Coaches and Directors
John began his coaching career with the Briar Village Swim Team, in Houston, Texas. He coached the Briar Village Swim Team for three seasons and served as an Assistant Coach and Head Coach. While in Houston, John also held a position as a Swim Instructor and Assistant Coach at Memorial Athletic Club.
John moved to Fayetteville in 2006 to attend the University of Arkansas. After arriving in Fayetteville, John began working as a Swim Instructor and Assistant Coach at Fayetteville Athletic Club. Upon graduating from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor’s of Science in Recreation and Sports Management, John accepted a role as the Aquatics Director at Fayetteville Athletic Club. As the Aquatics Director, he revitalized the FAC Sharks Swim Team and Learn-to-Swim program. He also went on to serve as the Operations Director for Fayetteville Athletic Club.
In November 2014, John accepted a role as the Head Age-Group Coach for Razorback Aquatic Club AquaHawgs. While with the AquaHawgs, John oversaw the operations of the Age Group Program and primarily coached the Rookie Hawgs and Wild Hawgs. During his tenure, he helped with the recruitment of new athletes and saw the team grow to record numbers. John began working for the City of Benton, Arkansas in March 2017. He served as the Aquatics Specialist and helped open the River Center. He was instrumental in the success of the Benton Sharks Swim Team in their inaugural season. While in Benton, John also worked with the Central Arkansas Swim Club. John returned to Northwest Arkansas as the Head of Development and Team Director in August 2017. While at NWAA, John helped grow the team to over 200 swimmers. In 2019, the NWAA Girls finished 1st at the Arkansas Swimming Long Course Champioships.
John is also extremely proud of his work with the Northwest Arkansas Summer Swim League and excited to be involved with the future success of the league. John was an Arkansas Zone Team coach in 2016, 2018 and 2019. Coach John will be the 2020 Arkansas Zone Team Coordinator and Head Coach. He has also served as the Arkansas Swimming Inc. Technical Planning Chair since October 2016.
Coach Mo is serving his first year with the AquaHawgs as Head Senior Coach. Prior to arriving in Northwest Arkansas with his wife Elisha and two children, Mohamed was the Head Site Coach for Scarlet Aquatics, a USA Swimming Silver Medal Club in New Jersey.
While at Scarlet Aquatics Mohamed was directly responsible for placing athletes on the National Junior Team and is currently a USA-S National Junior Team Coach. For 6 consecutive years (2015-2020) multiple athletes have achieved 18 and under world 100 times. In May 2019 Mohamed was honored to be an attendant and a presenter at USA National Team Coaches Seminar and one year earlier in 2018 he was a presenter at the National Select Camp.
Coach Mo coached different athletes to medal performances at 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Games, 2019 Pan American Games, 2016 European Championships, 2019 Junior European Championships, 2019 Junior World Championships, 2017 US Open, 2018 USA Nationals, 2016/2017/2018 USA Junior Nationals - as well as coaching two athletes to semi-final finishes at the 2016 Olympic Games. He was honored to be a top 50 ASCA Age Group coach of the Year in 2017, 2019, & 2020. His athletes have combined for 5 National Age group records and over 60 NJ LSC records.
He is a graduate of Montclair State University with a degree in Exercise Science and Physical Education. Mohamed Competed for 4 years for Montclair State University where he was captain of the team during his Junior and Senior years.
Jana graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2000. She has been a part of the AquaHawgs organization since 2017. In 2019, Jana took on the position of Team Administrator for the Razorback Aquatic Club. She brings with her over ten years of experience in Early Childhood Education. In 2020, she stepped into the role of HawgStart Director/ Team Administrator. Jana looks forward to combining her experiences and expanding our programs.
Carolyn was the original founder coach of Walmart Swim Club, now known as Northwest Arkansas Aquatics Sharks. Her coaching career began in 1975 when she stepped up to become the coach for the Bentonville Summer Swim Team at Bentonville’s City Pool. Under her coaching, the summer swim program grew from 25 swimmers to 125 in her 9 years of coaching the team. The Bentonville Swim Team was a member of the Tri-State Summer Swim Conference, and under her leadership, she took the team to many first place conference championships. In 1984, she began a year-round United States Swimming program at the Walton Life Fitness Center in Bentonville. She experienced all the growing pains in bringing Walmart Swim Club from its initial membership of about 20 to about 70 when she retired from coaching to become the full-time Aquatics Director at the center in 1994.
Coach Carolyn is new to Northwest Arkansas. She is a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas - Little Rock, where she swam and competed at the Division I level with the Missouri Valley Conference. Carolyn brought in points for the team every year, was team MVP during the 2019-2020 season, and broke three school records during the 2021-2022 season. In her senior season, she was also voted one of the team captains. Her degree is in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in psychology, health sciences, and elementary education.
Carolyn began her career as a coach in high school, where she assisted her club team's 12-and-under program by working as a technique coach. She also worked as a private and group swim lesson instructor, which carried into college. Summer of 2021, Carolyn helped oversee the Trojan Swim Academy's summer group lesson program while managing private lessons of her own.
Currently, she is studying at Northwest Arkansas Community College to become a Physical Therapy Assistant.
Carolyn is the lead Hawgs - Red coach.
Anita has over 40 years of competitive swimming experience. She began her own competitive swim career in 1968 as a member of the Little Rock Dolphins and while an age group swimmer was named the 1980 women’s Arkansas Athlete of the Year for Swimming. Anita proceeded to swim on scholarship as a collegiate All-American at Rice University in Houston, Texas. While building a 20 year career as an Information Technology executive/consultant, Anita continued her swimming participation as Master swimmer, Masters swim coach, and private swim instructor. Upon her professional retirement, Anita and a friend created the Fayetteville Athletic Club Shark swim team. From there, Anita started 7 summer swim teams in Northwest Arkansas and was a founding member of the NWA Summer Swim League. She currently coaches the Mount Sequoyah Marlins and, new this summer, the Wilson Park Wahoos.
Anita is married and has 4 boys who all swam for the RAC/Aquahawgs. She is a 2006 inductee into the Arkansas Swimming Hall of Fame and her family currently sponsors the Heil Mile award given at the annual Hall of Fame banquet. She is a founding member of the Ozark Open Water Swim.
Coach Amanda is new to Northwest Arkansas as she is a New Jersey native. Originally from New Jersey she swam for Scarlet Aquatics at the Bayonne Division under Coach Mo. During her time at Scarlet Aquatics she was a New Jersey Junior Olympic, Eastern Zone, Sectional, Future, Junior National, and TYR Pro Swim Series swimmer. After her time at Scarlet, she went on to swim for a Division 1 program at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Amanda was at LIU Brooklyn for two seasons where she brought in points as well as high placing finishes at both the Eastern College Athletic Conference and Northeast Conference championships.
At the conclusion of her time at LIU Brooklyn she went on to continue her studies at Rutgers University Newark where she recently graduated with a Biology and Psychology degree.
In 2020 she began her coaching career at Scarlet Aquatics Bayonne Division as the Lead Coach for the Senior Prep group. By September 2021 she was also given the opportunity to work with a lesson club program by the name of Swim Stars.
Also, in November 2021 Coach Amanda became the Head Coach for both the Boys and Girls Swim team at Jersey City's McNair High School. Throughout the season the swim team saw a historic regular season. At the Hudson County Championships, both teams placed third overall for the very first time as well as qualified for the State Tournament.
This past Summer Amanda also worked as a camp counselor in New Jersey with the Swim Stars Summer Camp.
Currently, Coach Amanda works as the lead coach for the Varsity Hawgs and assists with the Senior Hawgs.
David Sexton began swimming with the local club team in Tulsa at age 7. A few teams later, he graduated from Swim Tulsa in 1991 and began a Division III swimming career at Hendrix College and finished at Trinity University. After graduation, David was the age group coach for Swim Tulsa for three years. During that time, he was also the head Zone Coach for Oklahoma and assistant Zone coach . His daughters, Ashley and Brianna both swim with the team.
Alayna is a Sophomore at the University of Arkansas. She is currently studying Elementary Education. She began swimming at the age of 7 for the AquaHawgs, and also swam for Rogers High School. She started on staff with the AquaHawgs in 2021 as a summer league coach.
Currently Coach Alayna works with the Boss-Hawgs and is the Head Rookie-Hawg coach.
