Sarah Dens has known what she's wanted to do since junior high.
Math teacher. Check.
Swimming coach. Check.
Head high school swimming and diving coach. Check.
The 2010 Brainerd High School graduate was hired in early June to become the co-head coach of the St. Michael-Albertville girls team. It's a perfect situation for Dens, who started teaching advanced mathematics at STMA after graduating from the University of Minnesota Morris in 2014. Her first year she concentrated on teaching. Her second year she became an assistant swim coach for both the boys and girls team.
ADVERTISEMENT
This coming year, Greg Swenson, who has coached the Knights into a top tier team in Section 8-2A, is stepping back leaving room for Dens to take over sooner than even she expected.
---
Sarah Dens
- High School: Brainerd
- College: University of Minnesota, Morris
- Position: Head girls swimming and diving coach at St. Michael-Albertville
---
"When the opportunity knocks you have to take it," Dens said. "(Greg) is finding that his job is becoming much more demanding. He's not a teacher, but an engineer so he's going to stay on at 20 percent and handle a lot of the administrative aspects of the job. That leaves me at 80 percent to do a lot of the coaching."
Dens said her focus in high school and in college was relays and freestyles so she's confident with starts, relay starts and turns. She's also confident in coaching the different strokes. Where she'll rely heavily on Swenson, Brainerd Warriors girls coach Dan Anderson and her college coach and mentor Dave Molesworth is planning a workout schedule for the 12-week season.
"I've planned workouts for summer swimming at Brainerd before," she said. "I can do it, but I've never planned out a 12-week season so that's where I'll work with my former coaches and it's great that I have them to lean on. I've already talked to my college coach when I found out I got the job and I've talked to Dan (Anderson) last year even just to get an idea of what it will be like. I plan on talking to him even more."
Dens is a busy woman as she's taking a trip to Europe and is getting married two days before the start of the season to fellow Brainerd graduate Morgan Salo. She's excited for the opportunity and nervous.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I knew in junior high I wanted to be a math teacher," said Dens. "And when I started swimming I knew right away this was what I also wanted to do. I wanted to be a swim coach. To have them both happen and happen so quickly is very lucky. But I know expectations are high here. St. Michael has been section champs before. And in that regard it's very exciting to work with so many great athletes. We have some very good swimmers on the team and it will be fun to work with them."
According to Anderson, Dens is one of the first of his former swimmers to become a head coach. While he's happy for her, he's also sad she likely won't help out with his summer camps any more. That and they'll compete against each other for the section title.
"She'll do a great job down there," Anderson said. "She has coached up here with us in the summer time and pretty much took over our afternoon swim program. She's taught semi-private lessons and I've watched her do that. She's a very good teacher. She is someone who I bet is excellent in the classroom also. She knows her stuff. She's a good teacher and I have no doubt she'll do great things down there. She's got a ton of talent to work with."
JEREMY MILLSOP may be reached at 855-5856 or jeremy.millsop@brainerddispatch.com . Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jeremymillsop .
