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SIERRA VISTA — Buena swimming coach Richard Smith will begin his second season as head over the program, and he’ll have all new faces around the rest of his coaching staff.
Sean O’Malley took off last season while he battled cancer, but decided to come back this season to help with the diving program, which is now coached by Erin Pike, who graduated from Buena in 2003.
Pike dove for Buena during her senior year, and went on to place fourth at regionals that season. She spent almost a semester on the diving team at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas before deciding to return to Arizona. She tried out out Pima College and living in Tucson for a while before returning to Sierra Vista.
Both Smith and O’Malley, the former head coach of the swimming and diving program, is ecstatic to have Pike take on the roll as the Buena diving coach.
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“The kids are very fortunate to have Erin,” O’Malley said. “She has expertise, collegiate experience, and she’s very strict, but gets along with all the kids. She has a focus on technique that will be good for them.”
“We’re counting on her experience to lead the divers on to regionals and state,” Smith said.
On the swimming side, Megan Hennessey graduated from Chandler Hamilton, and went on to swim at Hollins University in Virginia while earning her undergraduate degree in English.
She followed that by attending school in London to earn a master’s degree in Shakespearean literature, and is now back in Arizona to coach the junior varsity swimming team and teach English at Buena.
“She’s planning on going back to London for her doctorate,” Smith said. “She’s coached in Casa Grande before and in Virginia, and just wanted to get back to the area for a year before going back for her doctorate.”
New coach Ben Gill is mostly working with the boys’ swimming team this season. Gill and Smith were both on the swimming team while at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.
Last year, while finishing up his degree and after graduating in December, Gill was an assistant swimming coach at the College of St. Benedict, an all-girls school in St. Joseph, Minn.
“It is different to coach high school kids because of the different attitude they take,” Gill said. “The girls there weren’t on scholarship and just wanted to be there, and of course the maturity level was different.
“Plus with the guys, you have to be a little more in their face,” he laughed.
Gill graduated with an English degree, but after finding his love for coaching while working with the swimmers at St. Benedict, he’s looking for a full-time coaching job. Right now, Gill also is coaching the Tsunami Swim Team based in Sierra Vista.
“Coaching just kind of fell into my lap,” he said. “I figured out how much I love it and now I can’t get away from the pool.”
