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Elkins resident, John Schmidt, has a 30 year history in the sport of competitive swimming. His swimming career started at the age of eleven while competing for his local YWCA in New York State. According to John, he didn’t start taking swimming seriously until age thirteen, when he had the opportunity to swim on the Reston-Tok Swim Team out of Reston, Virginia under renowned swim coach, Tok Kurosaka. From there, John swam for Herndon High School, while in Virginia; and Wilton High School, Wilton, Connecticut later on in high school.
John had his first chance to coach in 1975 as the Assistant Coach at the Wilton YMCA and as the Head Coach for the Wilton Summer Team. In 1975, he also made the swim team at Virginia Tech as a recruited walk-on. By his sophomore year, John earned a swimming scholarship at Virginia Tech earning three Varsity Letters and breaking the team record for Men’s 200 Meter Breast stroke his junior year.
From 1976 through 1979 John was the Head Coach of the Ridgewood Country Club Swim Team in Danbury, Connecticut. He had an amazing record of only three losses within a four-year period.
After graduating from Virginia Tech, John became a Graduate Assistant in Swimming at VT 1979 – 80, but then left the sport for a brief time to pursue a career and start a family. He came back to the sport as an Assistant Coach for the Elkins Otters at the team's inception in 2000. The 2008 swim season actually marks this fifth season as Head Coach and tenth season with the team.
The 2004 season was the first time that the Elkins Otters won the enviable First Place Team Award at the Stealey Invitational -- an end-of-season event that has been giving teams bragging rights for the past 25-30 years. The Elkins Otters took First Place honors at the 2007 and 2008 and went undefeated in all competitions in 2008. They hope to three-peat at Stealey in 2009.