Welcome to AquaTex Swim Team!

After coaching with Lone Star Aquatic Club for the past 10 years, I now have the opportunity to restart my own team. Many events over the past year have led to this opportunity and I am now eager to get swimmers into the pool under the AquaTex banner.

Ten years ago, I ran AquaTex, a Masters/Developmental kid's team at St. Edwards University in Austin. This was a very successful team with 150 swimmers that I owned and ran for 10 years. Living in Round Rock, the 22-minute commute when I first started at St. Ed's was changing to 45-60 minutes, due to traffic. At that time, LSAC moved into the Micki Krebsbach Pool and I contacted LSAC's then head coach, Jann Girard, about starting up a Master's group that would train in the morning. Jann liked the idea, presented it to the board, and we moved forward from there. The first year of morning masters, we had about 6 swimmers attend practices for the first month or so. After that, I had one swimmer that stuck it out throughout the entire season. I would stand or sit on deck, coaching Huddie Murray, for the entire season! By the start of the next season, we had around 30-40 masters swimmers!

I decided to ask Jann if she could use my help in the evenings, she said yes, and I turned AquaTex over to a group of swimmers that had trained for me for years, to continue running, and started focusing solely on LSAC. LSAC was starting to grow, and the board at the time decided to invest in a full-time head coach. I really enjoyed the following 8 years. LSAC grew tremendously. We went from approximately 120 swimmers to over 250 within 2 years.

As I leave LSAC to restart AquaTex, I want to provide an environment where the swimmers experience a large dose of positive reinforcement mixed with an occasional push out of their comfort zone. Experiences going beyond the pool, with trips to places like the Olympic Training Center, out of town trips for college visits, and the bonding experiences that occur when kids travel together.

Structured so parents pay one monthly fee, without trying to figure out payment schematics, and worrying whether volunteering will affect their bill.

I look forward to many years of working with our community's kids, their parents, being involved in their lives, to have a positive impact, and be someone they remember for the rest of their lives.

Coach Mark
email: mparshal@swbell.net