Mother, daughter, coach, East High Alumni, teacher, these are just a few words that describe swim coach Erin Lowe
What made you what to be a swim coach? Why did you start?
“I have always swam and coached swimming. I started helping coach little kids in 1992 and I taught swimming lessons in high school and college. Coaching swimming and teaching swimming lessons was just always something that I did, and I just never stopped.”
What made you want to coach boys and girls?
“I started coaching at East in August of 2000. I was the girls’ assistant for two seasons but when the boys’ team needed a head coach, I decided to switch to that. I coached the boy’s team from 2002-2008 and was an assistant coach for the boys for a couple of years in between being the head coach two different times. I then again coached the boys starting in 2019. It is nice to coach both because then you don’t really have to coordinate anything between the two teams and with the other coaching staff. When I am the only one for both seasons it makes some things easier.”
What motivates you to keep coaching?
“Usually we do very well, and that makes it easier. The teams work hard, and we always swim well at the end of the season. Sometimes you hit rough patches in the middle of the season, but then at Districts and Regionals everyone swims great and it’s so much fun! When kids swim faster than they ever thought they could it makes all the difficult times worth it. When you see athletes achieve their best, the look on their faces and their excitement of their accomplishments are truly awesome.”
How long have you been coaching?
“I’ve been coaching since I was 14 (1992), boys head coach 2001-2008 (2002-2007 was East and Lincoln combined team), Boys Assistant two years then took back over in 2019, Girls Assistant Coach: 2000-2002 Girls Head Coach 2008-2024.”
What are the differences between coaching boys and girls swim?
“The girls’ team currently has a lot of experienced swimmers and so they are a little easier to coach right now because they are such good swimmers that we can get into the training aspect more and less of teaching swimming lessons. We also have two phenomenal assistant coaches who both swam here, and they are fantastic with the team. Anna Liu is one of the best swimmers ever in Iowa and Rocio Hernandez can coach swimming while speaking in Spanish which is huge for us. Many of the new girls learned so much faster because Coach Hernandez was able to communicate so well with them. The girls work super hard and will do everything you give them. They are very mentally strong. The boys’ team has a few very fast, amazing swimmers, but most of the team is new to the sport so there is a lot more teaching the basics with the boys right now. There is a larger learning curve with them. Many of the boys are fantastic athletes in other sports, most play soccer and are used to being very successful so they get a little more stressed out and frustrated then the girls do because they want to be the best immediately and aren’t very patient when it comes to learning a new sport. Both groups work very hard and swim miles each day. Swimmers learn how to work hard. We have many swimmers that go on to swim in college. We currently have three alumni swimming in college and at least two of our seniors will go on to swim in college, so that is a very important part of our success too. That our kids can go on to the next level and that they still love sport enough to want to continue.”