For the first time in 16 years, Long Beach City College women’s swim team won its first South Coast Conference Championships title, which rightfully earned first-year head coach, Bradley Adamson, the coach of the year award.
LBCC represented three out of the five recipients in the SCC swim and diving awards this year with athletes Atiya Yuwana and Kyle Barrett receiving the Co-Swimmer of the year award as well.
It was able to break Mt. Saint Antonio’s streak of winning four consecutive titles.
“I plan on continuing this. It’s my first year as a head coach, and I just want to really establish ourselves as a championship program,” said Adamson.
Adamson has been coaching the LBCC’s swim team since 2015, but has even deeper roots as he was a student-athlete for the school from 2010 to 2012.
Between 2012 and 2015 he swam at the Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois and started assistant coaching his last year there before returning to Long Beach.
The window of opportunity opened for Adamson to assist coach Dave Costa with water polo and swimming while Coach Oeding was away at the Rio Olympics.
Oeding was serving as the assistant coach for the USA Women’s Water Polo team, when Oeding returned Adamson was able to stay with the team in Long Beach and continue coaching.
Adamson admitted that this position fell into his lap. Without hesitation he knew it was the right choice to stay. “Being here just felt like home,” Adamson said.
Adamson grew up here and has hometown ties which is why he carries the love and compassion it takes to continue to raise the bar for LBCC’s aquatics program.
He reveals that the team bonding amongst the athletes is nothing short of solid and connected.
Being able to work together as a team is vital in rising to the next level and sustaining a team that can be considered top tier and that can take home titles and break records.
Next week the State Championships will take place and Adamson hopes for a strong finish for all of his swimmers.
They are back to training this week to prepare and get ahead with the goal in mind of being able to rest a little leading into the Championships.
One main focus Coach Adamson wants to continue to work on is the visualization for his swimmers. Being able to walk through and picture the event in their mind before competing is something he believes to be a key element in a successful race.