Tough coach pushes tenacious swimmer

By Ray Pitz

The Sherwood Gazette, Feb 22, 2010

RECORD HOLDER — Alice Luo had an impressive showing in the 2006 Beijing Parlympics. Three months ago, she set a world record in Rio.

Ray Pitz / Sherwood Gazette

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When Alice Luo met Sherwood Family YMCA swim Coach Mark Maxwell at the 2004 U.S. Paralympic tryouts in Minneapolis, she was immediately struck by his kindness and the unique way he trained his athletes.

In fact, she liked his coaching style so much that Luo visited Sherwood two years later, spending a couple of weeks training with him. She returned on a permanent basis in 2008 just before the Paralympic games in Beijing.

“He’s a very good coach, (an) awesome coach,” said Luo.

Still, for the 42-year-old Luo, who was a competivie swimmer in Taiwan before being paralyzed from the chest down in a freak accident, wished she had been in better shape for Beijing.

“I did really well in Beijing based on (my) short training period,” she said. The Paralympic games are open to athletes with physical disabilities like Luo suffered in 2002.

By his own admission, Maxwell is known for pushing athletes to their limits, challenging them to do their very best.

“We don’t waste a lot of time,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell has been a swim coach since 1977 and has been at the Sherwood YMCA since it opened in 1998. The head swim coach for the Sherwood Family YMCA’s YAWAMA program, he’s worked with disabled swimmers since 1986.

In 1996 and 2000, he was the head swim coach for the U.S. Paralympic Swim Team. In addition to Luo, he help train Aaron Paulson, the former YMCA Teen Center Director who has been to five Paralympic games.

Most days, Luo can be found at the Sherwood Family YMCA, training with the YAWAMA Swim Team, a group of 80 swimmers ranging in age from 6 to 42. She trains up to eight times a week as long as two hours each day.

Luo recalled that she only had a had only a very small window of time to get into shape for the Beijing Paralympics where she represented Chinese Tai Pai. Paralympians normally compete four to eight weeks after world Olympic competition, using the same facilities as the athletes at the main games.

Maxwell served as head coach for the Taiwanese team in Beijing

Although Maxwell told her to take a little time off following those games she took a little longer then she should have and wasn’t in the shape she had hoped to be in for her next challenge.

Success comes again

“We decided going into the finals, there was nothing she could lose,” said Maxwell. “The experience gave her a leg up on what she can and can’t do.”

Buoyed by her success, Luo traveled to Rio de Janeiro only three months ago to compete in the IPC World Championships representing her home country of Taiwan.

Everything in Rio was hot, including the pool water, which was uncomfortable to swim in.

Warm water or no, Luo took home a gold medal, setting a new world Paralympic record in the 200-meter Individual Medley. She clocked her best time as well: 4 minutes, 15 seconds.

“She stayed stroke to stroke with the gold medalist from Beijing until the last 10 to 15 yards,” Maxwell pointed out.

Although Maxwell wasn’t there to see her win the medal — he had another engagement with Sherwood YMCA swimmers — Luo said she knew that he would have been proud to see her going all the way against the top eight swimmers from around the world.

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