Cheltenham swimming head coach Tom Howells has given his insight into the life of being a swimming coach and how the sport has had a big impact on his life.
“You have to be aware of working with children, they have a lot of pressures particularly education, their environment, body images so you have to try and make sure that their well beings are okay”
“It’s quite hard to balance sometimes personally because I’ll be at home during the day and then at work in the evenings so spending time with people can be challenging but I try and make it work as best as I can.”
Howells has been into swimming from a young age and described how it helped him become a swimming coach today.
“I was always volunteering pool side from about the age of 13 years old, I was always helping and staying late after sessions; doing extra sessions and then from there I got a bit more involved with the club.
“I started my teaching qualifications, started to teach swimming and then from the I progressed to become an employed swim teacher.
“I was doing well and was then given the opportunity to qualify as a coachand that’s how I ended up in the role I’m in now.”
Becoming a head coach was a long journey for Howells and he explained what goes into becoming a qualified coach.
“When I did it, we had some pool side observations with a swimming tutor, we would go on a course and spend class room time together.
“We would also go and coach some sessions as well as write sessions, have to self evaluate and then there would be some small classwork assignments to go with that.”
A leisure centre at the heart of Gloucestershire’s water sports such as water polo, shut down recently, making it difficult for clubs to stay active.
Tom reveals what would have happened should this have impacted the swimming club.
“I think if this were to happen to us, we could be okay, we are fortunate that Cheltenham has a lot of swimming pools.
“If it were to happen it would be disappointing but I think we could cope with something like that, it wouldn’t throw us under the bus like some other clubs.
As a head coach, Howells also has to help other coaches who work alongside him and says how coaches should stick to the foundations.
“From a coaching point of view, I say to all of my coaches to try and make sure that they have spoken to every swimmer once even if you have just said hello to them or checked in on how they’re doing because then at least everyone feels valued.
“However, from a swimming point of view, to get to the best you can be just constantly keep working on your technique.”
Swimming is a sport that people often forget about, however it is also important to understand how big of a sport it is around Cheltenham and Tom Howells is a good example of how swimming is still very much something to be passionate about.
