Hurricane Swimming History

Hurricane History

In The Beginning: 1994-95

This team was quite literally started overnight in September of 1994. With a list of six swimmers and lots of phone numbers, Paul Rowe and Carol Restrepo decided to seize the opportunity granted by Haddonwood owner, Tony Zanin, to start a new kind of swim team.

"Every swimmer, regardless of ability, deserves the opportunity to grow and succeed in a small and nurturing, but challenging environment." Every swimmer has the right to excel in his/her swimming at their own level, and a coach whose goal for each swimmer is 'Be the Best YOU can be' in the pool, and in your everyday life! Now all Carol and Paul needed was followers to this new philosophy in the South Jersey swimming world.

To their surprise and amazement, their Hurricane program has grown to be a very much respected team in the area!! The first practice in September, 1994 was attended by 29 swimmers! After only one weekend of nearly begging former Voyagers and friends to be the charter members, word spread, interest exploded, and the first practice launched the growth of a new swim team!! By our first year's end the team had swelled to 81 swimmers.

The continued success of our swimmers for their summer swim teams showed the Tri-County area that there's a new USS swim team around! But here's the big difference with this swim team - the children are actually having FUN!! Working hard, learning proper mechanics, WINNING, and actually HAVING FUN!! The word of Carol's famous monthly parties and Paul's sometimes silly…but fun games were a hit!

The team grew during season number two to 131 by the year's end. More Junior Olympic finalists, more kids having fun, more heads turning to this new program! What are those Hurricane coaches doing? Word started to spread that these Hurricane kids work hard, play hard, and actually are involved in the decision-making during their season (The kids picked the name Hurricanes Swimming and the team colors). The Hurricanes made their coaching staff…now with Jenn and Matt, proud with their performances at the summer Tri-County meet. We had winning swimmers at Tri-County and in Suburban Championships, not to mention the amount of Hurricanes representing the summer teams in the finals and consoles!

The Hurricane Swim Team was now actually getting respect!!! But there was on little problem - at the end of the second year, Paul and Carol were looking for a new home for this new, rising swim team! It seemed that Wal-Mart was buying OUR POOL and OUR HOME!! Now what? Carol started the endless phone calls and meeting with area pool representatives basically begging for pool time. She and Paul wanted this team to continue, but the team needed a pool!

Haddonwood owner Tony Zanin helped by calling The Coliseum and talked Carol and Paul's new swim team into having a new pool! The price was heavy, the Hurricanes would lose members because of the change..but how many? Would the swimmers and their parents follow Paul and Carol yet again? Only tryouts would tell.

The brochures for year three went out and Paul, Carol, Jenn, and Matt kept their fingers crossed. Who would come back to the team now at the Coliseum, and would there be enough interest to show the Coliseum owner that this team is for real? The first night tryouts answered all of our questions!! Three hours before tryouts, new swimmers were lining up to be Hurricanes!!! Category 3 filled up 10 minutes after tryouts began, Category 1 was filled before the long night was over! Warnings had only two available spots and Category 4 only a handful; the Elite team that numbered only ten swimmers in the second year now had 25 swimmers!!! Category 2 had more swimmers on the waiting list than in the pool, and Category 3 had a waiting list long enough to start another Spring group just for them! Even the swimmers signing up for the summer had increased from 8 in year one, to 19 in year two, to 55 in this third year! Paul's swimmers actually were coming for more workouts in the summer!

Year three saw the Hurricanes grow to 162 swimmers! The Hurricanes saw the amount of Junior Olympic qualifiers grow to 43! These J.O. qualifiers gave us many thrills with swimmers qualifying for finals and consolations in numerous events. Our high school swimmers also made us proud with several finishing in the finals and consolations at the NJ State High School Championships. Kate McDonnell's swim in the 100 breaststroke was just .2 off of Junior National qualifying standards!

The summer swimmers again showed off the Hurricane muscles by representing their summer teams to 6 Tri-County first places and a first place in the Suburban Championships, not to mention the numerous top 16 finishes of Hurricanes in both leagues!

As the "new" Hurricane Swim Team began to mature into a swimming family, our swimmers continued to excel in and out of the pool. Carol and Paul were as proud of a swimmer's accomplishments in the classroom as they were when he or she mastered a skill or stroke in the pool. The Hurricanes were getting respect with numerous high school swimmers being named as scholar athletes by the NJSIAA. Colin Morgan and LeAnn Karmen started this proud trend and tradition! Colin graduated in 1998 as a scholar athlete, while just missing a National cut in the 100 Backstroke by .09! LeAnn finished at the top of her graduating class in 1997, while serving as captain of the Sterling High School swim team. Every year since, the Hurricanes have had a t least one scholar athlete in their graduating class.

Through the many trials and tribulations of running the quality swim team we call the Hurricanes, the main focus has been the swimmers' development as young, responsible children and young adults. The focus on mechanics and team camaraderie has produced numerous Junior Olympic, Tri-County, and Suburban League champions with the Hurricane Swimming name!!! Every season results in more and more challenging records on the Hurricane record board!!

Even as the Hurricanes mature, we are still adding to and improving our program. Beginning with our 9th season a Masters group, a Mechanics group, and a late night high school group have bolstered the Hurricane program! The Masters group has already produced some stellar results in its first season. Led by our own Trish Zobel who captured 5 gold medals and 3 bronze medals at the World Transplant Games held this summer in Nancy, France, and Pam Perry's successful first ever swim meet at the tender age of??? (do you think Paul would actually print her age here?) the Huri women are off to a fast start. Even Coach Carol swam to several top 3 finishes at the Villanova meet and placed 8th at Long Course Nationals this summer. Leading our Masters men in their inaugural season were Randy Abate and our Huri coach, Matt Pilarz, who raked in their own gold medals at Masters swim meets in Swarthmore and Villanova.

Our Mechanics group was an instant hit for those swimmers who wanted to learn about the technique of the strokes with limited pool time. Meeting twice a week, these swimmers were able to stay in the water during the winter, while still being able to participate in other school and family activities. Coach Carol will be taking over the Masters and Mechanics groups in year 10 and adding her fun and unique hands-on coaching experience to the groups.

Our Huri-High group was formed for those high school students who wanted a USS program to supplement their high school programs' workouts. Again, an emphasis on technique and mechanics with a challenging practice was the focus of this group. Many high school swimmers could not commit to the Elite or Category 4 group because of after-school activities, jobs, etc., and they found a new home in our Huri-High group.

The end of year 9 also saw our very first Hurricane graduate, Dan Jones, become Doctor Daniel Jones. Dan also returned to the Hurricane deck to coach while finishing his last two years of medical school. Former Hurricane butterfly standout, Sean Patterson will become the first Hurricane to marry when he stands at the alter on December 27th, 2003. Sean is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Nuclear Engineering at M.I.T.

As we journey into our 10th year, we begin this anniversary season by celebrating a decade of swimming, winning, and having fun. The coaching staff has grown to 15 and we offer 8 training groups to service a swimming population of approximately 260 swimmers. The staff has had the privilege of having their lives immeasurably enriched by the many swimmers who have graduated from the program and we continue to learn from those whom we continue to coach. As always, we owe a debt of gratitude to our Huri parents who entrust the swimming tutelage of their children to us. It has been exciting to witness the multitude of newsworthy triumphs in the pool accomplished by our talented swimmers, but it is equally exciting to watch a swimmer drop a time, move to a higher level of interval training, break out of a plateau, or accomplish a short or long term goal. But most important of all, is to see a smile on a swimmers face after practice, a race, or when leaving the deck and knowing that we, as coaches, and as a Huri family, have made a difference in a child's life.

We invite anyone interested in a quality swim program to join us for another decade of swimming, winning, and having fun!!!