TAMPA, Fla. — Nearly 40 years after she started the synchronized swim team at the Lakeland Family YMCA, Lorraine Valerino says she is proud to have been able to have a real impact on the lives of the young people she coached over the years.

What You Need To Know

  • Lorraine Valerino got her start in synchronized swimming as a student at Winter Haven High School in the 1970s

  • She started the Flamingo team at the Lakeland YMCA after the sport made its debut at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles

  • Valerino said she is proud of the impact she has had on the hundreds of swimmers she has coached over the decades

  • Valerino says she will continue to coach as long as her health holds up

Valerino, who got her start in synchronized swimming as a student at Winter Haven High School in the 1970s, said she approached the YMCA about starting a synchronized swimming program in 1984. At the time, leaders at the YMCA didn’t believe there would be enough interest.

But then synchronized swimming made its debut at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and the sport became a hit.

“The next day after the duet competition, the phone was apparently ringing off the hook at the Y,” said Valerino. “The executive director, Alice Slack Collins, called me and said, ‘How quickly can you put a synchronized swimming class together?’”

Valerino got her Flamingo team together right away, and it was competing by the next January. She has coached hundreds of young people and her teams have won championships over the years.

Valerino said she is proud of the influence she has had on her swimmers’ lives, noting that some have gone on to be doctors, lawyers and community leaders.

“The winning is fine and has its place. That’s great," she said. "(But to) be really to be honest with you, those life lessons are really what motivates most coaches."

Valerino still has a passion for stressing the fundamentals and finer points of synchronized swimming, and says she doesn’t have any plans of quitting coaching.

“People ask me that all the time,” she said. “Especially as we are hitting 40 years. To be honest with you, as long as my health holds out, I’m going to try to stay out here on the water.”