NOVA Aquatics celebrates founder Brown as he exits Richmond region

While reflecting on his decades long career as a swim coach and founder of NOVA of Virginia Aquatics, Geoff Brown noted that the mark of a great coach is his ability to learn.

“A great deal of it is just a willingness to be humble enough to realize there's a lot that you need to learn,” Brown said. “I've changed what I've done over the years simply from learning and being open to some new experiences. You have to be very open because you learn from every good swimmer.”

Brown identified the key to coaching as being not just the conversation between coach and athlete, but the conversation that athletes have with themselves.

“You have to be humble enough to understand that the second conversation is more important, and you can’t try to squash that by overdirecting them,” Brown said.

This coaching style has gained Brown significant acclaim as a coach, including being named Virginia Senior Coach of the Year 10 times, NCSA Coach of the Year four times, USA Swimming Developmental coach of the Year in 2012 and the Team USA coach for the 2015 Junior World Championships in Singapore.

Brown’s career with NOVA will come to an end next month; he and his wife, Lisa, are moving to South Carolina, where they will continue teaching swimming, just on a smaller level. NOVA hosted a celebration and send-off event July 19 at the organization’s facility at Regency for the Browns, ahead of their official last day Aug. 31.

For Keira Reid, Brown’s coaching is what helped her take her swimming to the next level.

“Geoff gave me confidence and worked with me everyday,” Reid said. “He has definitely been my No. 1 supporter and was determined to help me reach my goals.”

Whitney Wallin along with both of her sisters swam with Brown for many years throughout high school and college and acknowledged that Brown’s impact on swimmers goes beyond the pool.

“He not only helps kids become great swimmers but also develop character and puts emphasis on discipline and hard work,” Wallin said. “When you swim for Geoff ,he can push you to be your best, and he certainly pushed me to be my best.”

Wallin said she has enjoyed continuing the family tradition of swimming at NOVA and watching her own children swim with Brown.

“Geoff built NOVA to be what it is today and it’s more than just one team itself, it’s a family,” Wallin said. “For us, just the committee community of people there that guided us through childhood, teenage years, college years and now my kids are back. Just a really great thing to be a part of.”

Though Brown has helped several swimmers make a splash on the international stage – like 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist Townley Haas, 2019 Pan American Games Gold Medalist Charlie Swanson and Kerry O’Hanlon, who won a USA National Title in 1992 – he is always honored just to be part of the process.

“I’m amazed to be on the journey. There’s a real sense of humbleness, I go ‘Wow, I was there,’” Brown said. “It’s amazing to watch an eight-year-old master a stroke, and it’s not that much different watching someone make an Olympic game.  They seem like companion pieces to me.”

While watching swimmers he has coached succeed on any level is always fun, Brown’s favorite part of coaching is the ability to help guide the younger generation to make better decisions and navigate growing up.

The best thing for any coach or teacher to do is expand their mind, according to Brown. But he emphasized it’s also important to reach for a variety of sources no matter what sport or topic an individual is teaching.

“To me, it’s like you better read Madame Bovary because you might be coaching her someday,” Brown said. “Educate yourself, don’t stay where you are. Read as widely and strangely as you can.”

After coaching swimming at the Tuckahoe YMCA for more than a decade, Brown was inspired by the YMCA’s servant-oriented leadership and his passion for coaching to form NOVA of Virginia Aquatics.

“Competitive swimming was something I thought was a vehicle that would keep children goal-oriented. So, it was an outgrowth of the natural mission of the YMCA,” Brown said.

Since its founding, Brown and his wife helped NOVA of Virginia Aquatics expand to have two aquatics centers in the Richmond region and expand the lesson program to more than 1,500 year-round swimmers. Under Brown’s leadership, NOVA has also been recognized as a Top more than USA Swimming organization since 2003 and succeeded in several state, national and international championships.

Following their move to South Carolina, Brown also hopes to release a book he has written about swimming.

But no matter where their next adventure takes them, NOVA will always be a special place for the Browns.

“I've been blessed to have been coaching all the summers and with all the families that we were able to meet and whose lives it intersected ours,” Brown said. “We feel robust that it was a unique and wonderful opportunity.”