Juan Caraveo
Head Coach
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Coach Juan has been involved with
competitive swimming as both a swimmer and a coach for 30 years. He
began swimming in Temple, TX for the Temple Area Swim Club
(TASC.) Coach Juan began his coaching
career with TASC working with the developmental group and assisting
with the high school group.
Juan graduated from
Austin College in Sherman, TX. While at Austin College, Juan also
assisted Head Coach Sig Lawson with recruiting athletes, training
schedules, and developing strength and conditioning
programs.
Juan began his high
school head coaching career in 1998 at La Marque High School
in La Marque, TX. Two years later he transferred to Dickinson
High School. During his tenure as head coach, from
2000-2004, Juan won one district title and had 20
district champions, 80 regional qualifiers, 15 regional
champions, 15 state qualifiers and five state meet
finalists.
In the summer of
2000 Juan and Patty Sweeney shared a vision to bring competitive
swimming to the city of Pearland. They began by starting the
Silverlake Swim Team, currently the Pearland Pirates (PST). PST has
200 swimmers and competes in the Clear Creek Summer Swim League. In
2003 Juan and Patty started Synergy Aquatics Club with 18 swimmers.
Synergy Aquatics has now become Pearland Aquatics (PEAK) and has
grown to more than 200 swimmers. To complete the swimming
pyramid, Juan opened the Pearland Swim Academy in the spring of
2007.
Juan has been a member of USA Swimming for more
than 20 years and is an ASCA level 3 coach. He has coached
LSC champions, TAGS champions, Texas Age Group record holders and
National Top Tens. Juan was also a Zone Select Camp Coach in 2011,
Texas Elite Camp Coach in 2011 and a member of the 2012 National
Diversity Select Camp staff.
John T Burke
Assistant Coach
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John Burke joined the
Pearland Aquatics staff in March of 2008. An ASCA level 4
coach, John is the primary coach of the Gold group, but helps out
with most aspects of the program. Previously, John was an age
group coach in Maryland with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club and
age group coach and founder of the Annapolis Swim Club. In
Maryland, he coached swimmers who placed in the top eight and won
events at the Maryland All Star and the Eastern Zone
meets. His swimmers have also been ranked on the USA Swimming
top 16 list and set state records. He was on the Maryland
Swimming Board of Directors as the Age Group Chairman.
John moved to Texas in
August 2006 to be the Head Assistant Coach with Aquastar where he
also helped out in most aspects of the club. Since being in
Texas, John has coached swimmers who have qualified for Sectionals,
have won TAGS, have been finalists at the Southern Zone meet, and
have been ranked on the USA Swimming top 10
list.
John met his wife Ann while
they were coaching at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Ann is
a sixth grade English/Language Arts teacher in Fort Bend
I.S.D. The Burkes reside in Pearland with their children
Emma, Klara, Anna and Jack.
Travis Sandifer
Assistant Coach
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Coach Travis Sandifer comes to us with 20+ years of
swim coaching experience, and is an ASCA level 4 coach. He
has spent most of his coaching career in the GULF with USA Swimming
Clubs, 17 years with Katy Aquatics as both their Head Age Group and
Head Coach and 1 year as the Head Coach of Aquastar. During
his coaching tenure, Coach Travis has developed swimmers that have
competed and excelled at many levels ranging from local age group
meets, TAGS Champions, Junior National and US Open Finalist to
competing at Canadian and USA Swimming Olympic Trials.
· AS the
Head Coach of Katy Aquatics, his team placed in the top 100 out of
2400+ USA Swimming Club teams in the Virtual Club Championship
rankings for 8 straight seasons from LC 2004 to SC 2006/07.
· His
swimmers have placed in USA Swimming’s National rankings
(Top-16) over 60 times.
· He has
coach swimmers that received 47 USA Scholastic All-American Awards
· He has
been awarded Gulf Swimming Coach of the year award 4 times, twice
as Age Group Coach of the Year (1996 and 1997) and twice as the
Senior Coach of the Year (2001 and 2005).
Coach Travis has stayed actively involved in swimming governance
holding various positions on USA Swimming Committee’s and the
Gulf LSC Board of Directors. He current serves on the Gulf
board as an AT-Large member.
· Gulf
Swimming Board of Directors (1998-2007 and 2010-present)
· Gulf
Swimming Open Water Coordinator (2003-2007)
· USA
Swimming Domestic Open Water Committee (2003-2006)
· Gulf
Swimming - Senior Vice-Chairman (2000-2002).
· Gulf
Swimming Age Group Vice-Chairman (1998-2000)
Coach Travis has a degree in Economics from the University
of Houston. He is married to his wife Angela of 19 years and
enjoys fishing, kayaking and camping in his spare time. They
have a daughter Paige, who is a 9th grader at Friendswood High
School and spends much of her free time riding horses.
Caitlin Cunningham
Assistant Coach
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Coach Caitlin has been involved with swimming in
Brazoria County since she was nine years old. She began swimming
for the Alvin Aquatic Club summer league team and moved onto the
Angleton Aquatic Club, Coach Rick’s former club, when she was
fifteen. After four years of swimming at Alvin High school, she
continued her swimming and studies at Centenary College of
Louisiana in Shreveport. During her four years on the Centenary
Ladies’ swim team she qualified for the Summit League
All-Academic team and swam personal bests every season. On her
summer and winter breaks, she swam with PEAK and worked with Coach
Juan at the Pearland Swim Academy. Coach Caitlin graduated from
college in May 2009 with a BA in English; she hopes to become an
English teacher as well as coach swimming for many years to
come.
Rick Veal
Assistant Coach
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Rick Veal joined
Pearland Aquatics as an ASCA level 3 Coach and has over
nineteen years of coaching experience. Rick currently serves
as PEAK's Head Age Group Coach as well as Manvel High School's Head
Swim Coach. Rick has had the priveledge of coaching one
olympic trial qualifier, multiple junior qualifiers and state
champions. Rick has also been the
Head Swim Coach at Angleton High School and Angleton
Aquatic Club. Coach Rick feels he can help anyone improve as
a swimmer by devoting a lot of time to each individual on a daily
basis because can everyone improve. Rick is married to
Stacey Carter who holds a Masters in Marine Resource Management
from Texas A & M. Rick and Stacey have a daughter,
Abigail Elise Veal.
Natalie Melenric
Assistant Coach
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Coach Natalie began swimming with Alvin Aquatic Club at the age
of seven. At 14 she joined Coach Rick’s Angleton Aquatic Club
and swam for honors such as Texas Age Group Champion, Junior
Nationals Qualifier, and Gulf Zones participant. She swam for Alvin
High School where she attended the 5A State meet three years and
placed as high as 3rd. She continued her swimming career at Texas
Christian University where she graduated in 2010 with a
Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology and a minor in
Communications. She worked for Coach Juan at Pearland Swim Academy
and was the head coach of Alvin Aquatic Club for three summers.
Coach Natalie aspires to be an elementary school teacher as well as
continuing in the swimming world as a coach. She currently coaches
Red and Blue team and helps with Bronze 1.
Charyl Teal
Assistant Coach
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Coach Charyl has been swimming since the age of 3 and has 4
siblings who all were competitive swimmers. At 16, Charyl
gained her first Lifeguarding Certificate followed by her Water
Safety Instructor, First Aid / CPR, and Pool & Beach Management
certifications. For the next 10 years, Charyl worked for the City
of Columbus, Easter Seals of Ohio, The Ohio State University, and
the YWCA of Columbus. She coached several Swimming & Diving
teams and has taught nearly one thousand people with varying skill
levels how to swim.
After getting a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering
Technology, working at NASA & Apple Computer, Charyl started a
family. Not wanting her children to miss out on the joys of
swimming, Charyl began teaching her children how to swim. Realizing
the hazards of home pools, Charyl set out to make her neighbors
safer around the pool which led her to start her own highly
successful backyard learn to swim program.
Charyl continues to bring her passion for swimming to others as
the lead coach for the Pre-Competive I & II development
groups, and is on the coaching team for the Blue group.
