David Shafer

David has spent his life around the swimming world. He started training swimming at age 7 with some older teenagers who were training for the Hong Kong Channel. Starting competitive swimming at age 8 and competed through college at Florida State University. David was fortunate to be able to compete at the highest levels. He started teaching swimming in high school and coaching right after college. A few years later, he coached and taught during graduate school. His career took him away from the sport, but when his son started swimming, he found himself back into that world as a swimming parent. He also swam Master’s periodically throughout his life and currently swims Master’s at UVAC.

The sport of swimming has progressed dramatically since he was an age group swimmer, but David has always been able to update his knowledge as a master’s swimmer and a swimmer parent. Upon his semi-retirement, he started coaching at UVAC and it has reinvigorated his love of the sport. David has a wealth of experience to share with the swimmers and loves being back in the swimming world as an age group coach and instructing learning to swim classes.