Jack Roach Honored With Prestigious USA Swimming Award
This week, USA Swimming honored longtime coach Jack Roach with the annual USA Swimming Award. Roach has coached at various club and college destinations for more than 50 years, and he served as USA Swimming National Junior Team Director beginning in 2008. Roach served as a consultant with USA Swimming through the 2016 Olympics before finishing his coaching career at Tide Swimming in Virginia.
The award, considered the organization’s highest honor, has been given since 1981 to an individual with “exceptional financial, material or service contributions to the sport of swimming and to the USA Swimming organization.” Past winners select the honor, choosing candidates “who have made the greatest impact on swimming.” The popular Roach, who provided guidance for many of the top U.S. swimmers over the past few decades, was an obvious candidate for the honor.
“I don’t have words for what it means. When you go back and look at the recipients and know that they’re the people who decide who gets the award, I’m speechless,” Roach said. “In my mind, I have a 10-year relationship with almost every single National Junior Team member and National Team member.”
Seven-time Olympic medalist backstroker Aaron Peirsol introduced Roach at the event where he accepted the honor. “I can’t think of, over the past 20 years, where something important happened in my life, Aaron wasn’t there to share it,” Roach said. “We spent a lot of time together.”
Recent recipients of the USA Swimming award have included Dale Neuburger, Eddie Reese and Mike Unger.
Roach began his coaching career working with various teams in South Florida before a long tenure at Mission Bay Aquatics. For a decade, he was the assistant coach of the Texas women’s team, winning two national titles during that span, and he was also head coach of Texas Aquatics during that time. After several years coaching in Mexico, he returned to the U.S. to implement the junior team structure that has played a key role in the development of numerous Olympic champions. Before embarking on his coaching journey, Roach served in the U.S. Marine Corps and spent time in Vietnam.