John comes to Nampa with nearly forty years of coaching experience on many different levels.  A summer league team, age group development programs, high school teams, and senior programs that have qualified more than thirty individuals for Junior Nationals, and half a dozen to Senior National level including one Olympic Trials contestant have presented a varied collection of challenges. 

His longest tenure was with Team Santa Monica from 1981 to 1997.  This was an unusual length of command on a team which had gone through twelve coaches in eighteen years prior to his hiring.  TSM had a constant presence at Junior Nationals, an occasional at Seniors, and was always in the top twenty (out of more than 80 clubs) at the Southern California championships.  Never a large team, 100 to 120 swimmers at most, TSM had a unique and major impact on swimming on the west side of Los Angeles.  Santa Monica High, Venice High, and Loyola High won their first ever C.I.F. titles with TSM swimmers as their predominate scorers, and Santa Monica College won its first State title with a huge contingent of swimmers who came up through TSM.  Prior to Team Santa Monica, John undertook the rebuilding of So Cal Aquatics which in 1979 had been reduced to twenty three swimmers.  Working in concert with a great age group coach, Vickie Elliot, John brought So Cal back to one hundred fifty members after two years, finishing twelfth at Southern California championships, with several swimmers ranked in National Top 16 and a senior swimmer, Mike Reynolds, who finished third in the Junior National 400 I.M. 

In his earliest years, John founded the Palisades-Malibu Y.M.C.A. swim team, and took them from the bottom of the Y leagues to the top echelon of Southern California Y competition, and as on the other teams took many swimmers to Junior Nationals, Senior Nationals, and put one in the 1976 Olympic Trials.  During the late 60’s John was very fortunate to have the opportunity to coach as an assistant at Los Angeles Athletic Club, under the direction of Peter Daland head coach of the L.A.A.C. and U.S.C., 1964 U.S. women’s Olympic coach, and one of the most prominent members of the Swimming Hall of Fame.