A sign on the tiled wall to the side of the deck features a meme of a girl with an angry expression on her face, her nose scrunched up in a tight crinkle, her mouth drilled into a frown. “I’m tired of this, Nick” the Photoshopped image of the girl reads. Below her, on the other half of the sign, is an image of Coach Nick Parry. “That’s too damn bad!” reads the caption just below his grinning face.
Parry’s style as a swimming coach is perfectly summed up in the sign: he pushes his swimmers to be the best they can and is not looking for excuses. But at the same time, Parry is able to joke and have fun with his team thanks to the solid rapport he – and his assistant coach Josh May – have built with the girls who make up West Chicago Community High School’s coop swim team.
He is “humorous at times, and other times stern” junior JV swimmer Tessa Banasiak said.
On top of Parry serving as the Athletic Director at WCCHS, he is also the head girls’ swim coach. There are many tasks Parry oversees within a day, but for today’s purposes, it is coaching the team at the Wildcat Championship Invite.
Here is the West Chicago Community High School’s swimming pool, a 25-yard lap pool just hours away from seeing one of the biggest events that it will host all year. Many schools have been invited, including Lake Park, Plainfield, Wheaton, Glenbard North/East and South/West, and most importantly, WEGO’s coop team, coached by Parry and May.
Prior to the meet, Parry inserts the Colorado timing system touchpads, which serve as the main system for tracking swimmers’ time at the end of each lap. The time is then sent to the scoreboard, situated on the wall above the deepest end of the pool.
Preparing for a swim meet requires a lot of effort, and a crucial part of the meet is definitely timing. The Colorado system allows swimmers to see how fast they swam, as well as how well they place and the points they earn.
Many things help swimmers improve, but nothing is as great a tool as time tracking. Parry holds a stopwatch of his own at most meets to get a better handle on his swimmers’ times to help them improve. This is one of the many different types of timers; a few other systems include the aforementioned touchpad system, the “plunger”, which is a single-click button, and of course, a manual stopwatch.
Feedback from coaches is crucial in sports, and Parry provides plenty. He likes to speak to his swimmers following their events, including sophomore Claire Conklin after swimming the 50-yard freestyle.
Later in the meet, Parry is spotted talking to senior swimmer Cora Garling about her 200 Individual Medley event.
“He’ll tell me my split times, a give me a few little pointers to work on,” Garling said. “My backstroke was too slow and needs to pick up the pace but my breaststroke looked really strong.”
Parry, as well as May, like to get into the spirit during meets, and perhaps even more so during special events like the Wildcat Championship Invite. Just like the swimmers, they stand along the pool deck cheering for the girls, as in the 500-yard freestyle.
Parry indicates how many laps one of his swimmers has left to go on her race. In some of the longer races, such as the 500-yard ones, it can be challenging for swimmers to keep track of the number of laps they have completed.
Parry “has a large drive to win” Banasiak said.
Ever vigilant, Parry keeps constant tabs on the various heats, measuring swimmers’ progress, and eyeing the competition.
Parry is known for his good sense of humor, and does not seem to mind images of his face being transposed on various signs and toys, such as this Barbie doll.
“One of my teammates, Emma, made it for when the team was split, JV and Varsity,” junior Valeria Villa Villegas said.
