Maddie London joins the Hillsdale swim team as an assistant coach.
Courtesy | Hillsdale Athletic Department
The Hillsdale swim team welcomed Maddie London to the team as the new assistant coach at the start of the summer.
London will start her first collegiate coaching job after a five-year career as a Division I swimmer and a two-year career as the head swim coach for Shaler High School in Pittsburgh.
London is replacing former assistant swim coach Alissa Lufkin, who served under head swim coach Kurt Kirner for three years.
“Sometimes you get a gut feeling when you interview people, and we had that with her,” Athletic Director John Tharp said. “I could just tell she was super organized, very disciplined and the thing that came across was she was going to take care of the girls and challenge them.”
London swam for the University of Arkansas from 2019 to 2020, then for the University of Pittsburgh from 2021 to 2024. Both swim programs are in the top 100 Division I women’s swimming programs in the nation.
London also swam in the NCAA Division I Southeastern Conference while attending the University of Arkansas, and in the NCAA Division I Atlantic Coast Conference while attending the University of Pittsburgh — both top-tier conferences.
Her main events included the 200- and 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard freestyle.
Tharp said London’s lack of coaching experience did not harm her chances of getting hired given her background in the collegiate swim world.
“I think she learned a great deal from both of those different experiences she had, and I just feel like they are going to lead her to be a good coach,” Tharp said.
London said she is planning on making a few changes to the team’s practice schedule such as adding an additional lift on Saturday and incorporating injury prevention work into the workouts.
London also said she also has a few new goals for the team, including achieving a collective 3.5 GPA, being in the top two highest GPA performing women’s sports at Hillsdale, and winning GMACs.
“In a nutshell, the aim is all around living the lifestyle of a champion, inside the pool and outside the pool,” London said. “I believe if the swimmers are doing well in the classroom, they will do well in the pool.”
London spoke to all of the swimmers over the summer and has already won over many of them with her enthusiasm and ambition.
“I think she has the right amount of motivation to continue pushing the program forward and push the swimmers toward more accomplishments we know we can achieve like winning GMACs,” Senior Captain Rotem Andegeko said. “We have come short so many times in a row and she has these good ideas and plans to push us over the edge.”
Tharp said Charger athletics wants their swim coaches to foster a sense of excellence around the entire program and give the girls the best experience. Tharp added he believes coach Kirner and London can do that.
“We believe that Charger swimming can continue to get better and better and coach Kirner and London want to continue to push the expectation standards,” Tharp said.
