Sigma Featured Staff Member Of The Week
Updated: May 19, 2021
JoJo is one of our coaches at our Sigma Fort Worth Central Texas Wesleyan location. Today we interviewed her focusing on her past competitive swimming, motivation, and flotation devices.
Q: How and why did you get involved in the sport of swimming?
A: I started swimming competitively when I was 10 years old, after the 2008 summer Olympics. I started because some of my friends and I all wanted to swim after watching swimming in the Olympics.
Q: What role did your family play in the sport when you were swimming?
A: My brother swam with me from the time we started until my last two years of high school. My parents were always at meets supporting us and taking pictures and driving us to and from practices and meets.
Q: As a swimmer who was your athletic inspiration and why?
A: I really liked Missy Franklin at first, because she was young and getting gold at her first Olympics. Then I started really liking Katie Ledecky because she swam distance freestyle and is so fast and down to earth.
Q: How important do you think is dryland training and why?
A: I think dryland training is an important part of swimming because it gives swimmers extra strength that is needed in the water.
Q: How do you prepare your swimmers for a swim meet?
A: I focus on little things like starts, turns, and underwater that become big things for a meet. We’ll do sprints the day before to get them swimming fast.
Q: What do you tell your swimmers when they are disappointed with the outcome of a race?
A: I tell them that as long as they swam to the best of their ability then they should be proud of themselves, as I am proud of them.
Q: If you weren’t a coach, what do you think you’d be doing right now?
A: I would probably work at Barnes and Noble.
Q: How to you keep your swimmers motivated to give their very best?
A: I try to give them incentives by telling them if they swim fast or good, whatever I’m trying to get them to do, that we will play sharks and minnows or something fun for the last 10-15 minutes of the last practice of the week. Sometimes I race them in the water and that always gets them swimming faster.
Q: As lifeguard how do you feel about the inflatable floaties that are used by many as floatation devices especially on the very young children?
A: I don’t think they are an adequate substitute for a lifejacket or puddle jumper. They’re unreliable because they can easily get deflated or pop.
Q: Do you have any family members in the sport of swimming?
A: My brother swam with me growing up until he was 17 and I was 16. Now I am the only one still involved in swimming, but it’s good to be able to talk swim with my brother still, swimming will always be something that bonds us.
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