Board Chair

Jon is an Olympic Gold medal coach, a Doctor of Psychology and Swim Ireland’s National Performance Director for Swimming & Diving with an umbrella view over all of Ireland’s performance aquatics programme (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). Jon has directly coached three World Records and several European and Commonwealth Records in a 30-year coaching career to date and over this period, developed the Plymouth Leander and Plymouth College swimming programme into what was one of the leading forces in European swimming. Jon’s coaching history sees him having directly coached one or more gold medallist at every international meet on the international calendar, at senior, youth and junior levels – including Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic Games golds. Jon is the current Vice-President of the World Swimming Coaches Association and the President of the European branch of the Association. In recent years, Jon has been named as International Swimming Coach of the Year, World Junior Swimming Coach of the Year and European Swimming Coach of the Year, as well as having won the British Swimming Coach of the Year award on more than one occasion. Jon has served as a senior International Head Coach at Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth levels for Great Britain, England, Lithuania, Ireland and Turkey and as a Senior International Coach for the Netherlands and Kenya.

Twitter: @coachjonrudd

Facebook: Jon Rudd Swimming

LinkedIn: Dr Jon Rudd

Board Vice-Chair

Most of Coach Block’s career was spent in education and athletics, where as the Director of Aquatics and Assistant Director of Athletics for the Northside School District he developed the Northside Aquatic Center into an internationally recognized center for athlete development.

Coach Block has developed 9 Olympians, 50 UIL State Gold Medalists, over 285 All-Americans, Olympic Trials qualifiers in 1984-88-92-96-2000 and 2008, and numerous National and Junior Champions. He has produced Olympians in three different sports (swimming, triathlon and pentathlon) and Olympic swimmers from four different countries (United States, Nicaragua, Egypt and Algeria).

Coach Block was awarded the Phillips 66 Performance Award and was named the Coca-Cola Texas Coach of Honor. The United States Water Fitness Association named Northside the Top School District/Community Facility in the nation and Coach Block its Top Aquatics Director. He also received NISCA’s Outstanding Service Award.

Coach Block served as Vice-President of USA Swimming and as the President of both the American and World Swimming Coaches Associations. Coach Block earned the Silver Award of Excellence for 20 years of National finalists, was inducted into both the ASCA and San Antonio Sports Halls of Fame, and awarded the United States Olympic Committee’s “Rings of Gold.”

Email: george.block@wscacoach.org

Oceania

Bill (William) Sweetenham was born in 1950 in Australia and grew up in a small country mining town. He swam competitively for a short period before turning to coaching at an early age. Bill progressed from country to city, to elite level coaching. Bill was made a Member of the Order of Australia in January 1989. He was also awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1980 to study swim coaching in the USA.

Early highlights of Bill’s career include many world record swims by the likes of Stephen Holland, Michelle Ford and Tracey Wickham.

Bill was the first State Director of Coaching for Queensland and Australia, and went on to serve as Head Swimming Coach at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra and Head Coach of Australia's Olympic Team, Head Swimming Coach at the Hong Kong Sports Institute and Hong Kong's Head Olympic Swim Coach, National Youth Coach for Australian Swimming (1995-2000) and National Performance Director of British Swimming from November 2000 to October 2007.

Treasurer - Africa

Larry Laursen, an ASCA Level 5 International coach.

His swimming coaching career in Namibia where he coached LTS, age group and senior swimmers for Marlins Swimming Club. In those years he served on the South African Coaches Association Executive, completed his Canadian Swimming Coaching certification, was head coach at the University of Pretoria for a year and was a member of the international Speedo Advisory Coaches group.

From 1990 until he retired from pool-side work in 2007, he served as the Namibian National Coach taking teams to three Olympic Games, seven World Championships, three Commonwealth Games, five Universaides and a number of African Games and African Swimming Championships, with multiple medalists and African record holders in the latter two.

In 2005 he was nominated to the WSCA Board. He has run multiple FINA and ASCA swimming coaching courses in Africa and the Maldives since 1991. He served as a technical and education consultant to the Athletics Director of the University of Pretoria from 2007-2017, bringing the ASCA Certification system into that University curriculum and working with head coaches and technical directors from 8 different sports codes.

North America

Don has a forty-five-year history in coaching with success at all levels, including summer league, high school, and as the Co-Founder and Co-Head coach of Orinda Aquatics, all in Northern California. At 150 swimmers, Orinda Aquatics has been one of the top-performing smaller clubs in the U.S., in the Virtual Club Championship rankings, and over its twenty-five-year history. The club produced 27 Olympic Trials qualifiers, including Olympic medalist Kim Vandenberg, over fifty collegiate team captains, has been a perennial Silver Medal club and averages 12-15 national-level swimmers each year.

Don was a two-term President of the American Swimming Coaches Association, served on the USA Swimming Board of Directors, and is on the Pacific Swimming Board of Directors overseeing Club Development. Don has also taught the ASCA level 1, 2, 4, 5 certification courses and helped develop the summer-league coach certification course.

Don and his brother Ron build a high-character culture on all their teams. This foundation is the core of their success and transformed the lives of countless young people. They spoke about character, culture, and age-group development at several World Clinics and club, LSC, and national and international workshops. They authored, presented, and donated a character guidebook to the ASCA. In 2013 they were awarded the Positive Coaching Alliances’ National Double-Goal Award.

Europe

Technical Director CS Dinamo Bucharest, 2008/2022 Head Coach Junior & Youth National Teams FIN (ITA Swimming Fed) - 2015/2022 Web Content Manager LEN - Ligue Européenne de Natation

Asia

Coach Will has more than 25 years of extensive coaching experience. Coach Will is an American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) and WSCA-certified Level 5 coach. His coaching career has consisted of age-group swimmers to international-level swimmers. In addition, Coach Will has been developing swimming club organizations, offering coaching education, and establishing youth competitions throughout Asia on behalf of WSCA. He works closely with swim clubs and school programs all over Asia. For the last decade, Coach Will and WSCA/ASCA have been working rigorously to bring world-level swimming coaching education to coaches in Asia. Coach Will currently holds the title of Executive Director at one of the leading swimming programs in Shanghai, China, and his ACME Swimming Academy-SCAC team is one of the fastest-growing swimming programs in Asia.

Skill Set Director

Chris Morgan is a former American competitive swimmer and professional coach. He is the head coach of Gator Swim Club, co-founder of Boston Water Polo Club, and an assistant coach at MIT's men's water polo team. He also organizes ocean swims with New England Open Water Swimming Association.

Morgan's coaching journey spans Stanford University, Swiss clubs, and international events. He produced Olympic athletes like Jonathan Massacand, Andrei Cross, and Marina Kuc. His Swiss teams clinched eight club championships and numerous national titles.

A UC Davis graduate in biological sciences, Morgan earned his Masters in human movement and sports sciences from the University of Geneva. He's a key figure in open water swimming, co-leading NEOWSA and serving on WOWSA's Board of Directors.

Fred is a French swimming coach, with a Master of Sciences in Physiology, as well as an Olympic Gold medalist coach. A longtime club coach, he is currently the Head Swim Coach of the Spanish National team and is in his 6th Olympic campaign. Under his guidance over 251 individual records have been broken and Olympic champions have been made.

Coach Vergnoux is no stranger to success, he has been awarded several times coach of the year in Belarus, Great Britain, and Spain, and was the World Coach of the Year in 2014.