Glenn Neufeld

Grew up in Hightstown, New Jersey and swam at the Peddie School.While a student there, he was a member of two National Championship teams where the star swimmers included Olympians Nelson Deibel and Roy Sharpe.His senior year he was the other guy on the medley relay.

Before moving to the Upper Main Line YMCA in 2000, Glenn worked as Head coach and director of aquatics at The Peddie School in New Jersey.While at Peddie he also worked as a college counselor and taught the occasional history class.In the pool, he helped lead the program to an Easterns title and a US Junior National team championship.

Glenn has been the Director of Competitive Aquatics at UMLY for most of the last decade. In 2003-04, he took a sabbatical from UMLY and moved down south and spent a year coaching at the University of Alabama where he coached athletes who competed at the 2004 NCAA Championships, the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials and the 2004 Olympics.

At UMLY Glenn has coached athletes to 24 YMCA National titles, (18 individual and 6 relays) including 4 YMCA National records. UMLY has had 26 top 10 team finishes at YMCA Nationals highlighted by top 5 finishes on six occasions with the teams first ever mens national team championship this past summer.On a national level, he was a member of the USA National team staff from 2001-2004 and has coached a number of USA Swimming National team and Regional camps.

He is a nerd and some of those close to him consider him a professional student. In addition to his BA in Political Science, he has an MA from Virginia Tech and is currently working on another degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

As director of the program at UMLY, he coaches the national group and supervises the coaching staff while overseeing the program as a whole.

   
Kathryn Hallquist

Grew up in a swimming family in Palm Beach, Florida, mom and dad both swam (and met at the pool) at University of Florida. Kathryn swam for four years at the University of Alabama, was an NCAA All-American and competed at the 2004 Olympic Trials. During her sophomore season, Kathryn and Glenn would play an ongoing Trivial Pursuit game on team bus trips.She was in the lead upon his move back to Pennsylvania and has thus accordingly crowned herself current UMLY coaching staff Trivial Pursuit Champion.

Upon completing a degree in Public Relations and English Literature Kathryn moved back to Florida and worked for a season doing PR for Jet Aviation in Palm Beach before moving to a tiny town in North Carolina and taking the Graduate Assistant swimming position at Gardner-Webb University. She coached for two years and has just completed her Masters in English Literature.

At UMLY, Kathryn joined us this winter and serves as the Assistant Competitive Director.She is involved in coaching with various groups through the program and is also working to help the UMLY lessons program so that we can build a better bridge between the competitive and recreational programs.She can often be found in the swim team office during the day and will also be the head coach of the SCCSL UMLY Otters this summer.

Glenn maintains that he was in the lead in the Trivial pursuit contest when he moved back to PA after Olympic Trials in 2004.

Jamie Krull

Jamie has been a member of the UMLY coaching staff for 18 years. He swam at the Upper Main Line Y starting at the age of ten.He graduated locally from Devon Prep and went on to Georgetown University, where he received both his undergraduate and medical degrees. During this time, he helped coach mainly the summer team, although he also was known to help out during academic breaks as well. After graduating from medical school, Jamie completed his residency at Bryn Mawr Hospital and began coaching at UMLY year round during this time. Neither Glenn, nor anyone else, knows when he slept and/or how he accomplished this feat. He currently works as a family doctor in Paoli, where he has been practicing for the last nine years.

He has coached in all levels of the UMLY team family, summer league, minis, juniors, seniors, national group, and pre-national group. He believes in the success and satisfaction that comes with hard work and being part of a team. To him, it's about reaching your individual potential and putting that to work in all areas of your life. "Swimming did not make me a physician, but it helped give me the lessons to succeed and I hope to instill that in every swimmer I work with."

He currently oversees the Pre-National and Senior Red groups of the program.He also coordinates the A teams during the winter season.


Karen Landman

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA she swam at Alleghany YMCA from grade school until high school, then swam at Wilson College. She started coaching at UMLY in 1987 until she and her family moved to North Carolina where she coached in Raleigh from 1993-2001. She came back to Pennsylvania in 2001 and has been at UMLY ever since.

Karens favorite UMLY team memory comes from a Mini Meet: Josh Ziev finally swimming the 25 breast legally at our Mini Meet and getting the thumbs up from the stroke and turn official, Betsy Luminais. When asked what he was going to do next (he was supposed to be getting ready to swim in a relay), Josh said, I want to swim an IM.

Karen has also worked for the past 8 years with the UMLY Otters summer team, the last 3 of those as the head coach. She runs the Minis program at UMLY and heads up the Girls C dual meet team. She also works with Junior Groups and Senior Yellow.


Al Wolstenholme

Al grew up in Coatesville, PA and was a YMCA swimmer.He attended Coatesville Area High School. He swam four years at University of Mary Washington. Al has his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in Kinesiology. He coached collegiate swimming at Penn State and University of South Carolina. Al also worked with Club Wolverine and Olympic coaches Jon Urbanchek and Jim Richardson. He has coached athletes from the entry level to the world class level.

In 2004, he worked as a member of USA Swimmings sport science staff at Olympic Trials. He is one of the leading experts in the swimming community on the threshold system created by Coach Urbanchek and has mentored many a college and age group coach in its use.

He has been a member of the UMLY staff since 2001 and works primarily with the National and Pre-National teams, but has been known to guest coach on request with the junior groups as well.


Jen Watters Bergman

Jen is another long-time member of the UMLY family- swam in the program growing up, lived in Berwyn, and graduated from Episcopal Academy and Middlebury College. She swam and played water polo at Middlebury, and has been coaching since college. She spends her summers coaching at Martins Dam and teaches science at Downingtown Middle School.At UMLY she works with Junior groups and coaches the Girls B Team with Bob McManus.

Away from work and coaching, she tends to spend time with her husband Jeremy who she met while coaching at the YMCA.The Y offered to pitch a tent for the wedding but she opted for Merion instead. What was she thinking?


Guten Tag, mein Name ist Gudrun Graesser.

Better known to all as Coach G, Gudrun has coached various age groups for the past six years.She also works with the summer swim team and the Junior Long Course program. Currently she oversees the Junior Yellow group.Gudrun can also be found on deck with the Minis, Senior Yellow, or with the National Team.

Gudrun grew up in Germany and swam for SSC Karlsruhe.She began coaching there when her children showed an interest in swimming.She finished her nursing degree after working in an assisted living facility and then worked for a few years in an Intensive Care Unit.

The Graesser family moved to Pennsylvania in 2000 and Gudrun lists her favorite UMLY team memory as: when my daughter Sophia got her 500 free national cut at Districts and the whole team was standing around the pool and cheering for her. This memory still gives me goose bumps.


Doug Evans

New to the coaching staff this year, Doug is originally from Bethlehem, PA. Doug swam for Bethlehem Aquatic Club and swam as an intramural sport while studying Biomedical Engineering at Penn State.(He still swims five days a week with Coach Ted, showing up the rest of us, the coaching staff.)Doug also has his Masters in Electrical Engineering, from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Penn State.

When asked for a favorite UMLY team memory, Coach Doug said this: I am new to the UMLY branch team this year but have coached the Lionville branch team for about 10 years. My favorite memory so far is seeing Glenn get the coach of the year award at the 2009 Summer Nationals meet last year which was followed up by seeing the Boys team win the meet and the combined Boys and Girls team placing 3rd. It was great to see the kids, Glenn, Al, Ann, and Jamie achieve this goal.


Bob McManus

Originally from Upper Darby, PA, Bob actually started out in aquatics as a diver, then began swimming summer club in his teens and continued as a swimmer through high school. Bob has a Masters in Information Science from Penn State University, a BS in Management from Rosemont College and an A.A.S Avionics Systems Technology from Community College of the Air Force.Bob lists his favorite UMLY tradition as the Girls B team theme days.He says: The best on was in 2008 when the theme was super heroes.Too much fun!

At UMLY, Bob works with Junior groups and coaches the Girls B Team with Coach Jen.