Meet Our Coaches
| Bob Herlinger -
Bob has over 32 years of coaching experience. He has coached many levels of swimmers, ranging from developmental to Olympic Trial Qualifiers. He has coached 28 individual swimmers to 95 Top 16 times, 121 Top 16 relays, 70 Junior National qualifiers, 10 Senior National Swimmers, 1 National Junior team swimmer who also was ranked 25th in the world, and 4 Olympic Trial swimmers. In the summer of 2005, we came in 8th at YMCA Nationals, our best ever finish.
Early in his career, Bob coached high school, YMCA, and numerous summer league teams while leading one to the Maryland State Championships. Following his early success, he coached at the nationally renowned North Baltimore Aquatic Club for 3 years. Next, he became head coach of Lancaster Aquatic Club in Pennsylvania for nine years. He built Lancaster from 70 to 160 swimmers, and the team scored at 13 straight Junior Nationals.
Then, Bob spent 4 years at Dynamo Swim Club out of Atlanta, where he built one of their satellite pools from 80 to 130 swimmers and from 1 Junior National qualifier in 1 event to 6 National qualifiers in 20 events. While at Team Foxjet in Minnesota, 1997-2001, he accomplished 6 consecutive state championships. During the 2000 summer Junior Nationals-West, his girls’ team finished fourth with the team finishing sixth overall. Bob was also named the 1999 Minnesota Senior Coach of the Year.
Head
Age Group Coach - Spotsylvania YMCA -
Mike Clesner swam 16 years with Rockville-Montgomery ST in MD and in college at RIT in Rochester, NY. He coached 4 years with Curl Swim Club, 3 years with the RAYS and 4 years with QDD as well as many years with numerous summer league and high school teams.
Assistant Coach Joey - Joey Hess graduated from the University of Mary Washington in 2004 and is now working on business planning for Stafford County . He swam seven years for the RAYS and four years at college. He has coached RSL for eight years at Fox Point and Lake Wilderness summer teams as well as QDD for one year. Joey has been with us for three years. |
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Bridget Robinson: Bridget graduated from Mary
Washington in 2004 and works in the Geospatial Solutions
Division for Essex Corporation in
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Amanda Wilding - comes to us from Williamsburg, Virginia. Amanda has been involved in the sport of swimming since the age of 4--first as a Windsor Forest Frog, her neighborhood swim team, until the age of seventeen and later she swam with the year round swim programs WAC ( for 2 years)and CGBD (for nine years). After competing on a National level, Amanda received a swim scholarship to the University of Tennessee, where she competed for three years. Overall she has over 20 years experience in this sport. During the summer of 2001, Amanda was the Assistant Coach for the Windsor Forest Frogs and, starting in the summer of 2002 became the Head Coach of the Ford’s Colony Killer Whales. She completed her duties as Head Coach of the Killer Whales in 2006 with a division championship. Amanda has also had experience in the US swimming realm, during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 winter swim season was the assistant age group coach to Typhoon Aquatics in Newport News, Va. |
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Coach Michele - Michele Golles moved from Dearborn , Michigan August 2006 to teach middle school science. She swam year-round for 18 years during which she swam for her high school team and was a 4 year scholarship swimmer for Wayne State University in Detroit . Michele has coached summer league in Michigan and is also Co-Head Coach for Brooke Point High School in Stafford. and a science teacher in Stafford county.
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Michelle -
Coach Michelle Pugh started summer league swimming at
the age of 5 and she continued swimming thru college.
During summer breaks, she was head coach for 3
years in |
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Katie McCluskey Graduated from Shenandoah University in May and majored in Education. Played field hockey all four years while at Shenandoah University. On summers off during college I coached swimming and did swim lessons at the Winchester County Club in Winchester, VA I grew up in Stafford County and swam for QDD, Stingrays and the Quantico Sharks. Work for the Fredericksburg City Public School System @ Hugh Mercer Elementary School. Hope to attend Mary Washington in the spring to start working on Masters in Education. |
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Coach Laura - Laura Pinkerton has spent almost all of my life in the Fredericksburg area. She grew up swimming RSL for the Fredericksburg Country Club, year round with the Stingrays, and high school for James Monroe. Laura has an undergraduate degree in economics and government from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in special education from the University of Mary Washington . While at William and Mary she played four years of varsity golf and coached for the Williamsburg Aquatic Club and Windsor Forest Frogs. Currently Laura teaches science at James Monroe High School and is the varsity swim coach there. During the summers she manages the pool at the Fredericksburg Country Club. Laura has coached for 4 years with the RAYS. |
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Coach Delwyn Jones Delwyn is a former Stingrays swimmer and is eager to give back to an organization that did so much for him growing up. He swam 8 years for the Rays until graduation in 1995 and continued to attend meets until 1999 when his sister graduated. He has coached for Spotswood and Fox Point Swim clubs in the past, as well as the Dahlgren Sharks. Delwyn has many fond memories of the RAYS and has lifelong friends that he met here. He is looking forward to working with such a great team again. He has been an OSP Engineer for the Verizon Fios project for the past four years. |
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Coach Missy - Missy Stockner has been around swimming since she was 8 years old. She began as a year round swimmer with Solotar Swim Team and swam there until her sophomore year in high school. She then swam for the Huntsville Swim Association in Alabama , and for Virginia Tech as a freshman. She has coached summer league teams in the past, beginning when she was in high school, and is enjoying the opportunity to coach Stingrays swimmers. She hopes to not only help them improve in their skill level, but to share with them her passion for swimming. |
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Coach Kate Davis Coach Kate – Kate is a native to Virginia. She was born and raised in Fairfax, VA, attended VCU in Richmond, VA and now lives in Fredericksburg, VA. She grew up with a back yard pool and learned to swim at a very young age; in fact, she learned to swim before walking! Kate swam her first legal lap when she was 3 years old and continued from there. She swam with NVSL, Potomac Valley and later with Curl Burke. Coach Kate brings to the Stingrays over 20 years of swimming experience and skill from multiple years as a coach. Enthusiasm is a huge part of making a team strong. She is eager to jump in with the swimmers, to provide as much support as she can, increase each swimmer’s proficiency, endurance and love for the sport. During the day, Coach Kate works in Annandale, Virginia as an Asset Manager for CB Richard Ellis as well as providing detailed management for a major client on Capitol Hill. She describes her job as “a great place to work, but that’s just it…. It is work. Swimming/coaching is fun”.
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Coach Melissa - – is from Louisiana and was brought to Virginia in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. She started swimming summer league at the age of 6 and began coaching at age 15. When she could no longer swim competitively she continued coaching until she was 21. Melissa lifeguarded for a number of years before entering college and also did some while she attended LSU in Baton Rouge, LA. She has taught many swim lessons, and was also an aquatics director at one of her home town pools in Slidell, LA. In the summer of 2007 she was hired as the head swim coach for the Woodland Wahoo’s in Stafford, VA. When she is not coaching she works part-time in the nursery at the Massad YMCA and is also a stay at home mom. She has never worked with a year round team before and is looking forward to the experience and meeting all of the Stingrays families. |
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