Emma Barbato
Staff Reporter
McDaniel’s swim team will be under new leadership as of July 1, 2010. Head Coach Easterday will be stepping down at the end of the 2009-2010 season, assistant coach Jeff Hiestand will step up as the McDaniel swim team’s head coach.
Hiestand grew up in Reading, PA and swam in high school. When he went to college he swam on scholarship at UMBC. Before McDaniel he had been coaching for fifteen years across high school, USA club, and the collegiate level teams. Throughout his career Hiestand has had the opportunity to work with many different people Hiestand says about his swimming career. “I have been lucky to work with some great athletes.”
Hiestand is an appropriate choice for the team because not only does he have a long history in swimming, but has had already had experience as a head coach on the McDaniel Terror Aquatic Club since 2001. This has been a valuable experience because as Hiestand puts it, “Although there are quite a few differences between club and college swimming, the role of the head coach is the same; leading a group of individuals to a common goal.”
The swim team currently has 21 athletes on the roster, all of whom are very dedicated to the team and are excited about Hiestand stepping up as head coach. Junior Megan Giroux speaks for the teams when she says, “I am excited to for the opportunity to swim under coach Hiestand ,he is a great coach and I think it will be good for the team.” Hiestand says that his number one priority for the team is to attempt to increase the size of the roster, but that the swimmers on the team now are a strong group and hopes they remain at the core of the team. While he has other plans for the teams future he plans to focus on that for now. He wants to find student athletes who are dedicated to swimming and work well with the current team.
One thing Hiestand feels strongly about is that the swimmers continue to show respect to coach Easterday in the current 2009-2010 season. He makes this clear by saying, “A week after the announcement I spent some time with the swimmers talking about what they can expect next year, and what we need to do together this year. As it relates to this year, I think it is terribly important for the swimmers to continue to show their respect and gratitude for Coach Easterday, and to follow her lead through the Conference Championship Meet.”
Jeff Hiestand truly loves the sport of swimming and is excited for the opportunity that his new position affords him to continue working in a field he enjoys. He feels lucky to have found something he loves early on in his life and to have been able to work in the sport he feels so strongly about. Hiestand’s relationship with not just his position as head coach, but swimming itself can be summed up in how he feels about the McDaniel College pool; “I love it. It not only has character, but it helps teach the swimmers the importance of the old adage ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’.
Don’t get me wrong, there will be a time when the college will need to do more than just update the pool to keep in step. But for now, it has four walls and holds water, and that is enough for me.”
