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Rayborn leaves Aqua Racers after 15 years of coaching
BY JOSH DAVIS, Special to the Leader
Few people get to leave their trade at the top of their game. Just ask Brett Favre. Even fewer can say they are doing so as a cancer survivor. Carrollton Aqua Racers head coach Kathi Rayborn can say both of those things.
Rayborn will be leaving the team this season after 15 years as coach, and this year is fielding the her most successful. Last year, the team sent 66 swimmers in 47 events (mostly relays) to the Texas Amateur Federation Games of Texas.
This year 66 swimmers, once again will be competing, but they will be participating in more 70 events.
The success and participation of the program has grown under Rayborn, but according to the parents involved with the program what sets her apart is her personal touch.
“My daughter (Mary Lee) joined the team (four years ago) because we wanted to be on a larger team with more opportunity to be competitive,” Aqua Racers board member Mary Beth Rock said. “One of the concerns we had going to the team was that it had 250 kids on it. The first year, we realized quickly that even though it was a large team, it had a very small-team feel and most of that was due to the fact that the head coach, Kathi, every year she knew every child by name and made them each feel special.”
Rayborn became familiar with each athlete from an early age due to her coaching technique. The program runs from ages five to 18, and the team even has a few adult members who race in meets, and most years Rayborn chooses to work with the newer swimmers and let Warren coach the more accomplished veterans. This year Warren worked with the younger children to begin making his mark on the team while Rayborn worked with the veterans. The results have spoken for themselves this year.
Coming out each year and getting teenagers to show up for summer practices at six in the morning is difficult enough, but in 2005 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Rather than taking a leave of absence from her coaching duties, she came to depend on her team more than ever before. Some of her favorite moments as a coach came that year.
At the 2006 state meet, her team wore yellow shirts that said “SwimStrong,” a take-off of Lance Armstrong’s “LiveStrong” brand as a tribute to their coach.
“There were four boys who were just graduating from high school that year, that I’d had ever since they were five years old,” Rayborn said, holding back tears. “And they got up on the block with their swim caps that said ‘SwimStrong’ and really loud they shouted out my name [before the race] and they said it was for me, and they won.”
She said she has learned more from the kids she coaches in her years as Aqua Racers coach than they have learned from her.
This season, Rayborn tried to keep her upcoming departure under wraps from the swimmers on the team, to keep morale high. She is moving to Colorado to assist her elderly mother and didn’t want her athletes to think about it all year.
Sunday at the team held its annual picnic Rayborn found out that someone had told the team. They gave her a charm bracelet, and every single child on the team bought a charm to be added to it.
Fittingly, many small tokens from her swimmers appear much bigger when viewed as a whole.
“It’s huge!” Rayborn said. “In fact, I’m going to wear it to state this weekend.”
She will be coaching the Aqua Racers for the final time this weekend and she expects the team to have its best performance in her 15 years of coaching the team. If they do, she will leave truly at the top of her game.
It would be a story-book exit, but Rayborn likely isn’t too concerned about the number of winners. She has always preferred to work with the new swimmers anyways.
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