Christine Marie Troilo freely will admit she wasn’t the best swimmer on any of her teams.

Her mark on the sport is what she was able to give to others.

“After my first year teaching, I was approached to coach a summer league. That fall, I applied for the assistant coaching position at Kiski Area,” said Troilo, a 1977 Kiski Area graduate. “I was an OK swimmer, but I knew enough to coach. I coached just a couple years at the YMCA. After that, I was hired as the coach at Kiski Area.”

It was with that first coaching position that Troilo began to make a difference.

She coached the boys’ and girls’ swim programs at Kiski Area from 1984 to ’94. During that time, her teams won three section titles and coached a WPIAL swim champion, a WPIAL diving champion, as well as numerous WPIAL and PIAA finalists.

For her efforts, Troilo will join seven others to be inducted into the Alle-Kiski Sports Hall of Fame during a banquet tonight at the Clarion Hotel in New Kensington.

In 1988, she founded the Cavalier Swim Club as a way to boost the high school team.

“That’s where, at WPIAL and states, you see the top swimmers. I was exposed to that at the high school meets,” Troilo said. “I thought my kids needed to compete year-round.”

The results were almost immediate, as evidenced by the performance of the teams and the attitudes of the individuals.

There is no better example than the creative ways the swimmers improvised transportation to practice, especially for a winter sport with practices at 5 a.m.

“Some would come to practice on snowmobiles,” Troilo said. ” One girl came to practice on a horse.”

Her swimmers have shown their appreciation through the years; Troilo has received two Who’s Who Among American Teachers citations.

At the club level, she has coached numerous US Swimming national finalists. Many of her swimmers have competed collegiately at the Division I and II level.

She also has earned a Certified Level III Coach from the American Swimming Coaches Association, based on the number of national qualifiers that came from her club.

Troilo left the area in 1999 after accepting a teaching job near Rockville, Md. It wasn’t long before she began coaching again.

“At first, I was a little nervous about getting back into coaching,” Troilo said. “I was just shocked that was something that happened.”

She works at the Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club, one of the largest and most successful club teams in the country, training the elite junior group as well as helping with the national training group.

Ironically, she applied for the same two positions she has now when she had graduated college. She was turned down because of a lack of experience.

“Who knew at that time what would have come of it. I thought I’d stop at the pool after work one day,” Troilo said. “(The club) was actually looking for experienced coaches. I was just at the right place at the right time.”

Additional Information:

At a glance

Alle-Kiski Sports Hall of Fame

Induction banquet: 7 p.m. today, Clarion Hotel, New Kensington

Inductees: Ronald Cecil, Steve Earley, Sam Elias, Moses Guin, Gregori Martuccii, Barry Nelson, Garry Nelson and Christine Marie Troilo.

Tickets: Call Al Uskuraitis, 724-727-7259. Cost: $20. No tickets will be sold at the door.

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