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Coach: Phelan has been a swimm
continued from page
career in Shelton in 1991 and has been
a co-coach with Youngquist since 1999.
Including his time coaching while in
college and with club teams in the Se-
attle area prior to moving to Shelton,
he’s been coaching swimming more
than 40 years.
Phelan was an art teacher at Shel‘
ton and recently retired. He was an
assistant with both the boys and girls
swim team when he first started at
Shelton.
After he was done teaching art,
Phelan said coaching swimming was a
great way to fill the rest of his day.
“Working with 20, 30 kids who all
want to be there and are really com-
mitted trying to improve and challenge
themselves, it’s been a real blessing
to be able to have that opportunity at
the end of the day with the swimmers,”
Phelan said. “It gives you a whole dif—
ferent change so it allowed me not to
take what I was doing in the art room
home too much. There was always a
break and then I was at the pool two or
three hours coaching. By the time I left
the pool with a great group of kids, by
the time I got home, there was not a lot
of overlap'so that was a nice transition
from teaching to coaching and then
home and so it worked out very well.
Those were long days.”
Phelan said he was a distance free-
style swimmer, but he doesn’t swim
anymore.
“It was something that I really en—
joyed doing and that was something
that was a big part of my life,” Phelan
said. “I miss it. I don’t think you can
have something in your life that takes
up that much energy and time and not
miss it. Time goes on and I find exer—
cise other places.”
Heading into the 2022 season for
the girls swim team, Phelan said the
expectations were trying to have as
many girls as possible qualify for the
state meet and do well. Those expecta—
tions were met.
The core group ofjuniors ofMad-
eline Allred, Lelia Ollenburg, Abbi
Sachs and Kaylin Mutoli each qualified
for the state meet in a relay. Allred,
Mutoli and Ollenburg each qualified
for state in an individual event as well.
“They’re all pretty versatile, swim-
ming-wise in the events and so that
allows them to do the medley relays
quite well,” Phelan said. “Sometimes
it’s hard if you only have four or five
outstanding swimmers, it’s hard to
make sure that you have four good
swimmers for each of the strokes. With
those four, they fit into that category.
Each one of them could fill in and they
could swap out and do other events
Within that medley relay so that was
a key component and why we stayed
with the medley relay as a key focus
for us.” ..
Madeline Smith and Fiona Dowlin
also made contributions to Shelton’s
success.
Phelan said he knew after the core
group’s sophomore season how good
the team was and could be.
In a sport that is not traditionally
a team sport, the team spent a lot of
time together with the club team but
also outside of the pool, which created
a strong foundation for the team. Phel-
an said it’s been great to go to swim
practice and be with people who enjoy
swimming.
“It makes it so much easier. It’s just
enjoyable to go,” Phelan said. “You
just want to go and I think their desire
to do stuff and work hard and learn
and get better, it just fuels what I like
about it. And then you just want to
go and it’s a Catch-22 where everyone
is there for the same reason because
it builds off one another. Myself and
Coach Youngquist build upon what the
swimmers are doing a lot and then we
get excited and that transpires to the
swimmers themselves too and it kind
of bounces back and forth.”
Allred was the highest finisher
for the Highclimbers at the state 2A
girls swim meet, placing fifth in the
50-yard freestyle. The ZOO-yard and
400-yard freestyle relay team of Ollen-
burg, Allred, Mutoli and Sachs finished
seventh.
Mutoli placed 15th in the IOU-yard
backstroke and 16th in the ZOO-yard
freestyle. Ollenburg placed ninth in the
lOO-yard butterfly and 13th in the 200—
yard individual medley.
The 2023 girls swim season begins
next month and the first meet is sched-
uled for September. Pandora Ward will
be rejoining the team this year after
' not swimming last year. Phelan said,
there are a number of swimmers pre-
paring for the season on their own.
“It will be exciting and I was hoping
that we can step up and continue hav-
ing goals bigger than what we’ve done
in the past and see ifwe can strive to
get to those goals,” Phelan said. “That’s
going to be the start. Right from Day 1,
it’s trying to figure out where we want
to be at the end and setting those goals
and working towards those. It should
be a fun experience doing something
new in a position where we have not
been in the past.”
Phelan said it‘s been rewarding to
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Rob Phelan,
She/ton swimming co—head coach
work with Youngquist for more than 20
years.
“Chad’s a great coach and he is .
easy to work with and he makes it
veryneasy,” Phelan said. “We don’t re—
ally talk, we talk about what’s going
on in the season for what our goals are
within the season, what we need to ac—
complish. Jobs-wise, I do certain jobs,
he does certain jobs, we don’t really
have to discuss it, things just get done.
It makes it really easy since we’ve been
coaching together for 24 years and
in college, we swam together so I’ve
known Chad for a long time.”
Phelan said the two have the same
goal so they are able to step in and go
and it makes things easy for both of
them.
“We both swam for the same coach-
es so it’s just confidence in knowing
what’s going to happen, there’s no
questioning ofhow things are going to
go,” Youngquist said. “We don’t have
to have meetings about what’s going to
happen this week or season planning
or anything like that. The stress of the
job is way less because you just know
how it’s going to go and I’m not go-
ing to say it’s easy but it sure is easier
to work with somebody who is on the
same page every single day without
even having a conversation. That is a
blessing for anybody to have that kind
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Thursday, July 20, 2023 — Shelton—Mason County Journal Page 17
ing coach for 40 years
ofworking relationship with somebody
so that’s huge.”
Having coached for more than 40
years, Phelan certainly loves coaching
swimming. g
“I coached when I was in college,
I coached age group teams and sum—
mer teams in college. Once I got out
of college, I coached club swimming
for a number of years and some high
school and then I came here and start—
ed coaching here so it‘s been about
40 years,” Phelan said. “I fell in love
with the Shelton area. It’s an awesome
place, lots of opportunities to do differ-
ent things and it’s a beautiful place to
be. The high school has treated me well
and it’s been a good situation and with
Chad, makes it just really enjoyable to
work with. It’s been a great deal.”
Phelan said it is possible he will
retire from coaching in the future,
but he is enjoying it for now as a good
transition from working full time to
part time to make the transition to full
retirement.
He enjoys being in Shelton and Ma-
son County.
“It‘s a good, fun group of kids and
coaching has been great,” Phelan said.
“There were some challenges in there
but with Chad and things like that,
things have leveled out and smooth
making the transition, I was doing
both girls and boys for a number of
years without an assistant so that was
challenging for a while. When'Chad
came in, we were able to split up jobs
and work together. It’s not even really
like it’s work. You go in there, you get
to be with a group of people that you
really enjoy, a bunch of kids and they
all love to move forward in a sport that
is a great thing, coaching swimming
has not been work.”
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