Congratulations to Guildford City Swimming Club’s Matt Smart who has been selected county team coach for 2019 and 2020.
Responsibilities during his two-year appointment will include coaching the Surrey swimming team for the National County Team Championships and lead coach at the county development camps for 11-year-olds.
Matt said he was looking forward to sharing his experiences with other coaches and swimmers, but also willing to learn from them to enable him to move forward and become a better coach.
He said: “As a coach you are constantly learning and updating your skills base to be able to give the best sessions and knowledge to your swimmers.
“There are many ways to improve but I value learning from the people around you as one of the most important.”
Matt joined Guildford City SC as a level 2 teacher in 2015, where he has risen steadily through the coaching ranks over the last three-and-a-half years.
His first promotion, to junior competitive development lead coach, came after just a year. In 2017 he became regional squad assistant coach, moving up to regional squad lead coach last year.
Within a team of six he gained valuable experience last year working as a skills coach at a number of South East Region development camps for 12-year-olds.
Matt said that working with a range of age groups on a daily basis gave him exposure to a wide variety of athletes, regularly having to deal with challenges that might arise and finding the best way to deal with them.
“As a lead coach I hold regular meetings and presentations with my squad,” he said. “I feel it is important to be communicating the correct values to the swimmers and to ensure all my session plans and deliveries can be linked back to both my values and the clubs.
“Allowing the swimmers to grow into the best athletes and people they can be, this would be an important part of the delivery of the development workshops.”