The local swimming network played a key role in landing a new head coach for the Aberdeen Swim Club.

Darien Street is taking over the program after moving to the Hub City from College Station, Texas.

Interestingly enough, Street found out about the job opening after bumping into Northern State Swim and Dive coach Kaden Huntrods, who happened to be at an Aggies swim camp at Texas A&M. Huntrods told him about a position that was open clear across the country. Street was interested and now finds himself coaching in a spot he had never envisioned before.

Street said if somebody would have told him that he would end up being a coach in Aberdeen, “It would have been I don’t know how that would have happened, but OK, cool I guess,” Street said. “Now we’re here and now I’m excited. I’m ready for this next step and adventure. I want to help this team get even better as we go on.”

The 26-year-old said he has spent his entire life in the water, from a young boy as a swim club member to a college swimmer for two years. He’s even assisted Marines in helping them to finish their swim call.

He is looking forward to helping the Stingrays to develop and enjoy their experience in the pool.

“The fact that I can watch kids grow and almost find an amazement for the sport,” Street said. “It’s different between kids having fun in a swimming pool and kids having fun in the sport of swimming. It’s a different type of enjoyment, and it’s fun allowing kids to find that enjoyment and watching them flourish.”

Street said while he has his own coaching style, he is not going to come in and turn everything upside down as he takes over the program.

“I’m coming in starting new. I’d like to keep the stuff that works, and the stuff that doesn’t work gradually change. I came in and let everyone know that it was not going to be a 360 flip,” Street said. “It was going to be a slow burn in the aspect that we were going to gradually change things and make sure that everyone was on the same page. Transparency is a big thing on my mind.”

Street said that he is aware of the rich history of the ASC program, with several swimmers in recent years not only swimming collegiately, but also competing in the U.S. Olympic Trials.

“I have been brought up to speed a little bit about how high tier some of the swimmers that have come through the Stingrays have been,” Street said. “My goal is to keep going in that direction, but also to help the kids that might not be there yet, trying to get them up to the tier where we can get them where they want to be.”

Naturally, Street will work with swimmers of all ages and skill sets. He will attempt to help each one to accomplish specific goals in the pool.

“It’s definitely always a learning curve when you change locations, when you change groups and ages. You have kids that are from prepubescent all the way up to about to start college, and there are all different mindsets, attitudes and reactions,” Street said. “It’s an interesting sport to where your body changes your actual stroke as you grow older. It’s not difficult, it’s more of just rolling with punches and understanding that’s there’s always going to be a change happening.”

Street plans to gets back to the basics and work with each swimmer before becoming consumed with times and results.

“Overall, we’re going to be focusing actually on more technique than anything. In the grand scheme of things, my focus right now is not actually time-result based, it is getting back to the functionality, to the basics of swimming, all the technique, all the streamline stuff, dolphin kicks, just the baseline,” Street said. “Once I get that to where I want it to be, then we will hard send it straight to the results base.”

Street plans on enjoying the journey of working with the Stingrays and helping them to get to their desired location along the way.

“I’m just excited to be here,” Street said, “and I’m ready to work with the kids and help them get to the next step in their lives, and figure out what they want to do.”