Coach Spotlight Series

You can prepare a palate-pampering dessert in a matter of minutes. But what you can’t do, and sometimes will require time, lots of it, is produce a coach with knowledge, quality, and personable skills that all lead to bringing out the best from an athlete.

Success is a choice. Perfection is another option. The world of coaching can be a delightful jungle of many things and often, a legend is created from years of dedication, commitment, and the ability to make change for the better.

Located in the Lake of the Woods area of Northwestern Ontario, there is a picturesque city that is home to an individual who has made a habit of studying, and then adapting the fine details, of what it takes to become a remarkable coach.

Janet Hyslop is head coach of the Kenora Swimming Sharks and, when she’s not at the Kenora Recreation Centre pool instructing, you’ll find her in front of a classroom teaching French Immersion to elementary students in the Keewatin Patricia District School Board. Maybe, it’s the other way around – education and sport. Then again, they both intertwine.

A Nationally ranked athlete in her youthful days, swimming was also non-existent in Kenora schools, facilities were limited and sound coaching, well, that’s another story. Hyslop did well as a young teen. Her passion for success was through the roof, hoping she would one day make it to the Olympics. All that came to a crushing conclusion. Absent was the support from coaches.

Discouraged, Hyslop’s competitive swim days ended – and it was likely much sooner than she had anticipated. She left the sport very unhappy. A return would eventually come, but this time it would be as a 19-year-old coach. Hyslop points to Martin Gurrin, then new to coaching in Kenora, as the key factor in paving the way for her to test the culture of discipline, literacy, and training.

“I was able to transform my ideas about what swimming could be for an athlete,” said Hyslop. “I could see a positive side to coaching and it was quite refreshing. There was an opportunity to change the system for the better, a different philosophy, and make a significant adjustment to a male dominated field.”

Many youngsters have dreams of becoming a pro athlete, a scientist, a business leader, and many other vastly different professions. Hyslop was no different. She had career aspirations in medicine.

Helping people was important – and still is. So, too, has been enrichening lives through her vociferous and vastly enthusiastic approach to guidance with youngsters in sport. It has always been about working towards improvement and excellence.

“If you are willing to put the work in, and work with your coaches, success can come to any swimmer in Canada,” said Hyslop. “I’m not saying it is easy because there are challenges, and especially so in small clubs, but good things can happen anywhere.”

Hyslop, who spends six days a week at the pool, has a distinct coaching philosophy.

While she has been a frequent recipient of words of encouragement, supported by a strong Board of Directors at the swim club, she’s also quite capable of taking any stinging criticism. For her, in the pool, there is no diversion. It’s about assuredness and certainty.

With the Kenora Swimming Sharks, the club is rebuilding from the interruptions caused by the Covid pandemic. Swimmers are thirsty for knowledge. There is faith in each other and Hyslop, believed to be one of the first female head swim coaches in Northwestern Ontario, has been the guiding light. Having raised a few eyebrows, anyway you look at it, the work is impressive.

Difficult to predict what will come from young swimmers, there is now quite a bit of optimism.

“When I became a coach, I wanted to make a difference – and change the lives of kids for the better,” said Hyslop, now in her third decade of coaching and whose first head coaching journey was in Thunder Bay for 10 years before returning to Kenora. “We needed a club where kids could set goals – and reach them.”

Passion for swimming also runs in her family of five with Gabe Mastromatteo, the oldest of siblings Émilia and Tazio, a name the swim world will hear about for years to come. Gabe, at age 19, is a Canadian champ, has won medals at the World Junior championships and was part of the team that competed at the 2020/21 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. A benefactor of his mother’s coaching, he is now a student at the University of Toronto, and under the tutelage of elite coaches Byron MacDonald and Linda Kiefer.

“My love for the sport of swimming is greater now than maybe ever before,” said Hyslop, who goes by her maiden name. “I have influenced change and I can see it working. While I am impressed and humbled by the support from the Swim Ontario community, there is quite a bit of enjoyment and reward being on the pool deck and getting smiles from six-year old kids.”

A teacher, coach, mother, and advisor, Hyslop is well in control of her passion.

“It’s not just about high performance by swimmers, I’m what I call and ‘everything coach’ by being able to mentor, plan practices for six-year-olds to helping a young man going to the Olympics. It’s quite a thrill and I do love what I do.”

David Grossman is a multi, award-winning communicator and storyteller with a distinguished career in Broadcasting, Journalism and Public Relations in Sport and Government Relations.