St. Ignatius swimming head coach David Stephens leads his teams to win IHSA Sectional Championships

The women’s team took first place in the 2012 Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Sectional Championship for the eighth year running and eighth place in the IHSA State Championships last fall. The team set 11 new team records during the season. The men’s team set five new team records during their season in addition to winning the IHSA Sectional Championship for the tenth straight year.

Stephens says, “In my eleven years at St. Ignatius the program has had 80 state qualifiers for 344 events, 81 NISCA All-Americans, 277 sectional champions and 111 conference champions.”

David Stephens is the head swimming and diving coach of St. Ignatius College Prep. Stephens has been coaching the men and women’s varsity teams for 13 years.

Stephens grew up in Atlanta, Ga., where he started swimming at an early age with the Dynamo Swim Club. He was an All-American at Marist High School. Stephens attended the University of Michigan where he swam all four years.

Stephens lists some of the challenges he faces in his position as a high school coach to one of the top Catholic schools in Chicago: athletes without a strong swimming background, culturally-diverse athletes, and most of all, suburban high school swim teams including Loyola Academy, Fenwick High School and Rosary High School, which have more experienced swimmers, better facilities, and full time coaches.

“A lot of the kids who come here initially hadn’t had a swimming background, so we’re dealing with kids who are relatively new to the sport,” says Stephens. On the other hand, Stephens says the swimmers who have developed their swimming abilities at swim clubs and within the Chicago Park District have a stronger skill set.

“With the development of the club program here, other club programs and the Chicago Park District developing better swimmers, kids are coming in here with more background, so that’s helped us compete in a higher level with a lot of the suburban schools and other Catholic League schools,” Stephens says.

Stephens says he uses different approaches to coach the men’s and women’s teams. The women’s team can handle workouts and school work better than men’s team, says Stephens.

“A lot of the girls, they are usually tougher, they can handle more intensity and workload, but they also need more socialization time,” Stephens says.

Stephens says the men need less socialization time because they tend to be more competitive with one another.

Stephens says he realized he wanted to be a swim coach while attending the John Marshall Law School. He says he found he enjoyed coaching, working with the kids and creating meaningful relationships with them and their families much more than attending school.

“I enjoy law. I find it interesting. But I found that the relationships that I was having with the families and the kids here was much more meaningful and rewarding than what I was doing in law school,” Stephens says.

Stephens says one of his personal goals is to promote swimming. According to Stephens, the number of swimmers in Chicago is increasing, along with qualifying for state championship meets.

“Giving those kids in the city more recognition. It’s unfortunate that newspapers don’t give them publicity,” Stephens says.