Sports

BSAC Swim Coach Justin Correia Talks Tradition at Casino Night Fundraiser

Justin Correia and his sister, Maritza, set high goals for themselves growing up as Brandon swimmers. She became an Olympian, he returns home to the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center as Blue Wave Swim Team head coach.

Justin and Maritza Correia had two goals in mind when they were young swimmers at the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center. He wanted to go far; she wanted to be an Olympian.

Both dreams came true, with his dream taking a further step with a full-circle trip back home as head swimming coach at the (BSAC).

“I had dreams of being a national qualifier,” Justin Correia said. “My sister wanted to be an Olympian and she actually made it. She reached [her goals] as an Olympian and I made it as national qualifier.”

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Now, Justin Correia is back at home, in the position Peter Banks once held when the Correias were students at the center, founded in 1963 as the family-owned, for-profit Brandon Swim and Tennis Club. The club became a center in 2004, buoyed by a reorganization that established the center’s nonprofit status and more sweeping community mission.

Brandon Patch caught up with Justin Correia, Blue Wave Swim Team head coach, at the hosted by the BSAC at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop on March 5.

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“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Justin Correia said about his lifelong swimming career. “It was kind of a dream I had to be able to come back home [as coach]. It happened a little sooner than I had thought.”

Correia is in charge of the entire swim program, from swimming lessons for novices to elite-level training for Olympian hopefuls.

“We have everything, from beginning to the highly competitive,” he said. And that is unique, "not just in our community but throughout the country,” he said. “The fact I have an opportunity to work with such an organization is amazing.”

Correia said he worked in Temple Terrace, at the Aquatic Club of Temple Terrace, for eight years, worked four more years in Georgia at the Swim Macon Aquatic Club, then came back to work in Brandon.

“I grew up here,” he said.”I graduated from Bloomingdale High School and I went to Burns Middle School.”

As for the March 5 fundraiser, under way as he gave his interview, Correia had nothing but high praise for “seeing people giving back to our facility.”

The Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center “is a Brandon tradition,” Correia added. “To see people support that is great. We can use all the help we can get.”


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