Nothing has a greater influence on the quality of children's sports than the excellence of the coaches. We strongly believe that Spirit Swimming's coaching staff is one of the finest.

One of the strong points of Spirit Swimming is the low swimmer-to-coach ratios, especially in the younger groups. The novice group is limited to 16 swimmers and typical swimmer to coach ratio is 6-to-1. For most practices, the Junior 1 and 2 groups have two coaches on deck and the typical swimmer to coach ratio is 12-to-1. Most of the coaches were accomplished competitive swimmers themselves. Each coach offers years of coaching experience and has his/her own individual style of training swimmers, bringing great diversity to the program. Each  coach will teach the athletes different aspects of the sport of competitive swimming and each coach uses different methods to motivate the athletes. There are 10 coaches who are on deck three or mores times a week. Most coaches have regular full-time jobs.  There are also two “back-up” coaches who fill in when needed.

Director of Spirit Swimming – Sue Schmelz

Sue Schmelz became involved with swimming around 1977 when her two children joined a summer club swim team. She started her coaching career with that summer club. When her kids became interested in winter swimming, they joined the Pennsbury SAL team. She coached this team and later coached the Neshaminy SAL swim team.

The Marshall-Platt pool on the George School campus was completed in 1976. The first USS swim team in Bucks county, the Seagulls, was formed in 1977 and practiced in the George School pool. Sue coached for this team. In the fall of 1986 the Seagulls team was dissolved. In the spring of 1987 Sue and her now ex-husband formed the Spirit of '76 USS swim club. The '76 referred to General Washington's crossing of the Delaware in 1776 and the team colors were the patriotic red, white and blue. In 1991 the team was reorganized and the name (and team colors) changed from Spirit of '76 to Spirit Swimming.

Sue is the Aquatics Director for George School. She is starting her 18th year coaching George School girls and boys swim teams. Sue coaches all of the Spirit groups occasionally, typically filling in when a scheduled coach is not able to run practice.

 Jonathan Faikish

Jonathan began swimming at the age of 6 and swam competitively until he was 22 years old. He trained under many different programs including North Penn Aquatic club, North Penn High School, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Jonathan also attended many swim camps to hone his swimming skills.

When swimming for North Penn, he was a part of the four time State champion swim team. When he moved on to swim at IUP, Jonathan qualified for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championship meets all four years of his varsity career.  He also finished in the top twelve every year he competed.

Jonathan has coached swimming in all aspects, including being a specialist coach for his college team, coaching summer league swimming, coaching an aquatic club team and also coaching a high school boys’ and girls’ team. Jonathan is looking forward to a very exciting and energy packed year in his first year here at Spirit.  He will be working primarily with the Senior Group and Junior III age group.

 Louise Bellew

Swimming has always been a huge part of my life, and it was the reason I now live here in the United States. I grew up in Manchester, England and, despite the cold weather, spent every minute I had in a swimming pool. I swam on a competitive team until I was 18 and then my interest led me to lifeguarding and teaching lessons. Because of these skills, I obtained a job working on a summer camp in Bucks County, during my College vacations. Here I realized just how much I loved teaching children of all ages how to swim. When I married my husband, I moved to America and began looking for a job. I began to pursue a teaching career, but needed an additional job, and my sister introduced me to Spirit. That was six years ago. Since then, I have learned enormous amounts of coaching skills from the head coaches here and have also coached high school teams and summer league. I am now a full time English teacher at a Middle School and coach swimming every chance I get. It is a wonderful sport with so many opportunities, no matter how fast you are. One of my main goals is to impart my love of swimming to all the children I coach, and hopefully see them get as much out of it as I did.

 Donna Cataldi

Donna is a certified United States Swimming coach, with 10 years experience. She has also coached in the Suburban Aquatic League for 5 years. The Lower Bucks Swim League for 3 years and was a High School Assistant coach for 2 years. Donna has coached with the Junior 2 group at Spirit for the past 5 years. Along with being a busy mother of 3, she is also a talented hair stylist working at a busy local salon. She has also been a recent member of USS Masters swimming and still finds time to swim and train a few days a week.

 Tiffany Garber

Hi, I'm Tiffany Garber and this is my first year as a coach with Spirit Swimming. I am one of the assistant coaches for the Junior 2 group. I swam competitively for about 14 years and then finished out playing water polo for West Chester University. During my competitive swim career, I too, was a swimmer of Spirit for quite a number of years. I started out my coaching career as a coach for a summer swim team when I was only 16 years old. I coached there each summer for 5 years. Last year, I was the assistant coach of the boys for the Council Rock Swim Club. I look forward to expanding my experience and knowledge as a coach with Spirit Swimming.

 Nanci Place

Nanci has been coaching the Junior I group at Spirit for a number of years.  Her entire family has been involved with Spirit Swimming, with all of her children being Spirit Swimmers at one time, and one daughter coaching occasionally.  Nanci really enjoys seeing the Junior I swimmers develop their skills and confidence and then watching them move through the age groups to become accomplished Senior swimmers.

 Cindy Spiecker

Cindy Spiecker is a recent graduate of Marist College with degrees in Psychology and Communications. She was a captain of the Division I swim team in her senior season and a member of the Metro Athletic Conference all-academic team. At Marist she specialized in the Breaststroke events, but also swam distance freestyle and the 400 IM. Cindy attended Mt. St. Joseph Academy located in Flourtown, PA. Cindy has been instructing swimmers for over eight years, including significant time under the direction of Larry Van Wagner, who has been head coach of Marist College Swim team and Marist Swim Club, a USA swim team for over 30 seasons. Cindy has also been a lifeguard and private swim lesson instructor in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. In addition, Cindy has experience as a member of USA swimming, Suburban Aquatic League with Hatboro-Horsham Aquatic Club, and Lower Bucks Swim League with Warrington Swim Team. Currently she lives in Doylestown, PA.

Bruce Townsend

The Townsend family's relationship with Spirit Swimming began in 1991 when daughters Susan and Tracey began their swim careers at Spirit. Since that time Bruce has served as an age group coach, head age group coach and as head Coach from 2004-07. Bruce's current responsibilities reside primarily with the Senior Group and, to a lesser extent, the Junior III group where he assists Coach Spiecker.  Due to his extensive experience with age group swimmers, Bruce has been known to help out with all of the groups from time to time.

Bruce has achieved level 3 certification from ASCA (American Swim Coaches Association) and has served six times as a coach for the Middle Atlantic Zone all star squad, serving as head coach in spring 1997. He was named Middle Atlantic Coach of the year in 2001.

In the last three years with Bruce as head coach, Spirit has continued to qualify numerous swimmers for sectional and national championship meets including one athlete who qualified for the 2008 Olympic Trials.
During the course of Bruce's age group coaching tenure, over 30 athletes from Spirit Swimming have been selected to the Middle Atlantic All Star Zone team.  Spirit continues to record the highest percentage of qualifiers for the Middle Atlantic junior Olympics of all teams in the Middle Atlantic LSC (with 50 or more registered athletes)

Bruce is a graduate of Duke University (B.A.) and Temple University (M.A.) and lives with his wife, Nancy, in Bristol. Daughters Susan and Tracey both swam at Spirit through their high school careers.  Susan graduated from the University of Miami and Tracey is currently attending American University.

As a competitive swimmer, Bruce was a senior national qualifier in Breaststroke and participated in both AAU and NCAA competitions. Bruce has also participated off and on in US Masters Swimming.

 Tracey Edwards

A 1986 graduate of Pennsbury High School and team captain, Tracey specialized in backstroke, spirit freestyle and individual medley events, Tracey went on to swim collegiately at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. One of her college teammates was 1996 Olympic relay gold medalist Angel Martino. Upon graduation from Furman, Tracey returned to Bucks County as an assistant coach at Pennsbury. She also has coached at various summer league programs as well as club teams. As a assistant coach, she helped lead the West Windsor-Plainsboro (N.J.) High School team to a New Jersey State Championship during the mid-1990's. Tracey looks forward to working with age group swimmers, drawing on her wealth of experience and enthusiasm. She is excited to be a part of the Spirit Swimming family!

 Allyson Tiberio

Coach Allyson will begin her first season coaching with Spirit this fall. She began swimming at age 5 and swam with various swim clubs over the years. In high school, Coach Allyson was a four year varsity swimmer at Archbishop Wood Hight School and an American Red Cross Swim Instructor for over 10 years as well. She coaches for LMT in the summers. Coach Allyson graduated from Villanova University with a double major in Education and Communications. She teaches kindergarten at Saint Andrew School and coaches their track team.

 John Benson

Although this is my first year coaching swimming with Spirit, I have been an instructor of swimming at George School for over 25 years through the day camp. Additionally Maura Searle and I run the “Learn to Swim with Spirit”, program on Sundays through the course of the year.
When I'm not working in the water I can be found teaching in Council Rock where I have been an elementary teacher for the last 32 years.

 Beth O'Connor

I'm coach Beth O'Connor. I have always loved swimming ever since I was a baby my mom couldn't keep me out of the pool. I swam competitively for 10 years. I was on council rock aquatic club, council rock high school and spirit swim teams. I taught swim lessons for Pennsbury aquatic club for 5 years. I have assisted coaching junior 1's for 2 and a half years and assisted coaching novices last year. This year I am a full time novice coach and I look forward to a promising year to come as well as good memories here at spirit.

 Erin Cataldi

This is Erin's first year coaching swimming with Spirit. She has come to us with many years of swimming experience. She has been swimming competitively for 13 years since the age of 5. She was an age group swimmer with Spirit as well as LBSL teams. She was a 4 year varsity letter winner for Central Bucks High School South. Though she is no longer swimming competitively, she teaches swimming lessons for Spirit's lesson program and teaches in the summers for Warrington Swim Club. She plans to continue teaching and keep swimming a part of her life.