New assistant coach joins girls’s swim

Maddie London joins the Hillsdale swim staff as an assistant coach. Courtesy | Hillsdale Athletic Department

The Hillsdale swim staff welcomed Maddie London to the staff as the brand new assistant coach initially of the summer season.

London will begin her first collegiate teaching job after a five-year profession as a Division I swimmer and a two-year profession as the top swim coach for Shaler High School in Pittsburgh.

London is changing former assistant swim coach Alissa Lufkin, who served underneath head swim coach Kurt Kirner for 3 years. 

“Sometimes you get a gut feeling when you interview people, and we had that with her,” Athletic Director John Tharp mentioned. “I could just tell she was super organized, very disciplined and the thing that came across was she was going to take care of the girls and challenge them.”

London swam for the University of Arkansas from 2019 to 2020, then for the University of Pittsburgh from 2021 to 2024. Both swim packages are within the high 100 Division I girls’s swimming packages within the nation. 

London additionally swam within the NCAA Division I Southeastern Conference whereas attending the University of Arkansas, and within the NCAA Division I Atlantic Coast Conference whereas attending the University of Pittsburgh — each top-tier conferences.

Her major occasions included the 200- and 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard freestyle. 

Tharp mentioned London’s lack of teaching expertise didn’t hurt her probabilities of getting employed given her background within the collegiate swim world.

“I think she learned a great deal from both of those different experiences she had, and I just feel like they are going to lead her to be a good coach,” Tharp mentioned.

London mentioned she is planning on making just a few adjustments to the staff’s follow schedule reminiscent of including an extra raise on Saturday and incorporating harm prevention work into the exercises.

London additionally mentioned she additionally has just a few new objectives for the staff, together with attaining a collective 3.5 GPA, being within the high two highest GPA performing girls’s sports activities at Hillsdale, and successful GMACs. 

“In a nutshell, the aim is all around living the lifestyle of a champion, inside the pool and outside the pool,” London mentioned. “I believe if the swimmers are doing well in the classroom, they will do well in the pool.”

London spoke to all the swimmers over the summer season and has already received over a lot of them together with her enthusiasm and ambition.

“I think she has the right amount of motivation to continue pushing the program forward and push the swimmers toward more accomplishments we know we can achieve like winning GMACs,” Senior Captain Rotem Andegeko mentioned. “We have come short so many times in a row and she has these good ideas and plans to push us over the edge.”

Tharp mentioned Charger athletics desires their swim coaches to foster a way of excellence across the total program and provides the women the most effective expertise. Tharp added he believes coach Kirner and London can try this. 

“We believe that Charger swimming can continue to get better and better and coach Kirner and London want to continue to push the expectation standards,” Tharp mentioned.