Long-time swim coach moving on

Andrew Nicholls has been mentoring swimmers in Manawatu for 30 years, but he has a new job at an international school in Singapore. Reporter George Heagney takes a dive into Nicholls' background.

The Nicholls name has been synonymous with producing the fastest swimmers in Manawatu for decades.

Andrew Nicholls and his father, Trevor, are part of the furniture in Manawatu's swimming community, heavily involved in coaching at the Kiwi West Aquatics Club, at West End Aquatics, since the facility was built in the 1990s.

Nicholls has coached from learn-to-swim level up to Olympians, and has acted as a mentor for people who need someone to talk to or a bit of help.

But after a long stint at Kiwi West, he is now heading overseas for a job in Singapore at United World College of South East Asia, a well-resourced international school for primary to secondary school children.

The campus Nicholls is going to has 2500 children and there are 3000 at its other campus.

He is the head of aquatics and will be responsible for all levels and will have seven assistant coaches.

The school has a 10-lane, 50-metre pool, as well as a gym and conditioning trainers.

English club Chelsea is involved in the school's football academy.

There are 400 swimmers and he will be working with a team called the Dragons, who compete in a conference of international schools in Southeast Asia and are undefeated in 10 years.

The school's values include academics, activities, service and personal growth, which resonated with Nicholls.

"They want to make an impact on young people's lives."

Nicholls has been working in a high-performance environment coaching triathlon and swimming since 2007, so this will be a change.

"It's an opportunity for me to learn new things working with a much bigger staff and in a completely new environment," he says.

"The reality is I could probably stay here [at West End] for as long as I wanted. I'm not sure if that's a good way to be.

"The conversation I have with young people is, 'Come up with a goal and challenge yourself.' Me and mum and dad want to see people out on the world stage."

Nicholls finishes at Kiwi West at the end of the month and he expects his last few weeks to be increasingly hard emotionally.

Triathlon coach and former Olympic triathlete Shane Reed takes over as the new coach at Kiwi West on July 1.

"With either my days as a swimmer or Trevor as a coach, we've been at every Manawatu swimming championships since 1978," Nicholls says.

Trevor, who now looks after the Marton and Taihape pools, started coaching at the end of 1985.

"Between him and I, we've got two thirds of Manawatu regional records - either he coached the swimmer or I did," Nicholls says.

He says the club is where the fastest swimmers have come from since 1985.

Before losing its grip on the title this year, Kiwi West had won the Harkess Cup, the trophy awarded to the top club at Manawatu's summer championship events each year, for 34 years in a row.

"I took over 30,000 swimming lessons. If you put that 30,000 half- hour lessons, and that's not included the coaching I've done, it's thousands of hours.

"Now I've got kids of parents I used to coach, second generation. It's a job; it's a great job.

"We get to see young people achieving wonderful things, but also we get to help out when things turn to custard for them," Nicholls says.

His father, Trevor, started coaching in Palmerston North in 1985, originally at the Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School in summer and at the Lido in winter.

He moved the operation to the Lido in 1987, then moved around the corner to what was then a "leaky old pool" at West End School.

The facility they are in now was built in 1995 and Nicholl's initials are carved in the concrete at the bottom of the pool.

His mother, Margaret, started the learn-to-swim school.

Nicholls was a gun swimmer in his heyday before he turned to coaching.

After studying for two years at Massey University, he received a swimming scholarship at the University of Hawaii, where he was for 2 1/2 years before graduating in 1992.

At Hawaii they spent lots of time travelling and competing up and down the United States' east coast.

He was team captain in his last year at Hawaii and his last race in the US was in Las Vegas.

He had opportunities to go to graduate school, but decided he would do what he loved and has been coaching since 1993.

"That was when we were having the Commonwealth Games trials.

I did OK but came to the realisation I wasn't going to make it to the world stage as a swimmer and I started looking around."

He swam at Kiwi West from 1985 to 1990, then was back as a coach from 1993 to 1999.

After a stint at Matamata, he returned to Palmerston North in 2006 and has been head coach since.

Nicholls was a swim coach for triathletes Kris Gemmell, Debbie Tanner and Ryan Sissons, working on campaigns for the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games.

He went to the 2012 London Olympics and went to a pre- Olympics camp in France with Palmerston North's Gemmell before the 2008 games in Beijing.

He also went to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with Sissons, was coach at the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2017, and was head coach for the junior world championships in Budapest in 2019.

Of all the athletes he has worked with over the years, Nicholls points to some of his recent charges as ones that stand out.

Mya Rasmussen, who is now at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, Cameron Blair, Jenna Buchanan and Luan Grobbelaar are memorable stars.

But it hasn't just been people setting good times in the pool who've been notable.

"There are other kids where success looks like something different," Nicholls says.

"There are young men where success for them is to be alive.

"There's a handful of them who have gone through the issues we have with suicide and many horrible things. Success for them has got nothing to do with how fast you can go up and down."

Measuring success in different ways is a value Nicholls says is inherent at his Singapore school.

Nicholls says mental health challenges for young people are different now than years ago, with Covid-19 causing problems, and not everyone could talk to mum and dad, so sometimes a coach helps.

Social media meant instant gratification was a big thing for young people now.

"Swimming is a sport that is all about delayed gratification. If you want to be good in six months, it's about the work you've done five months before."

Coaching had changed too, with people able to look at information online, and there was no need for a coach to be a dictator. It was about working with people, Nicholls says.

"There's no judging in swimming - it's all about time."

CAPTION:

Coach Andrew Nicholls will finish up at the Kiwi West Aquatics Club at the end of the month. DAVID UNWIN/STUFF

Mya Rasmussen is one of the standouts Andrew Nicholls has coached over the years. GETTY IMAGES

Former Olympic triathlete Kris Gemmell is another of Andrew Nicholls' well-known charges. STUFF