Coach Ben is 17 years old and has been working with the team for several years as either a volunteer or paid coach. He loves Star Wars, Marvel, and video games. He is also a junior at Powhatan High School. He has been coaching for a little over 2 years as a paid coach and has been swimming since he was 7. He has always swam for the Powhatan YMCA but he also swim on the Powhatan High School Swim Team. His best stroke is freestyle but he is also really good at backstroke, which he usually swims in the medley relay. He is looking forward to another amazing season and can’t wait to see all the new faces.
Coach Bailey Pennington
Bailey has been on the Powhatan YMCA swim team since she was in kindergarten. She has volunteered with the swim team for two years and is very excited to be an official coach this season! She is 15 years old and going into her sophomore year at Powhatan High School where she enjoys swimming on the school team. Her favorite stroke is butterfly and she also likes open water swimming. In her free time she likes to hang out with her friends, scrapbook, and go to the gym. She is very excited to get to know all the swimmers and have an amazing summer!
Coach Ryan Westphal:
This is Ryan’s first year as a swim coach. He began swimming at the age of 5 until he was 18 with the GRAL summer league. In his early teens he swam at a local YMCA during the winter. He also swam on his High School’s team from 9-12 grade at Lee-Davis High School in Mechanicsville. His favorite stroke is backstroke. During his downtime you will find him grilling and smoking some delicious award winning meats, nerding out about Star Wars with friends, and going to Old Powhatan Baptist Church. He is excited about building relationships with other coaches and team members, and helping our team develop the skills to grow and succeed!
Coach Audra Bodie:
Bio coming soon!
