SECTION:Sports

PUBDATE:June 20, 2006

HEADLINE:New coach surfaces for PCST

BYLINE:By Jason Shoot

CONTACT:News Herald Writer 747-5069 / jshoot@pcnh.com

TEXT:PANAMA CITY

Jonathan Kaplan’s decision to give up his post as an assistant swimming coach at a major university to pursue the Panama City Swim Team’s head coaching job wasn’t as difficult as one might think.

“I really enjoyed the college experience and Clemson — that was the whole purpose why I came into coaching,” said Kaplan, a 26-year-old recently tabbed as the Tsunami’s first fulltime coach. “But you can make more of an impact on young peoples’ lives by working with parents and children over a long period of time rather than with college students who have formed already what they’re going to become.”

Following shortly behind the completion of the Panama City Beach Aquatic Center, Kaplan’s hiring is yet another step toward legitimacy for the Panama City Swim Team. The program never had been able to pay for a fulltime coach, Kaplan said, and previous coaches were hampered in their attempts to attract more swimmers to the team.

A former swimmer at Florida State who graduated in 2002, Kaplan coached previously at Tallahassee Chiles High School, the Area Tallahassee Aquatic Club and the North Central Florida YMCA in Gainesville. He also was a graduate assistant coach at FSU for two seasons while working toward his master’s degree in sports administration.

At Clemson, he coached distance events for the men’s and women’s teams for one year and served as the Tigers’ recruiting coordinator.

“It’s not that they haven’t had good coaches in the past,” Kaplan said of the local club, “because they’ve had good coaches who did a good job. They just haven’t had a coach who designated all of his time to the team. What I’ll be able to bring to the team is a lot more consistency and organization to the team, which is something that doesn’t come when you have coaches coming and going.”

Kaplan has his work cut out for him as he attempts to raise the Tsunamis into contention with established programs at Gulf Breeze, Pensacola and Tallahassee, not to mention the rest of the state.

The program does include 95 swimmers, Kaplan said, a sizable number on the surface. But many of them don’t compete regularly — only five made a trip to Niceville for a meet this past weekend — and others don’t practice routinely.

Kaplan said he has a plan to solve the team’s current problems.

“Right now I’m not approaching it like I want us to be the No. 1 team in the Panhandle,” he said. “I’m approaching it a little differently so that will be a consequence of what we’re trying to accomplish. I want to take all the swimmers we have here and bring them together as a team. The swimmers that are on the team, I want to create a good team atmosphere. I want them to have a lot of pride in the fact they were on the Panama City Swim Team.

“The next step is to get the rest of the city to want to be a part of that. We have a lot of high school swimmers and middle school swimmers who have the potential to be great swimmers for the program who are not part of the program. Now that we’ve got a head coach in place, we’re going to start attracting a lot more swimmers.”

Kaplan said he wants to work closely with high school coaches and the fledgling programs at area middle schools, believing that cooperation between the schools and club team will hasten swimmers’ improvement.

“I think what I have to offer them is a chance to improve their swimmers, and that will improve their teams’ results within the county and district championships,” Kaplan said. “They’ll send even more kids to the state championships and get Panama City recognized on a state level.

“I want to do it working with the high school coaches and not against them because we have the same goals. I want to establish good working relationships with each of them. I hope to get most of the swimmers working with the Panama City Swim Team so they can make a lot of improvements.”

The Tsunamis ranked third among visiting teams at the Betty Ballasch Invitational in Niceville this past weekend despite a low turnout. Drew Bronnenberg placed second overall in the Senior Boys division, and Cody Bronnenberg was second in the 13-14 boys age group.

Betty Ballasch Invitational

Held Saturday and Sunday in Niceville Drew Bronnenberg (2nd overall, Senior Boys): 2. 200 backstroke 2 minutes, 34.95 seconds, 2. 200 individual medley (2:21.21), 2. 400 IM 5:01.24, 3. 200 butterfly 2:32.27, 3. 200 breaststroke 2:42.54. Cody Bronnenberg (2nd, 13-14 Boys): 1. 200 back 2:24.84, 2. 100 back 1:09.37, 2. 200 fly 2:45.11, 3. 200 freestyle 2:12.47, 3. 200 IM 2:26.97, 4. 100 breast 1:19.78, 4. 200 breast 2:51.10. Jamie McDonald (3rd, 11-12 Girls): 3. 100 breast 1:28.93, 3. 50 fly 34.54, 3. 50 back 36.73, 4. 100 fly (1:22.32, 5. 100 IM 1:19.02. Alecia Lowery (10th, 11-12 Girls): 4. 100 breast 1:32.86.