Coaches and Directors
Head Coach John Roy has been leading the WAVE swimming
program since his arrival in 2006. Since then, WAVE has grown in
size, sportsmanship, and accomplishment. WAVE has proudly won the
NC Swimming Open Water Championships, placed a number of athletes
on collegiate swim teams, and moved up in the USA Swimming Virtual
Rankings under the leadership of Coach John.
Prior to coming to Raleigh, John was the head coach at Bengal Tiger
Aquatic Club (BTAC) and Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge, LA.
From 1996-2002, Coach John was the head coach of The Baylor School
in Chattanooga, TN. In TN, he earned Tennessee High School
Women’s Coach of the year, was president of the Tennessee
Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association, and chaired the
Southeastern LSC in 2002. In 2001, Coach John was an American Swim
Coaches Association Award of Excellence honoree. He has
coached Olympic Trial Qualifiers, National Finalists, National
Junior Team Members, and Junior National Record holders.
Coach John is a proud graduate and fan of the University of
Tennessee. John is married to Nancy , they have a daughter
Maggie, and son Matthew.
Zach Murray began coaching year-round with New Wave Swim Team in 2008 after 4 summers coaching city league in Greensboro. In 2015 he moved to Nashville with his wife and coached for Nashville Aquatic Club jump starting their seasonal program. In 2016 he moved to Atlanta and was the head age group coach for Swim Atlanta at Georgia Tech. For the 2016-2017 season he moved back to Raleigh and returned to New Wave for his 7th season with the team at our Optimist location. During his career he has coached all ages and abilities ranging from novice to masters, state/sectional qualifiers, state high point winners, zone team qualifiers, national top 10 and state record holders. While in Raleigh he has continued to support the swimming community coaching TSA teams every summer.
Jonathan Bescher originally started swimming in
Connecticut where he swam for 14 years and helped coach young
swimmers the last couple of years. He then went on to becoming a
Manager at NC State where he was able to watch and talk to many
great coaches and swimmers. He graduated from State in 1998
with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics along with a minor in Computer
Science. Jonathan then started to help coach at the Garner Road
YMCA, where he helped them to 3 straight Division Championships.
Along with coaching at the YMCA, he also became Head Coach at the
Garner Dolphins and his last year helped them go undefeated and win
the Division.
Coach Bescher has beem coaching with WAVE for over 20 years. He has
coached all levels within the team. For the first 5 years he has
worked with the Senior Level swimmers and in 2006 started working
with the Age Group level swimmers. In his time with WAVE, he has
help coach many Junior Olympic swimmers, Sectional swimmers and a
Top-16 Nationally ranked swimmer and relays ranked in the Top-5
Nationally. He also has had four swimmers get High Point
between the NC Short Course and Long Course Age Group
Championships. In 2018 he was an Assistant Manager at the National
Open Water Select Camp. He is currently working with the
Senior swimmers.
In 2022 Jonathan was recently awarded the Phillips 66 Volunteer Award from NC swimming.
He lives in Clayton with his wife Kendra and his dogs. Jonathan and Kendra have a daughter Kaylea.
Bradford Hancock has been a coach for New Wave since moving to Raleigh from Charlotte, NC in May of 2019. Bradford currently coaches the Gold and Pre-Senior groups at the Optimist Park and Springdale locations. As a coach, he puts great emphasis on creating aerobically conditioned and fundamentally improved athletes that are able to take their next steps to the Pre-senior and Senior groups.
He has had success during his first 3 years with New Wave, having 25+ swimmers earn 102 medals at NC Age Group Champs, as well as several Age Group and Southern Zones Champions. His swimmers have qualified/finaled at competitions such as US Para Nationals, Futures, Winter Junior Nationals, Open Water Junior Nationals, NCSA Junior Nationals and Junior World Championships. He has coached his swimmers to 13 state records and over 25 Top-30 rankings nationally. He has been named to the NC Zones team, Select Camp, A-Team Camp and IMX Camp as an assistant coach.
Before coming to New Wave, Bradford was a 4x NCAA National Champion in Division 2 Swimming at Queens University of Charlotte (2015/16/17/18), where he swam the 50 Free, 100 Free and 100 Butterfly. He was a 3x All-American. Bradford graduated from Queens University in 2018 with a B.S. in Biology with a Pre-Med minor. He grew up in Newport News, VA, where he lived with his Mom, Stephanie, his Dad, Mark, and dog/brother Sonny.
Macon Crowder is from the town of Zebulon, NC where he began his swimming career with the Zebulon Dolphins summer league team. He continued swimming for the New Wave Swim Team as well as the YOTA Swim Team. After high school, Coach Macon went on to swim at East Carolina University (GO PIRATES!) where he graduated in 2016 with a B.S. in Sports Studies and minor in business.
Once graduating college, he began coaching for the YOTA Swim Team where he was Site Director and started a new team site for the team at the Ingram YMCA. Macon coached for 3 years for YOTA before moving to the Cayman Islands to become Head Assistant Coach for the Stingray Swim Club. There he had the opportunity to work with multiple Cayman Island National Team members as well as National Jr. Team members. These swimmers went on to break multiple national records and participate in International swim meets such as Island Games, CARIFTA Championships, PAN American Games, and World Championships.
Coach Macon believes in building the all around athlete while teaching and perfecting the art of racing. During his free time he enjoys cycling and spending as much time outdoors as possible!
Jaime Fullerton is an Apex native who returned to Raleigh area in the spring of 2020 after swimming collegiately for four years at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC. During her time at Lenoir-Rhyne, she was a part of the record breaking 200 medley relay, and also specialized in freestyle and butterfly events. She graduated in May 2020 with a B.S in Environmental Science and Policy.
Jaime currently coaches the Bronze group at the Optimist location.
Allison Hendren is a Raleigh native where she began swimming competitively at the age of five for New Wave until graduating high school. After high school, she went on to swim for NC State (GO PACK!!) where she was a sprinter who specialized in the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly. During her senior year, she was a team captain, part of an ACC champion relay, and attended NCAA Division I Championships. She graduated in 2013 with a B.S. in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management with a concentration in Program Management.
Coach Allison joined the New Wave coaching staff in February 2022. She currently coaches the BC group at Optimist and is excited to be a part of the team that made her fall in love with the sport of swimming.
In her free time, she enjoys going to the beach, hiking, and spending time with her dog, Finn.
Marcella Christensen is a newcomer to the Triangle area. She moved from New York where she grew up swimming for the Cornwall Sea Dragons and New York Sharks Aquatics (NYSA). During her time with NYSA, she qualified and competed in multiple bronze and silver championships.
She attended Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY where she swam as a dolphin all four years (‘Phins Up!), graduating in 2022 with a B.A. in Cybersecurity and a minor in Risk Management. While at Le Moyne, she specialized in distance freestyle and volunteered her time to teach adults and children with disabilities how to swim.
Coach Marcella wants to use her passion for swimming to help further develop swimmers’ technique and swimming knowledge to help them reach their goals and feel confident during competition.
Laura Goodwin has been coaching for Wave since 2020, when her Masters and Winter Imps groups merged with Wave, and she is currently coaching the Varsity group at CSC as well. She has been coaching since she was 12, heading up her own groups starting in 2003. Some of her focuses are stroke and technique and helping swimmers of all ages and ability levels reach their goals.
Sam Scharf grew up swimming for Team Suffolk Swim Club on Long Island, NY. She went on to swim at the club level at the University of Delaware where she graduated with degrees in Cognitive Science and Linguistics. She also earned a Doctorate in Audiology for UNC Chapel Hill.
Coach Sam moved to North Carolina in 2017 and began coaching at the age group level for the YOTA Swim Team. She joined the coaching staff at Wave in 2022 and currently coaches the Beginning Competitive group at Cary Swim Club.
Kendra has been coaching with WAVE for over 10 years. She coaches Beginning Compettive group at NRCA. She has coached with Garner Road Y and ran the lesson program at the Finley YMCA for many years. While at the Y, she started the Finley Fliers team. Kendra currently is the Aquatics director at HealthQuest in Smithfield. She is also a certified cpr, lifeguard and first aid instructor through the American Red Cross.
She lives in Clayton, NC with her husband Jonathan. Kendra and Jonathan have a daughter Kaylea.
Daniel Baldwin started swimming competitively for his
neighborhood swim team when he was 5 years old. His time swimming
for his summer league team introduced him to year-round swimming,
specifically New Wave Swim Team. Daniel swam on Wave for over a
decade from age 8 until he graduated High School in 2020. After he
graduated, he attended Gardner-Webb University for 2 years.
While as a student-athlete for their swim team, they won a
conference championship his freshman year. After those two years,
Daniel decided to call it quits and put a finish to his swim
career.
Daniel is currently a student at NC State University where he is
studying Meteorology with a minor in Computer Programming. This is
his first season coaching for Wave and looks forward to working
with the Varsity and BC groups.
