The "A Legend In His Time" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just called to wish our nephew Matt good luck this week when he takes his boys and girls high school swimming teams to the Pennsylvania State Championships at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA.  Matt has been coaching both teams for the last six years and this year his girls team is probably the best team he has ever coached.  Speaks highly for his skills as a coach, since he would have had the teams their entire high school career.  Matt coaches at Cocalico High School which is in northern Lancaster County and the school from where he graduated.   He and his wife Katie live in the Cocalico School District in the same house where he grew up.  As a high school student he was involved in football and basketball, excelling in both.  Went to Lebanon Valley College where he took up swimming and swam for all four years, serving as a team captain in his senior year.  Matt's team members just love their coach and have excelled because of his coaching ability.  

Matt's teams celebrate after winning Section II Championships.
They threw their coach in the pool with them.  Matt can be seen
in the middle of everyone with his had in the air and a smile on his face.

Both his boys and girls teams only had 12 members each this year, but he was able to win the Lancaster-Lebanon League Division II titles in both boys and girls divisions.  He is a master at determining which of his swimmers should be placed against the opponents best swimmers.  In post-season his boys team swam in the AA category while his girls team competed in the more difficult AAA category.  The amount of male and female students in the high school determines which category each team had to swim in and since there were more girls in the school than over half of the other schools, they had to go into the higher category.  Didn't seem to matter since his girls team came in second in District III behind powerhouse Hershey High School.  Matt's girls team beat every other girls team in the Lancaster-Lebanon League, a first ever for the school.  

Sidney Evans winning the 500m freestyle at the District Meet.
Photo by Harrisburg Patriot News.

Sidney Evans and Samantha Marino, co-captains of the girls team, each own two individual school records and were on all three of the school's record-setting relay teams.  Both girls are seniors and have been part of the record 24 straight league meet wins, beginning when they were freshmen swimmers. Sidney won a gold medal at the district meet, lapping all other girls while winning the 500 meter freestyle.  Amazing what Matt's teams have been able to accomplish the past few years.  He will definitely miss his senior swimmers after the state meet this weekend, but his coaching skills will surely produce another batch of top-notch swimmers in future years.  Best of luck to my nephew and his swimming teams at the state meet.  It was another extrarordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.