Carlos Ceja, the swim coach who does it all

Swimming wasn’t Northside College Prep High School Aquatic Director Carlos Ceja’s favorite sport until he started swimming competitively at Roosevelt High School. Ceja said he was on the wrestling team at Gordon Tech College Prep before transferring to Roosevelt and joining the swim team. Ceja said the camaraderie of being on the swim team was important to him.

“It was a big aspect in my life without even knowing it,” said Ceja.

Ceja also serves as the head coach of the swimming and diving teams and women’s water polo at Northside. He is also the co-founder and head coach of the Northside Aquatics Club.

After graduating high school, Ceja joined the U.S. Navy. Ceja called himself a glorified lifeguard who worked as a rescue swimmer and swim instructor during his time in the Navy.

“I still had to help people learn how to swim and try to help people become better swimmers,” Ceja said.

After eight years in the Navy, Ceja said he decided to leave because he didn’t agree with the politics.

“I’m not a big fan of politics, but you have to deal with it,” Ceja said.

After leaving the Navy, Ceja started attending the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000. While studying at UIC, Ceja became the assistant coach at Northside College Prep.

“My old swim coach in high school was the first swimming coach here, so when he found out I was getting out of the Navy, he asked me to help him out,” Ceja said.

In 2003, Ceja was called back into the Navy and had to leave his studies and coaching job. Ceja graduated from UIC in December 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in kinesiology with a concentration in movement science.

Ceja uses his background in kinesiology to improve his swimmer’s technique, as well as preventing and treating injuries.

“For a long time here at Northside we didn’t have an athletic trainer. We just started getting one maybe four or five years ago and they’re only here maybe two or three times a week. So whenever someone got hurt I had to do something to help them out,” Ceja said.

Assigning good stretches before swim practice, having an easy warm-up that swimmer’s can ease into and teaching proper technique are all ways to help prevent injuries, Ceja said.

Ceja was born and raised in Chicago by parents from Michoacán, Mexico. He is the youngest of six siblings, and he is the only one in his family that became a dedicated swimmer. He spent his summers in the pool at River Park. Ceja worked for the Chicago Park District as a lifeguard at River Park for three years and 57^th Street Beach for five summers.

When Ceja began coaching at Northside College Prep, he was surprised by the parental support the team received compared to the lack of support apparent during his high school years on the swim team.

“It’s completely different. I’d say the majority of my teammates were Latino. There was rarely ever a time there were parents in the stands. There were always friends, girlfriends and other students. I never really saw the parent support there. A lot of it is because the parents are working,” Ceja said.

Latino parents focused on working to support the family and keeping their kids off the streets, said Ceja. According to Ceja, parental support for Latino teams has grown.

“Curie High School is a big Latino swim team. It’s small, but their majority is Latino. I see their parents coming into the meets, even here at Northside. The kids that swim at the Chicago Park District, their parents are showing up to those meets. And it’s great,” Ceja said.

Ceja founded the Northside Aquatics Club to provide a stable practice facility for swimmers. He said promoting the sport and keeping kids interested in swimming during the year is one of his challenges.

“You need kids that are dedicated to the sport in order to become successful at it,” Ceja said.

Ultimate Swimming coach Pierre Ruffin empowering black and Latino swimmers

“My coaches used to always tell us to remember that you were just as good as everybody else.”

Pierre Ruffin, head coach of Ultimate Swimming, a year-round competitive swim club in Hillside, Ill., described the challenges of being one of the few African-American coaches for Illinois Swimming. Back in the 1950s and 1960s when racial discrimination was the norm, Ruffin said athletes had to produce great results to prove they were just as good as a Caucasian athlete and coach.

Ruffin said he was often questioned at swim meets for why he was standing on the deck since only officials, coaches, athletes and volunteer timers were allowed on the deck.

“I could understand at the time because they didn’t realize or understand that there were black coaches or black coaches trying to get involved in the sport at that time,” Ruffin said.

Ruffin-- like the author of this blog, a club coach for Illinois Swimming said athletes are not special because of their race, ethnicity or gender, but because of their talent.

“The only special thing about you is your ability to swim like everybody else, your ability to work hard, your ability to be able to say, “Here I am. I can do this and get out and prove it” and that’s the only way I think you can really help minorities in this sport of swimming,” Ruffin said.

Ruffin said he hopes to pave a way for future coaches.

“When other minority coaches want to get involved with swimming, I feel that they will, because of what I’m able to do, it’ll make it easier for other people to give them an opportunity to coach and be a head coach and not feel that just because I’m a minority, I’m unable to do this or to do that or to train their kids and bring them to a level of excellent swimming,” Ruffin said.

Masters and Swim Clubs in the City of Chicago

Click on a team's name to be directed to their website.

Club Swim Teams

• Chicago Latin Swim Club
• Chicago Park District
• Chicago South Swim Club
• Chicago Wolfpack Aquatic Club
• Iguanas Swim Club
• Midway Aquatics Club
• Northside Aquatics
• UIC Aquatics
• Whitney Young Aquatics

Masters Swim Teams

• Chicago Blue Dolphins 
• Chicago Masters
• Chicago Smelts
• Lakeshore SF Masters
• Max Multisport
• Mt. Greenwood Masters
• Westloop Athletic Club Masters

For more information about club swimming in Illinois, visit Illinois Swimming.

Keep Calm and Swim On

Goodbye summer! We'll miss you.

Chicago water polo coach, Brian Ruiz, pushes his athletes to succeed

Ruiz, a water polo coach, has been working for the Chicago Park District (CPD) since 2002. Ruiz is a former CPD athlete who grew up within the park district.

Ruiz teaches them “not only water polo skills, but life skills” by talking to them one on one. 

Ruiz says that by playing water polo, athletes learn to be respectful, disciplined and courteous. Ruiz's definition of a success story is “a kid that comes in and works hard, doesn’t have the best life, I know I grew up with a lot of kids that were dealt a bad hand, parents, family, where their family members were in gangs. My success story for me would be a kid put into a situation, where he can succeed with minimal help.”

Ruiz spoke about encouraging his athletes to eat right and stay away from Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Many of the challenges with coaching is getting the athletes to keep a healthy diet for not only better performance, but for their own benefit. “The generation now,  parents are more health conscious and are trying to give their kids better food. Better food translates into healthier kids, and into better athletes.”

Ruiz says that growing up and living in the city definitely gave him an edge.
“You have to deal with a lot of elements that are unexpected.”
Ruiz says coaches in the city have to deal with gangs, shootings, and people from different walks of life.
“You have to have thick skin to grow up in the city.” Ruiz says that living in the city gives someone an edge.
“If they can take that edge and translate it into the water positively, then that’s a win for me.” 

Ruiz says the most rewarding aspect to be a coach “would be having the kids use the techniques you teach them and applying them. Just watching the fruits of your labor. But not only that, if you teach them to be respectful... and you see them mature as players, and as human beings.”

Ruiz has many years of coaching experience, has a real-life connection to his athletes, both in and out of the water. Ruiz says he continues to make a difference in the lives of inner-city kids that just want to play water polo.