The coaching carousel keeps turning for the Kings Point swim team, but one thing never changes.
The Stingrays keep winning championships.
Scott Gardner is the latest coach for Kings Point, which has won six straight Midwest Swim Conference titles. Head coaches during that period have included Kevin Stein, Kevan Caliper, Meghan Zahn and most recently Steve "Scuba" Sloan.
A Belleville native, Gardner attended Belleville West High School through his junior year and swam at numerous locations, including the Sonnenberg YMCA, Oak Hill, Sundowners and Dorchester. His family moved to Fresno, Calif., for his senior year in 1977.
Gardner went on to swim for four years at California State University Long Beach. He qualified for junior nationals several times, mostly as a long distance/freestyle swimmer.
After 33 years in Long Beach, including a stint as a beach lifeguard, Gardner returned to Belleville last year.
"I did go into the business world for about 20 years, but for the past five years in Long Beach, I’ve been involved in aquatics again," Gardner said. "Swimming has always been my passion and I saw where the (Kings Point) job was open, so I talked to Ken (Hayden), the manager here, and he pretty much gave me the job on the spot.
"This team is awesome and I have great support from (assistant coach) Tanya Tepen as well as Meghan Zahn, who has been involved with the team for about five years and is still the pool manager. The parents here are so organized - they sign up at the beginning of the year to do certain jobs and they honor their commitments. All I have to do is coach."
As usual, Kings Point has plenty of talent and plenty of depth.
"We did lose a couple of very good high-scoring families, but we had our first meet against Dorchester (last Thursday) and beat them pretty handily," Gardner said. "We have a lot of year-round swimmers. Some of them go to another practice before they get here and then they come to Kings Point and practice again.
"The kids are very dedicated - I don’t have a stinker in the bunch. They listen and they know what they’re doing. I have a lot of good leaders and a lot of those kids have been swimming for 10 years or more.
"We have a fantastic pre-team or lane one program, which is run by the kids in the 15-18 age group. It’s for the younger kids who cannot swim a lap or can barely swim a lap. That really helps to develop our team."
Kings Point returns several high-point swimmers and other standouts from last year’s conference meet, including Cole Junker (9-10 boys), Ellie Junker (13-14 girls), Samantha Hayen (15-18 girls), Kayla Kazar (15-18 girls) and Patrick Hesse (15-18 boys).
"We do have a superstar in Lori Lynn (15-18 girls), who is still eligible to swim for us," Gardner said. "She’s only going to be doing some of the dual meets because of her other commitments for year-round long course swimming.
"Our 15-18 boys and 15-18 girls are both really deep. We’re kind of top-heavy because 13-14 on both sides is also great. Our 13-and-over medley relay, both boys and girls, is looking very good."
The Stingrays played host to Freeburg on June 21 and were leading when the meet was stopped due to rain and lightning. The meet will be finished at a date to be announced. Kings Point won last Thursday at O’Fallon and had a home meet slated for Tuesday against Westhaven before having a bye on Thursday.
"We won conference by about 200 points last year and it’s going to be a lot tighter this year," Gardner said. "I’m not going to make any predictions about going undefeated or winning the conference, but I have a lot of faith in these kids. After the way they swam against Dorchester, I’m a lot more optimistic than I was at first."
