High school holds ribbon cutting ceremony for aquatics center

Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, CA held a ribbon cutting ceremony on August 20 to celebrate the grand opening of their sparkling Centers for Arts, Sciences and Aquatics.

The completion of the $21M project, whose planning and fund-raising began more than a decade ago, was the second phase of building projects in the past three years for the school. The football stadium and turf field were the primary phase completed in 2008.

The building complex, built in the center of the campus, will house a science wing, communications department, art and music rooms, space for theater activities and a state-of-the-art aquatic facility.

The aquatic facility includes a pool that is 38 meters by 25 yards and will have the capacity for 17 lanes of swimming. But the unique design of the pool, created by Aquatic Design Group from Carlsbad, CA, will enable several activities to take place at once including swim practice and instruction, water polo practice and diving practice.

The new facility is a boon to the Serra community. Swim coach and Water Polo coach Bob Greene, who will be the Aquatics Director at the pool, beamed about the design and the potential uses for it.

“I’m a Serra grad from 1985 and swam here, and even back then the pool was outdated,” said Greene. “We’ve got more than 900 boys, three water polo teams with 70 boys participating, and three levels of swim teams with nearly 90 boys participating.”

The extra space allows for more participation. It also allows the students to train all at once, rather than having to wait their turn to practice in later hours with their group.

“We have 17 lanes to swim now instead of 8,” explained Greene. “One of the huge benefits of this pool is that our boys are actually able to come to the pool right after school, do their workouts and then go home at a reasonable time. In the past we had to break up the team in multiple groups so kids were getting out of here at 8 o’clock at night. They’re getting home now at 6pm.”

The facility’s multi-use configuration will ensure that is in utilized year round by the Serra students, by the students at their sister schools at Mercy Burlingame and Notre Dame Belmont for both swimming and water polo, and eventually some access to local master’s swimming/water polo programs, summer camps and youth swimming.

“We’ll put the floating bulkhead in next year to help separate the swimming and water polo areas a little more easily,” said Serra Athletic Director Dean Ayoob. “This facility takes us above and beyond what our competitors have and adds a new level of attraction to the school. Not just the pool, but the science center and the arts centers too. Our summer day camps will benefit as well, as they haven’t been able to use the old pool the last three summers.”

The science and arts buildings are wrapped around the pool giving this facility a unique venue. Greene mentioned that he will film the swim meets and the water polo matches from two stories above the water in one of the science rooms. A design that allows students to transition easily from the classroom to their sport is a benefit that both Ayoob and Greene find as important as any.

“We can actually have three programs going on at once,” said Greene of his beautiful facility. “We can have a diving practice, a water polo practice and a swim team all training at the same time.”

Serra’s Greene will conduct swim instruction all summer for local swimmers and have portions of it open for the school’s summer camps. He will also look for opportunities for other groups and organizations to use the facility, but he and Ayoob are adamant that Serra and the sister schools will have priority at the pool.

“We’ll give primary access to our teams, our sister school teams and our summer programs,” said Greene. “And then we’ll look to add a year-round swim club to pay for lane and pool time.”

With a multi-purpose pool like theirs, Serra is actively seeking opportunities to host big events. Greene has several lined-up for this coming school year.

“We want people to use the pool so we’ll host the WCAL (West Catholic Athletic League) water polo championships this fall up to the semifinal rounds,” he said. “In the spring, we’ll host the WCAL boys and girls swim championships and that will be a three day event with more than 1,000 swimmers participating and that’s a big deal for us. And finally, the National Junior Olympics for water polo will have their biggest event of the year right here.”

This aquatics center is a well-planned facility that will reap benefits for the Serra community for years to come. Designed to be the hub of activity for the school, it may well become an important hub of aquatics activity for the San Mateo community in the future.