As the Simon Fraser University swim team continues their pre-season training, a new face will be joining the team: assistant coach Mandi Smith.
At first glance, this seems like a perfect fit — a nationally recognized Canadian swim coach joining the only NCAA swim program in Canada. Smith has coached swimmers to honours such as provincial, national, and world records, while guiding others to para-national and junior national teams.
Tammy Cunnington, a Canadian paralympian, is one of Smith’s successes. Cunnington broke the world record in the S-4 50-metre butterfly twice at the 2016 Olympic and Para-swimming Trials, and recently received four medals at the 2017 Can AmPara-swimming Championships.
Another notable athlete that Smith has coached is Rebecca Smith, a member of Canadian junior national team. She swam on Canada’s world championship 400-metre mixed medley relay team, and recently claimed silver at the world junior championships in the 100-metre butterfly.
These are the elite athletes that Mandi Smith has helped mentor over the years, which shows the high level of competition she can bring out of her athletes going forward.
“SFU is a world-class university program and I look at this as an opportunity to work with high-level athletes,” Smith recently told Simon Fraser athletics.
Smith’s resume is also strengthened by the clubs she’s been a coach of in recent years. She spent eight years as the head coach for Red Deer’s Catalina Swim Club before moving to British Columbia to coach White Rock’s Pacific Sea Wolves Club last year. These clubs provided Smith with the responsibility of developing athletes while also coaching national athletes at the senior level.
Smith was named as one of five coaches selected by Swimming Canada to take part of the Select Coaches Group program in 2014. This program prides itself in selecting and developing elite-level Canadian coaches. Being selected by this program shows the respect that Smith has earned over the years, and also hints to possible improvements she has made as a coach over time.
The Select Group program paid dividends right away for Smith, as she was named Alberta Junior Female Coach of the Year in 2015. Before then, she also coached at the provincial level for Alberta at the Western Canada Summer Games in 2011 and Canada Summer Games in 2013.
The coaching staff at SFU are excited to have Smith joining the team. “Mandi has an excellent combination of high level Internationally competitive experience, consistent longitudinal development work and new energy. SFU is fortunate to have a coach of her caliber and performance level joining our staff, ” said head coach Liam Donnelly.
She is a coach with ample experience coaching both young and senior athletes, which bodes well as a coach for a university program. Her and the Clan will look to improve on the 10th overall finish (men) and 23rd overall finish (women) that SFU had last season. SFU’s swimming and diving season will begin at the BC Senior Circuit in Victoria on October 21.
