With hopes to bring new insight into the team’s training for the next season, the CSU East Bay women’s swim team has hired former UC Berkeley Division I All-American swimmer, Colleen Fotsch, as their new assistant coach.
Fotsch was a four-time NCAA Division I All-American at UC Berkeley and helped lead the team to back-to-back national championships in 2011 and 2012. She and her Cal teammates hold the NCAA and American record in the 200 medley relay, reports the CSUEB Athletics website.
Fotsch also qualified for the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Trials in the 100 butterfly. Last March, her competitive swimming career ended and in May she graduated from UC Berkeley with an American studies degree with an emphasis in education.
Following her graduation, Fotsch began to intern as a strength and conditioning coach for the aquatic teams at Cal. It was then, that she decided she wanted to pursue a career in kinesiology and applied to CSUEB to attend graduate school next fall.
This decision set her up with contacts to CSUEB’s head women’s swimming coach, Ben Loorz. In 2004, Loorz was a volunteer swim coach for Cal and happened to be closely acquainted with the team’s head strength and conditioning coach.
“I recognized her name; she is a well known swimmer, an American record holder in the 200 medley relay, so when I heard she was applying here, I knew several people that know her,” Loorz said. “The head strength and conditioning coach at Cal is a good friend of mine, so I called him and he gave her an awesome recommendation and I was able to connect with her through that relationship.”
Fotsch’s favorite aspect of Cal’s aquatic training program was always their weight room sessions. She hopes to bring her knowledge of this aspect about the training to CSUEB’s swim program.
“I’m really excited to bring just a new perspective,” she said. “I think one of my strong suits is the strength and conditioning in the weight room and that is something Ben and I are really excited for me to take on. I’m really excited to help the girls get better at swimming, not just by swimming, but what they can do with dry land, weights, and conditioning.”
In the weight room at Cal, Fotsch currently works as an assistant to the head strength and conditioning coach to help assist the athletes with their techniques as well as set up workouts.
“I’ve always been really passionate about fitness and just being creative with what I’m doing workout wise,” Fotsch said. “It was a really cool transition and still is to be contributing to the team.”
Loorz is grateful to have Fotsch’s strong coaching methods on the team and is looking forward to someone who brings her own thoughts, ideas, and training methods to the table.
“She already has instant credibility with the team with her high level of experiences as an athlete; that’s pretty cool,” he said. “I think this spring she’s already shown just in the last two weeks that she’s been here that she can bring some very valuable insight into how our team should operate.”
Fotsch began to gain those insights about swimming and training at a young age, but didn’t start to get serious about the sport until her junior year in high school.
“I’ve been swimming ever since I was super little,” she said. “I remember watching home videos from when I was four and watching my parents throw me in the water. But I didn’t start swimming competitively until I got older.”
After participating in a series of other sports such as softball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer, it was Fotsch’s parents who finally convinced her to choose to pursue swimming competitively.
“At first I was like this sport is way too hard; I’m not sure I want to do this,” she jokes. “It wasn’t until my junior year of high school when I finally fell in love with it and knew I wanted to do it for the long haul.”
After a rough freshman year and swimming two years at the University of Notre Dame, Fotsch believes that her experiences swimming at Cal were the best she will ever have.
“I’ll never forget where I was on the Notre Dame campus when I got a call from the assistant coach at Cal and she said that they were interested,” said Fotsch “It was just an amazing feeling, knowing that was in my future. It not only gave me the swimming career I had, but it has now allowed me to develop the career I want to have and also give me role models and best friends. It was an absolutely amazing experience.”
Another memorable experience for Fotsch was when she swam the 100 butterfly in the Olympic Trials in 2008.
“It was kind of a thing that I didn’t think was on my radar, I was just in awe the entire time.”
Though Fotsch made another Olympic cut in 2012, she decided instead to devote her whole heart and effort to the NCAAs, and due to her dedication she ended her season on a high note.
“We had an absolutely amazing end to our season that year with winning another back to back national championships,” Fotsch said, “I got to be a part of an American record relay, so it was definitely nice to go out with a bang.”
Though her swimming career is over, Fotsch keeps herself busy coaching at the pool and in the weight room. She enjoys her coaching job so far at East Bay because she gets to be part of all aspects of the coaching, from the pool deck to the weight room.
“There’s something about working with teams and with athletes and to be part of something greater than one person,” she said. “There is just so much passion, drive, and determination when you get to work with a team.”
Fotsch also looks forward to bringing a new leadership role to the team next season.
“Ben has done such an amazing job within these past three years and I’m excited to learn from him and get the opportunity to develop as a coach, and especially get to work with such a great coach and such a great group of girls,” she said.
