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'Fun' combination forged at Gaither

CARROLLWOOD -- In 1969, Jean Tinnen filled in as Chamberlain's swimming coach for a friend, who had to take maternity leave.

Thirty-three years later, she's still at it, though now at Gaither.

With no competitive swimming experience in either high school or college, Tinnen learned to teach the sport like a true educator. "I learned technique from experts who wrote the books," she said.

Most successful swim coaches win with powerful club swimmers, who compete and train year around. That plan works if enough of the better club swimmers end up at one school.

Tinnen is a teacher and a coach though and doesn't wait for the better swimmers to show up.

She recruits from the halls of her school, teaches the sport, builds depth and instills enthusiasm and high energy into her athletes. In other words, she fills all events with young athletes who have fun racing in the water and often wins meets by her sheer numbers.

Once in a while, she will get excellent club swimmers to join her kids from the halls.

"This is one of those years, we have both quality and quantity," Tinnen said. "Not only do we have several top club swimmers this season, but we have some new-sport swimmers who have turned out to be good swimmers."

Senior captain Sarah Whitmore never had competed in the pool when she started with the Cowboys as a freshman. All her training has come from Tinnen and teammates who swim on clubs.

"We have a good mix of club and new-sport swimmers and you can't tell the difference when we are cheering for each other," Whitmore said.

"The club swimmers score a lot of points for us in the individual events and teach us what they know to improve technique."

Some new-sport swimmers doing well for the Cowboys include Katie Hart, Jennifer Connor and Chantall Bernuil, but there are many more.

Meredith Lynch leads a corps of strong club swimmers, primarily from the Carrollwood Swim Team, who could add the muscle needed to help the Cowboys finish in the Class 3A top 10 in the state meet in November.

Lynch, a transfer from Tampa Catholic, has a treasure chest of medals, competing with the highly successful swim club since elementary school.

"Coach Tinnen makes swimming fun for the whole team and we, the club swimmers, do everything we can to encourage the whole team and support our coach," Lynch said.

"She is very supportive of our need to train with our club team a couple days a week.

"But at Gaither, it is not us and them. It is the Cowboys swim team."

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