Three-time Olympic gold medalist Brooke Bennett has been hired as the new head swimming coach at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. The school is the alma mater of both former American Record holder Megan Romano and 5-time Olympic gold medalist Brad Snyder.
“I’m looking forward to this venture at the high school level to continue to help develop new swimmers to the sport along with being a supportive coach to work with the competitive swimmers and their club coaches,” Bennett said of her new role.
The 36-year old distance swimmer was the Olympic champion in the 800 free at the 1996 Olympic Games and won both the 400 and 800 free at the 2000 Olympic Games.
Since retirement, Bennett has spent time covering high school sports as a reporter for the Bright House Sports Network, and more recently opened the Brooke Bennett Swim Academy.
The school, one of the few public schools in St. Petersburg with a pool on campus, will also serve as a new location for her swim academy. Her husband is also the school’s head football coach.
The school, with an enrollment of around 2000, competes in Florida’s Class 3A – the second-biggest classification. At last year’s High School State Championship meet, the girls finished tied for 24th out of 52 scoring teams and the boys finished 27th out of 42 scoring teams. Among the stars who will return next season are junior Colton Gray, who was 3rd in the state last year with a 46.38 in the 100 free; and junior divers Ali Boyd and Evelyn Jerger, who were 7th and 9th, respectively, on the 1-meter last season.
I swam with Brad at the Paralympics and I know maybe it is just easier to use the word Olympic, but Brad is actually a Paralympic athlete. His title is a 5-time Paralympic gold medalist. The two words are not interchangeable, even though there should be the same amount of respect given to both sets of athletes. In the future, it would be nice for these types of articles to help bring awareness to the Paralympic movement and talent in those events by putting the right title in front of the athlete. This is a step in the right direction to even have Brad listed, so I do appreciate that Braden.
Dear Braden,
My brother, Bill Burrows coached NEHI Swimming for 30 years prior to the 2016 season, which obviously included both Megan and Brad, along with a host of other very accomplished swimmers over the years. I think he deserves at least a mention in this article. Taking nothing away from Brooke, she will make a strong replacement for Bill in leading this long established program into the future.
Respectfully,
Robert
Just saw Bill a few mi the ago, kept his retirement a secret! Enjoy it.
That’s a drive for her coming from the Tampa area. Bill has a very good replacement.