Meet the Coaches

Our head coach is Brandi Bashor. You can reach Brandi here.

Coach Brandi Bashor

brandi.jpg

Brandi was born in Southern California. She has coached swimming for over 20 years and enjoys working with swimmers of every age and ability. Brandi has coached beginner swimmers and triathletes, Olympic Trial qualifiers, Masters National Record holders and every level in between! Brandi enjoys helping athletes learn to enjoy swimming, enjoy challenging themselves and enjoy using the camaraderie of Masters Swimming to add to their enjoyment of life!
You can reach Brandi [here].


Ben Fitch

Ben

Ben was born in Phoenix, Arizona, where he competed for Sun Devil Aquatics and Mesa Aquatic Club. He moved to Washington, D.C. to attend college at George Washington University, where he competed for 4 years with the Varsity Men's Swimming and Diving Program (2013 - 2017). During his collegiate career, Ben competed for several school-record breaking relays, and was a part of the 2016-2017 Atlantic 10 Conference championship winning team - a first in program history. He also holds all time top 10 performances in the 200 freestyle, 100 butterfly, and 200 butterfly. Ben moved to Buffalo in January 2018 to join NRG Business Solutions as an analyst, and is excited to share his passion for swimming with Nickel City Masters. He especially enjoys working 1 - on - 1 with masters athletes on technique.


Ted Eimstad

new_ted

Coach Ted has had tremendous success as a Head Age Group Coach in both the Boston & Buffalo areas.

Prior to moving to Buffalo in 2011, Coach Ted was Head Coach of the Bronze Team, Assistant Aquatics Director and a Swim Instructor at Charles River Aquatics in Boston, MA. Additionally, Coach Ted also served as Head Coach of the Boston College Women’s Water Polo team and was awarded North Atlantic Conference Water Polo Coach of the Year in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Coach Ted grew up in Oregon, where he passionately pursued both competitive swimming and water polo. He now shares that enthusiasm and passion with those that he coaches.


Ian Walsh

ian.jpg

Ian Walsh begins his second season as assistant coach at the University at Buffalo.

The former Duquesne swimmer brings four years of division I coaching experience to Buffalo as he spent his first three seasons at Marshall and his last at Cal Berkeley.

In his lone season at Cal Berkeley, Walsh was able to help guide the Golden Bears to a second place finish at the NCAA Championships while also posting four individual national champions and two relay team national champions. The 200 Freestyle Relay and 200 Medley Relay national titles also set NCAA, Meet and U.S. Open records. With Walsh's assistance, the Golden Bears raced to a second place finish in the Pac-12 Championships while also posting five school records throughout the season.

Walsh was also named to the 2017-2018 National Team coaching staff for his assistance with Katie McLaughlin and Abbey Weitzeil during their summer campaign. Both athletes were named to the US National Team, with Weitzeil qualifying for the World Championships representing the USA in Budapest, Hungary.

During his tenure at Marshall, the Thundering Herd broke women's swimming school records 28 times, finished a program-best third at the Conference USA Championships in February 2016 and produced four individual conference champions. Walsh primarily worked with the sprinters and middle-distance swimmers and served as the recruiting coordinator at Marshall. In 2015, the program was named one of the top 16 most improved teams at the NCAA Division I level and, in the fall of 2014, sported a fall team GPA of 3.53, which ranked as the fifth-highest in the country among women's swimming teams.


Jennifer Adams

jennifer.jpeg

Jennifer is from the WNY area and swam for the North Tonawanda Lumberjacks before taking up cross-country running while in high school. She didn’t get back into swimming until leg injuries from running had her sidelined. She has participated in various swim clinics working on her freestyle stroke and open water swim technique. In 2014, she added biking into her rotation and completed her first ever triathlon. She was the 2014 Score –This Sprint Distance Series 2ndPlace winner in her gender / age group, and the 2015 Score – This Intermediate Distance Series 3rdPlace winner in her gender / age. In 2016, she was the Ironman Lake Placid Triathlon Feature Athlete and finished comfortably in 15 hours 9 minutes. Jennifer enjoys working with those that are new to the sport, as well as those who are looking to build their confidence in swimming. Jennifer especially likes to work with triathletes and any swimmers that are interested in the sport. She has two daughters that have a love of swimming and are on a local swim club. She is also a USA Swimming Stroke & Turn Official and can be found on deck working local youth swim meets that her children are participating in. Jennifer was officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2000 and has not let the disease define, limit, or stop her from doing what she loves.


Beloved previous assistant coaches

Coach Charles Barry

Charles was born in Westchester, New York to his parents Steve and Heather. He attended Iona Preparatory High School and then moved on to the University at Buffalo where he received a degree in Communications. Charles began swimming at the age of six. He has attended many Nationals, Junior Nationals, and State Championships during his swimming career. He was a four-year member of the Men's Swimming and Diving program at Buffalo from 2013-2017. He has loved swimming since a young age and this love for the sport has continued over into coaching. While at Buffalo he has been a part of many camps and clinics and believes that coaching is what he wants to do in the future.
charlesberry.jpg

Coach Brittney Walters

Brittney was born in Elkhart, Indiana. She attended Northridge High School where she swam club for Northridge Area Swimming Association (NASA) and for the high school as well. With Northridge she won an Indiana state title in the 500 freestyle and broke 3 individual school records during her time. After high school, Brittney went to UB where she was on the swim team and broke the 200 fly record during her career, and had top-8 finishes at MACS. She got her Bachelor's in Exercise Science while at UB and will be studying to be a Doctor of Chiropractic at D'Youville starting this fall. She also coaches the youngest group for STAR Swimming based in Buffalo.

brittneywalters.jpg
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License