Take your mark – go! Coral Gables’ swim season has started and this year we have two new coaches to prepare the 2014 Cavalier swim team. Our head coach this year is Kelli Fraga, biology and chemistry teacher at Gables and also the water polo coach for the Cavaliers. She has had previous experience with the swim team, having been the assistant swim coach in the 2012 season. She also swam for the Cavaliers when she was in high school and now wants to help improve the kids on the Gables swim team. Now, she’s back as the head coach to help get our swim team back in shape. Fraga is looking forward t0 the swim season and has high hopes for the team this year. She has already started working on the swim team, as they started practicing a few weeks before school started. She has already done well in her previous years of coaching the Cavalier swim team and hopes to get an even better performance from the team this year.

Gables also has a new Assistant Coach: Brian Van Cleave. Van Cleave has been a swimmer from a very young age and swam long distance freestyle both for club and school teams during his high school years. He’s also been the triathlon coach at the University of Miami for the past two years.

“I have always wanted to make a full return to the pool, though – I just couldn’t find the means until recently. It wasn’t until this past summer that some of the Cavaliers swimmers approached me about coaching and I knew I had to jump at the opportunity,” Van Cleave said.

He’s already enjoying his time with the Cavalier swim team and is excited to see how the season turns out.

“If I had one word for this team, it’s potential,” Van Cleave said.

Van Cleave aims to hold onto Gables’ women’s District Champion status and to work on the boys’ chance to also get District Championships. He’s also glad that many of this year’s swimmers are freshmen and sophomores who have a few years left to swim for the Cavalier nation. Van Cleave particularly likes the fact that we have some good swimmers that are a part of club teams. He hopes to develop the team this year so that these swimmers can easily join and help our swim team at future swim meets.  This may be Van Cleave’s first year of coaching at the high school level, but he has plenty of experience and is ready to get the swim team to do the best they can.

Coaches Van Cleave and Fraga are definitely ready to help get our swim team better than ever with their new ideas and styles. They think that the team has very good potential for this year and are excited to get the chance to coach these swimmer athletes this year. They both have high hopes for this season and are confident that our swim team will represent the Cavaliers well.