Swimming & Diving Promotes T.J. Natal To Assistant Coach
Jun 24, 2011 | Women's Swimming and Diving
June 24, 2011
NEW ORLEANS - The Tulane University women's swimming and diving team completed its coaching staff for the 2011-12 season as former volunteer assistant T.J. Natal was named assistant coach, Green Wave head coach Lena Guarriello announced Friday.
A native of the New Orleans area and a graduate of nearby Archbishop Rummel High School and Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Natal will be responsible for coordinating recruiting, on-deck swimming duties and administrative support. He replaces Jacqueline Fessel, who resigned as assistant coach at the conclusion of the 2010-11 academic year.
"I can't think of a better person than T.J. to help lead our program into this season," Guarriello said. "As our volunteer coach last year, T.J. had the opportunity to really bond with the team and learn all of our little quirks. He has already established a level of mutual respect with the team and is ready to dive right into every aspect of running this program.
"T.J. will take over as director of recruiting - which is a huge task - and he's already making improvements to the system currently in place. T.J. will also handle about half of the on-deck coaching and will contribute his experience in writing and implementing daily training for our 27 swimmers. We're lucky to have T.J. as a part of our staff and are looking forward to having our most successful season to date."
As the team's volunteer assistant last season, Natal helped the Green Wave finish fifth at the Conference USA Women's Swimming & Diving Championships and show a 36.5-point improvement from the previous season. Along the way, he helped sophomore Kayla Alf-Huynh earned All C-USA honors in three events, including posting NCAA provisional qualifying times in the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke.
Prior to joining the Tulane staff, Natal was an assistant coach for the University of New Orleans' men's and women's swimming programs during the 2009-10 season. During that time, Natal was responsible for the strength and conditioning training for all groups of the Privateers' squads. While at UNO, he helped eight swimmers earned NCAA B Cuts, coached a pair of conference champions and had several top eight finishers at the Sun Belt Conference Championship meet.
In addition, Natal has served as head coach of the USS Elmwood Sharks in Harahan, La., since 2006 where he has been in charge of team development, workouts and management, hired assistant coaches, marketed the team and handled all administrative duties for the program. Over the last five years, Natal helped increase membership from 55 swimmers to 125 and most recently opened a satellite location.
After inheriting a team with no section or Junior National qualifiers, he helped 22 individuals qualify for sectionals, coached five high school All-Americans and helped four swimmers qualify for Junior Nationals.
Natal began his coaching career at Jefferson Country Club in 1998 and held the position until 2007. From there, he took over as head coach at Archbishop Chapelle High School in 2007. He also served as an assistant with the Elmwood Sharks from 2004-06.
As a student-athlete, Natal lettered four years at Rummel where he was a four-time all-district honoree and claimed all-state honors on three occasions. He won the state high school titles in the 100 free as a junior in 1998 and both the 50 and 100 free as a senior in 1999. A two-time prep All-American, Natal also swam for the Elmwood Sharks from 1992-99 where he posted six Junior National cuts and one Senior National cut.
After graduating from Rummel in 1999, Natal spent one year at Loyola University before transferring to LSU where he swam for the Tigers from 2001-03. He completed his bachelor's degree in education from Our Lady of Holy Cross College in 2006 and is currently pursuing his MBA from UNO.
Players Mentioned
