New Wave Swim Team • Coaches

Nothing has a greater influence on the quality of children's sports than the excellence of the coach. The New Wave Swim Team coaching staff consists of professionals. They, as members of the American Swimming Coaches Association, have access to the most comprehensive training and certification program for youth coaches of any sport in the United States. Certified coaches in U.S.A. Swimming programs possess training and experience in the physiology and psychology of adolescent development. Our coaching staff provides assurances that the time your children spend in swimming will be quality time.

Head Coach John Roy comes to New Wave after helming the Bengal Tigers Aquatic Club and the Episcopal High School teams in Baton Rouge, La. From 1996-2002, Roy served as the head coach of The Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tenn. Additionally, Roy earned 1997 Tennessee High School Women’s Coach of the Year honors. From 1997-2000, Roy served as the president of the Tennessee Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association and in 2002 he chaired the Southeastern LSC. The 2001 ASCA Award of Excellence honoree has produced multiple National and Olympic Trials qualifiers, coached several state champions and a Junior National record holder. A 1991 graduate of the University of Tennessee, Roy is married to Nancy and they have a seven year old daughter, Maggie.

Says Ralph Crocker, assistant Coach at Auburn, “He is very organized about how he handles his program, his staff, his schedules. He is task oriented at practice. In his interaction with his swimmers, they have a lot of fun, it is a fun-relaxed atmosphere. He gets the work done in an organized fashion and the kids swim fast at the end of it. John gets along with all ages and all backgrounds. We have Will Brandt, a breaststroker from Baylor. He can’t say enough good things about John".

Jonathan Bescher originally started swimming in Connecticut where he swam for 14 years and helped coach young swimmers the last couple of years. He then went on to becoming a Manager at NC State where he was able to watch and talk to many great coaches and swimmers. Jonathan then started to help coach at the Garner Road YMCA, where he helped them to 2 straight Division Championships. Along with coaching at the YMCA, he also became Head Coach at the Garner Dolphins and his last year helped them go undefeated and win the Division.

Coach Bescher is now starting his 7th season with WAVE. He has coached all levels within the team. For the first 5 years he has worked with the Senior Level swimmers and last season started working with the Age Group level swimmers. In his time with WAVE, he has help coach many Junior Olympic swimmers, Sectional swimmers and a Top-16 Nationally ranked swimmer and relays ranked in the Top-5 Nationally.

He lives in Clayton with his wife Kendra and his dogs and cats.

Ed Lower has coached in Raleigh for the past nine years. Over this time he has shown himself to be extremely talented at helping swimmers achieve their goals. He was named National Club Swimming Associations "National Co-Coach Of The Year" in 2004 and the North Carolina Senior Coach of the Year in 2002. Lower has also qualified three senior national swimmers and one Olympic Trials qualifier.

Coach Lower believes in developing the entire swimmer. Lower has his swimmers concentrate on good technique, endurance, speed and power, and he wants his swimmers to improve throughout their swimming careers, he will not burn them out when they are young. He has sent 18 swimmers to swim on scholarship at universities like Davidson, UNC Wilmington, NC State, UNC, Texas, ECU, Naval Academy, Mary Washington, Washington University, TCU and WVU.

Before moving to Raleigh, Coach Lower was a head facility coach for world renowned Curl-Burke Swim Club. He coached for four years with Curl-Burke including in the early 1990’s when he helped coach the Olympic gold medalist and World Record holder in the 200 breaststroke. Coach Lower also coached the breaststroke and sprint IM swimmers at the University of Nebraska, Big 8 Champions, while heading up the swim team’s dry land and lactate analysis programs. He has coached swimmers to many top 16 performances as an age group and a senior coach, and guided master swimmers to World record performances.

Prior to his Curl-Burke coaching stint, he was head coach for 7 years with the Siouxland Sharks, Sioux City, IA, where the team went from 28th to 4th at the state championship in one year; and the Galveston Island Swim Team, Galveston, TX. Lower was head age group coach for 4 years with the Space City Aquatic Team, Clear Lake, TX and for Swim Omaha, Omaha, NE.

Coach Lower graduated from the University of Iowa, where he received a bachelors of Science degree in physical education, teaching, and coaching. He was an NCAA All-America team member for 3 years, and was the U. of Iowa’s team captain his senior year. He finished his swimming career by qualifying for the 1988 Olympic Trials. In 2007 he served on the USA Swimming Zone Select Camp coaching staff. Coach Lower lives in Clayton with his wife Melissa and their two boys Christian and Jesse.

Ryan MacDonald served six years with the United States Marine Corps, then began his coaching career in 1998 with the Oceanside Swim Club in Southern California. Ryan has served as Head Coach of Folsom High School, San Marcos High School, Senior Coach of Dana Point Aquatics, volunteer assist with Sierra Marlins, Head Site Coach with Marlins Of Raleigh and Head Coach & President of Sweetwater Swim Club Inc.

Ryan has a reputation of making an immediate impact on every team he coaches. Ryan has coached 3 North Carolina Junior Olympic Champions, U.S.M.S National 3rd & 4th place finisher, several Age Group Sectional finalists, Zone Team member, NC Select Camp members and dozens of various league and state finalists.

He has served on the 2005 North Carolina Swimming All-Star Zone Team Coaching Staff in Houston, Texas; as well as, served as a presenter at North Carolina’s American Swimming Coaches Association 2005 clinic.

Coach Ryan is a coaching professional, who is certified as a member of the American Swimming Coaches Association and continually stays up with the latest swimming techniques and training strategies. Even though Ryan prides himself on teaching stroke technique, his coaching priority is helping children become mature self-reliant people.

Brandon Reed has been with Wave since April of 2006 and is currently the site director for our Gypsy Divers site. Coach Brandon began his coaching career in 1994 coaching for Mentor High School outside of Cleveland, OH. Since that time coach Brandon spent three more years coaching for Mentor High School and four years coaching with Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin high school including two years as head coach. He was also an assistant coach with University Swim Club for five years where he coached beginning age group to the senior level. Brandon also spent a two years assisting with John Carroll University, near Cleveland, OH.

During his career Brandon has coached several All-Americans, academic All-Americans and many state qualifiers at the high school level. While a high school head coach his athletes broke 11 school records and qualified two individual boys to the state meet for the first time in school history. Brandon has coached swimmers to zone teams, USA sectionals, USA nationals and US Open. Brandon has served on the board of directors for Lake Erie Swimming as technical planning chair and with USA Swimming as a member of the National Education Committee.

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