Robin Batchelor has retired after 14 years as Tuscola’s boys and girls swimming coach.
WAYNESVILLE – When Robin Batchelor was approached to be the boys and girls swim coach at Tuscola 14 years ago she was told that the team was “just for fun” and “not really a competitive sport.”
In her mind, that wasn’t enough.
“With the state champions and whatnot, we did change that,” she said.
Six different individuals and one relay team won a total of 14 state championships during her time with the school.
Her teams won eight Western North Carolina Athletic Conference Association championships and she garnered eight coach of the year awards. Last fall they won both boys and girls titles and her teams’ highest finish at state was third place.
Batchelor has decided to step away from coaching, but still plans to be at the pool.
“The teams have to recruit their own officials and I’d like to get into that,” she said.
Batchelor said the state has a dire need for officials.
Officiating meets isn’t the only thing she plans to do. She already works part-time as a lifeguard and swim instructor at Haywood Regional Fitness Center and also works for a swim shop and has helped outfit a lot of high school teams’s swimsuits, caps and goggles the past few years.
“I’m not leaving swimming at all,” she said. “I really feel like I’m finding a way to further the sport and broaden the scope of what I’m doing. I will miss the kids, for sure.”
She almost left coaching three years ago when she retired from teaching. She said “the school system didn’t really do a whole lot in looking for anyone else” so she continued coaching.
Her athletes were glad.
Senior Jake MacDonald, who set the school record in the 50-yard freestyle and won a state championship, has signed to swim at Cleveland State but that almost didn’t happen.
“I was doing other sports at the time and I was thinking about dropping swimming, but (Batchelor) stayed on and she was one of the big reasons I kept up with it,” he said.
Batchelor said she hopes the school will hire her volunteer assistant Kevin Fitzgerald as the new coach. Fitzgerald is a former high-level triathlete who was injured in a bicycle-car accident last July.
She and Fitzgerald share a passion, not just for coaching the sport, but for participating. It isn’t uncommon for Batchelor to hop into the pool with her team. She swam on her high school team in New Jersey and then again at Princeton until she was injured.
After 25 years out of the pool she returned “17 or 18 years ago,” she said. Now she competes in open water events and last year placed second in her age group in the United States Masters Swimming 15K National Championship last year, she said.
“When I as a coach tell them that I’m not asking them to do anything I wouldn’t hop in right now and do,” she said, “they don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Her swimmers have enjoyed their time with her and she’s made a lasting impact on them.
“I had a lot of coaches growing up playing soccer and swimming and Coach Batchelor was, by far, my favorite coach,” said Jennie Kimel, who is now coaching at Davie High School. “She was the most influential coach I ever had. She not only was a great swim coach, but a great mentor.
“I am now an assistant coach for a high school swim team because of Coach Batchelor’s positive influence on me as a person and as a swimmer. If I become half the coach she was, I will feel that I have succeeded.”
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