USA Swimming Bio:
Born in Gainesville, Florida; Ben had the chance to swim with some of America’s truly great coaches including Randy Reese, Skip Foster, Paul Blair, Gregg Troy, Larry Shofe, Nort Thornton and Mike Bottom. Ben graduated from The Bolles School in 1993 and went on to the University of Florida. He later transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. While in college been co-founded the Oakland Community Pools Project, and the Oakland Undercurrent Swim team. He has been the Head coach and Executive Director since 1997. During that time Ben spent four years as a graduate and volunteer assistant at UC Berkeley, working alongside Nort Thornton and Mike Bottom. Ben has had the opportunity to coach swimmers at the Olympic Trials, world championships, and NCAA championships. Through his work in the city of Oakland he has overseen over 5000 kids learning how to swim. He has a tremendous passion for making the sport of swimming available to people from all walks of life, regardless of class, color, sexual orientation, and gender.