By JARROD POTTER
A DECADE in to his time as Casey TigerSharks Swimming Club’s head coach Ben Hiddlestone is still striving to reach the next level and push the club even further.
Arriving at the City of Casey based swimming club in December 2004, Hiddlestone from Berwick has become a mainstay in Victorian swimming circles ever since and helped cultivate one of the strongest programs in the state.
He knows a thing or two about coaching longevity having learned the craft under his mentor Miami Swimming Club’s (Queensland) coach Denis Cotterell who is about to notch his 40th year at the club.
From when he started, a club without much state level success let alone international representation, the TigerSharks have blossomed under Hiddlestone’s guidance to now boasts 170 swimmers in its midst from six-year-olds through to Olympic and Commonwealth Games representatives.
Hiddlestone was pleased to accomplish the milestone and see the club develop in both results and membership through the past decade.
“It was really good – it was around December (10 year anniversary) I think it was so just a couple of weeks ago,” Hiddlestone said.
“It’s been great journey, I suppose, and I did feel it was a big milestone and it was a big deal just personally and internally that you stay somewhere for 10 years.
“You also have some results and seeing swimmers grow and your club going through issues and you survive those, so it has a bit of an effect at the end of it.”
The three defining moments that stand out to the TigerSharks coach across his time at the helm have been Matson Lawson earning a place on the London 2012 Olympic Games team – the first TigerShark to make an international senior team – Josh Beaver earning three medals at last year’s Commonwealth Games and the creation of the Casey RACE swimming pool and the effect it is having on the Cranbourne area and its swimmers.
“Putting Matson on the Olympic team – that was a big deal for me as a coach,” Hiddlestone said.
“The second one was Beaver’s results at the Commonwealth Games – his three medals – as he was one of the only kids that were at the club when I got there 10 years ago.
“Then the new pool at Casey RACE – I got there when the old Cranbourne pool next to the racetrack was still going and they built Casey ARC then maybe thinking about building the pool in Cranbourne.
“Getting that up and running three or four years ago that has really changed the club as well.”
The growth of the club has enabled Hiddlestone to stay in the suburbs and not pursue opportunities at one of the inner city clubs and create a program the metropolitan teams would envy.
“As coaches grow, if the Casey TigerSharks didn’t have the lane space for me to have an elite program, I probably would have moved into one of the city clubs,” Hiddlestone said.
“But it just so happens that the work that I’ve done and the club has done has enabled the club to grow at the same rate and can offer a little kiddies program and a big, elite program which allows me to stay and grow here as well.”
The future for Hiddlestone is to keep pushing the next generation of Australian elite swimmers through and hopefully generate enough international success to enable the Casey TigerSharks to become a Swimming Australia Podium centre – the highest funding and support level from the national body.
For now it’s back to the pool-deck for early sessions as Hiddlestone and the TigerSharks prepare for the Swimming Victoria Open Championships which are to be held at MSAC from 16 to 18 January.
