Judge Memorial places 2nd at state swim meet; coach named Girls Coach of the Year, retires

Courtesy photo/JMCHS

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Judge Memorial Bulldogs Allison Witte, Marcela Vasquez, Kaley Banyai and Emileeann Moran claim the state championship in the 200-yard medley relay at BYU.

SALT LAKE CITY — Defending champion Judge Memorial Catholic High School girls swim team placed second in the UHSAA 3A State Championship Tournament at Brigham Young University Feb. 9. The boys’ team placed sixth. Matt Finnigan, Judge Memorial swim coach was named the Utah High School Athletic Association Girls Coach of the Year, and he has decided to retire as coach.

Finnigan was proud of what his teams accomplished this year, he said. "They weren’t full of stars; they worked collectively as a group and did really well," he said. "They were fairly young teams with only a couple of seniors on both teams."

Although swimming is viewed by some as an individual sport, in high school and college it’s classified as a team sport because the team has to work together and "at some point the kids have to learn this to succeed, said Finnigan. "This year the girls’ team illustrated that because our relays really stepped up; for example, our girls’ 200 free relay moved from eighth to third place."

Finnigan has decided to retire as the Judge Memorial swim coach, with a record of leading the girls to nine state championships in the last 11 years. In his career he also was named by the Utah High School Athletic Association and his peers as Boys Coach of the Year in 2007-2008, and the UHSAA Girls’ Coach of the Year in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, as well as this year.

In 2011, the Judge Memorial girls’ swim team under Finnigan’s direction was honored for their success with an official citation at the Utah State Capitol’s House of Representatives.

"There have been some state championships won, we’ve had students get the Most Valuable Player award and other awards, but the ultimate joy has been that these kids move on to college and stay in swimming programs," said Finnigan. "Looking at the list over the last 10 years, it has been pretty impressive. I like the fact that it is a testament to the school, the teachers, and all of us working collectively to empower the kids to achieve and dream big."

Finnigan enjoys getting emails and phone calls from former students. "What is pleasing is the calls from students who had it tough, and I had to keep them on task," he said. "We don’t ask for a lot of fanfare, we just quietly help these kids succeed and get ready for the rest of their life."

For students, swimming is a commitment along with balancing the challenge of advanced placement classes, said Finnigan. "It’s the art of being able to stop in the middle of a swim practice and tell them about what the bigger picture is in life, which is trying to find something inside of them that they didn’t know previously existed and asking for it in order to perform," he said. "They need to step outside their comfort zone and swimming is a great tool for that. They are going back and forth looking at a black line at the bottom of a pool, so I have to engage them in other ways to allow them to find out who they are. Swimming is tough and in a lot of ways it reflects life. They learn persistence, patience, living through a lot of downs in order to engage in two minutes of triumph, and then they go on. That allows me to say I know why I’ve done this for this long and it’s a testament to all the tools my coach, Kevin Perry, gave me. I swam for him for six years."

Finnigan grew up swimming at Los Altos Aquatic Club, and then swam for Florida State College.

Perry would always ask Finnigan when he was going to start coaching, he said. "One day nine years ago while attending Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes I answered an ad in the bulletin for a boys swim coach at Judge Memorial. I leaped at the chance, and the rest is history."