#BridgeBuilt Series: KING Aquatic Club

Where Athletes Grow Up to Become Record-Breaking Swimmers

Every day at BridgeAthletic headquarters, we hear tales from coaches and athletes across sports of how Bridge programs have helped them - by making the athletes stronger, the coaches wiser, or the team more unified and confident than ever. These are stories of championships, obstacles overcome, and goals achieved. It’s what keeps us doing what we do every day, striving to build better athletes across sports and around the world. But instead of keeping these tales of glory and greatness to ourselves, we’d like to share them with you through our #BridgeBuilt series featuring a team or athlete that has achieved great results while using the BridgeAthletic platform. 

KING Aquatic Club is a multi-site team located in the Pacific Northwest spanning from Seattle to Tacoma. Over their 40-year history, the club has expanded to now have 7 satellite sites and 15 coaches, building a broad base for continuing the tradition of excellence across the club. Already this year, the KING swimmers have set 5 National Age Group records – 3 in relay and 2 individual. With such high expectations across the club, it is vital that every athlete is getting the same high-quality coaching across their sites.

Coach Doug Djang highlighted this foundation that KING has built, saying, “We have an amazing age group program that sets the foundation for our club and members and is beginning to translate throughout our entire team.” By starting with young athletes and coaching them through a development program for several years, KING has been able to build a sustainable pipeline of talented swimmers allowing them to be consistently ranked among the top clubs in the nation. To go along with the training in the pool, Coach Djang has seen the BridgeAthletic Athletic Development Program (ADP) support the growth of the athletes outside the water.

“From a coaching side, the ADP has played a huge part in our member instruction from the entry levels of our team to the very top. The fully encompassing aspect of Bridge has allowed our team to have a unified athletic development plan and exercise terminology across [all our coaches and satellite pools]. The ADP is the basis for the dryland development of our coaches and athletes outside of the water from the moment members walk in the door at the entry levels of the team. With this, they have an open-minded teaching and development plan in place for their growth as athletes outside the water. When combined with the exercise library allowing for a common terminology across the staff, it has helped ensure that the base of our program will be soundly developed athletes as they progress through to the top of KING.” 

While he knew the swimmers would be motivated to get better in the water, Coach Djang has connected the results in the pool to the effort in the dryland training for his athletes. Knowing that continued use of the program would be key to development, he has been pleased at the adoption of the Bridge program by the athletes across the club.

“Bridge has been an amazing tool for our members and staff. The kids love it because it’s engaging, personalized, and keeps them involved. They love to be able to give feedback to and get feedback from the Bridge staff!”

Wrapping up the interview, Coach Djang praised his club and those associated with it, saying, “We are proud of all the athletic accomplishments that our KING family has achieved and are proud to have Bridge as a partner! We are extremely excited to see what the future holds!”

Our biggest congratulations go out to Coach Djang and all the record-breaking athletes at the KING Aquatic Club! Keep up the great work!

Think your team should be featured on the #BridgeBuilt series? Reach out to your Bridge team representative or to marketing@bridgeathletic.com and tell us your story!