Andrea FinlayAndrea started swimming with water wings as a little kid before graduating to competitive swimming at age 8. She grew up swimming for Sunnyvale Swim Club and De Anza Cupertino Aquatics. After a long break from competitive swimming, she returned to pool while in graduate school on the east coast and joined Tsunami in 2011 after moving to San Francisco. After swimming with the team for a year, Andrea joined the Tsunami coaching staff. She focuses on sprint workouts and stoke technique, particularly helping newer swimmers establish good habits. She is looking forward to another fun year coaching and representing Tsunami at swim meets!
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Casey CheungWhile in college and grad school, Casey stepped away from competition temporarily but continued swimming for fitness. He took what he learned from structured practices in the past to devise his own sets and workouts. All along, he knew he wanted to get back into swimming competitively and with a team.
Casey found that team with Tsunami, and along with the team, a community. He has met many wonderful people and has had the opportunity to travel to IGLA Championships and Gay Games with teammates. And over the years, Casey has also taken on various roles with the team — as a board member and as a co-chair when Tsunami hosted IGLA in 2003 — before becoming a coach. |
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Dave FroehlichDave began his swimming career in the six-and-under age group while growing up in Hampton, Virginia. After a few years on the summer team, he began swimming on a year round team and began competing in meets with other area teams. Upon moving to California at age ten, Dave joined a year round team, swam on a summer team, and swam competitively through high school where he swam on the varsity team as a Freshman and played water polo all four years. After years of morning and evening workouts, long weekend swim meets and chlorine matted hair, Dave hung his parka up to dry and took seven years off from the pool. He thought he would never swim again until he moved to San Francisco and came to his first Tsunami workout where he was instantly welcomed at practice. The team persuaded him to go to his first IGLA meet in Ft. Lauderdale where he swam his first long distance event and met some great friends from other teams. Dave returned from Florida and continued to swim with Tsunami and has since competed in numerous IGLA meets as well as the Gay Games in Chicago.
Dave tries to challenge his swimmers in the water with both physically and mentally challenging sets so that they are pushed farther or faster than they typically would while swimming on their own. He never creates a workout that he would not swim himself and understands the diversity of the levels of swimmers in the pool and tries to accommodate each lane. Dave can be found swimming with Tsunami during his off nights or trying out other masters workouts throughout the city to learn new coaching techniques and create interesting sets for his practices. |
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Joe DentonJoe is originally from a small town in Alaska, where he cut his teeth on the local pool at the age of 11. Once the love of the water took hold, there was little that got in the way. Joe swam in high school in Alaska and then went on to the University of Washington where he swam with the Huskies (go Dawgs!) with focus on the 400IM, 200 back and mid-distance freestyle events.After college, Joe took an extended break from swimming only returning when he realized there was something missing from his life: chlorine.
Joe’s coaching philosophy is finding ways to keep the swimmers engaged and entertained but challenged with the bonus of not having anyone do a workout he himself hasn’t done (or at least attempted). Specific focus is on technique and efficiency with the goal being swimming smarter, not harder. When not in the pool, Joe spends time with his two golden retrievers, Lyle and Otto, and for some reason has taken up triathlons and tries to find time to cross train for that. |
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Paul FrentsosPaul hails from Ohio and comes from a family of swimmers. Five of the family’s six boys swam in college, and Paul has been swimming competitively since the age of 6. He was a scholarship swimmer for four years at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he swam the 200IM, 400IM, and 200 Butterfly.Paul has been involved in Masters swimming since 1992, and he has earned 45 top-ten Masters swimming times since then. In addition to coaching the Maryland Masters team, Paul was also the Maryland Masters swimmer of the year in 1994. Other accolades include being a Gay Games Gold, Silver, and Bronze medalist in Amsterdam (1998) and in Cleveland (2014); a 10-time IGLA champion; and a former IGLA record holder in the 100 Fly and 400IM (short course meters).
Paul’s favorite moment was his 2nd-place finish at the 1997 Y Masters National Championship in the 200 Medley Relay as he swam the butterfly leg in the relay with his brothers Jerry (backstroke), Matt (breaststroke), and John (freestyle). Paul remembers, “Our mom was in the stands at the Indianapolis Natatorium with a packed house cheering us on, but we missed winning by less than a second! It was a lot of fun to have the announcer make a big deal about it and watch the everyone in the stands cheering us on to try and win. It was very emotional but also so exciting to share that moment with my family.” |
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Robert FeasleyRobert swam for a Division One NCAA program in college - American University in Washington, DC - and was a team captain and multiple-time conference finalist in the Patriot League. His best stroke was (and is, probably still) butterfly. Before coaching for Tsunami, Robert coached for L4Swimming for seven years, beginning while he was still in college to help pay for tuition… and whatever he had planned on weekends.
Robert’s thrilled to work with Tsunami, and brings years of experience competing at the highest levels and coaching swimmers of all ranges from children to Olympians and beyond. Specializing in stroke development and race planning, it’s his creed that he’d never give his swimmers a workout he wouldn’t do himself. Check him out Thursday evenings from 7:15 to 8:45 at Hamilton Recreation Center! |
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Alexandra LeeAlex was dedicated to her summer rec swim team until age 15, when she finally joined a year-round club team, the Piedmont Swim Team. She swam at Amherst College, where her highlight was being on the DIII national-record-setting 800 free relay. She joined her first masters team right after college and set some masters records (SCM: 200 back, 200 free, and 400 free) before taking some time off from swimming. Tsunami is now her sixth masters swim team and she loves finding fellow swimmers wherever she lives! She’s excited to coach and give back to the swimming community that fills a giant chlorine-shaped hole in her life.
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Andrew CunninghamAndrew has a passion for Distance Freestyle and Butterfly! He is originally from Florida and was a Division I swimmer at Clemson University in South Carolina.
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Andrew MartinezAndrew Martinez has spent most of his life in and around the water. He grew up in the east bay, swimming for a variety of teams including Woodlands (summer league), De La Salle (High School), and Terrapins (year-round). While swimming for Seattle University, Andrew also coached a local Masters team, the Orcas. While on summer break from school, Andrew coached the Rudgear Estates summer league team in Walnut Creek. After graduating from college, Andrew coached both youth and Masters programs at the Embarcadero YMCA in San Francisco.
Andrew is currently pursuing his passion of endurance sports and plans to race several Ironman 70.3 events this year (pandemic permitting). Andrew could not be more excited to continue to be on the deck and helping athletes achieve their goals. |
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Gwen Dornan |