The 2023-2024 swim season began with a new coach. Psychology and Religion Teacher Megan Piercy took the job as a JC teacher and coach over the summer.
Last year’s swim coach Jess Marks was friends with Ms. Piercy and decided to get her in touch with Athletic Director Seth Goldberg, and she got the job.
Ms. Piercy is an alumna of John Carroll; she graduated in 2016. While at JC she swam on the team that Mr. Larry Dukes coached.
She said, “When I was here, the team was the right combination of relaxed and serious.”
Ms. Piercy has many memories from her time at JC. However, her favorite memory was when she medaled in her sophomore year. She said, “I went under six minutes in the 500 free.”
After John Carroll she did not swim in college but has been coaching on and off for the last 10 years. She has coached for the Arena Club over the summer, and she also has done some year-round coaching.
Ms. Piercy has many goals for this season, one of them is to get to know her swimmers.
She wants to build a team aspect to this sport as it is a very individualized sport.
She said, “I really want to make sure that people of all different abilities are getting to be with each other and are really building up that team aspect.”
She believes that this team will have many challenges to overcome this season especially because they are newer to the B conference.
One challenge that she feels affects the team a lot is their practice times. They must go off campus for practice only twice a week.
This causes issues because when the school has time off for rain or snow, they get even less practice, which she feels can mess with the team’s level of stability and affect the outcome of how they compete.
Ms. Piercy said the thing she is most excited for is championships. This is so exciting to her because she is really looking forward to seeing how everyone does, especially because she has a group of new swimmers this year.