Swimming & Diving
- Title:
- Swiming Associate Head Coach
An integral part of Alabama[apos]s success, Sonya Porter is now in her ninth year as associate head coach.
Since her return to the deck of the Alabama Aquatic Center, the Crimson Tide has posted seven top-25 finishes, including successive top-15 finishes by the men in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Individually, Porter has helped coach 24 different athletes to a total of 93 All-American honors, including Vlad Polyakov, who in addition to earning All-American honors a dozen times, also won the 2006 FINA World Championship in the 200 breaststroke as well as the 2005 and 2007 NCAA titles, missing the NCAA record in 2007 by mere hundredths of a second.
She also coached former Tide All-American Anne Poleska to a silver medal in the 200 breaststroke at the 2005 World Championships and Agustina de Giovanni to a gold medal and the meet record in the 100 breaststroke at the 2010 South American Games.
Porter first joined Alabama as she was getting her bachelor[apos]s degree in physiology and human performance with a minor in biology in the early 1990s. She was part of the Tide coaching staff in 1994 when the men and the women both finished in the top 10 for the first time since 1986. Porter saw the Tide post two top-10 finishes and four in the top 20 between the men and the women.
After graduation in December of 1996, Porter made her way to Colorado State where she began work on a master[apos]s degree in cardiopulmonary physiology and exercise science while serving as a volunteer assistant.
Porter joined Northwestern University as an assistant coach in September of 1997, heading up a sprint corps that led the Wildcats to three straight top-10 NCAA finishes. Porter coached Amy Balcerzak-Field and Courtney Allen to runner-up NCAA finishes in the 100 breaststroke and 50 freestyle, respectively. Northwestern[apos]s 200 freestyle relay was the nation[apos]s No. 1 seed going into the 1999 NCAAs. In three years with the Wildcats, she coached 16 All-Americans, 10 Academic All-Americans and 16 Big-10 Champs.
After Northwestern, she rejoined Eric
McIlquham, who she had coached with at Alabama in the 1990s, at West Virginia for the 2001 season, helping the Mountaineers to their best season in 15 years.
In March of 2001, she became head coach of the University of Louisville women[apos]s team. A year later she added the men[apos]s team to her duties.
Porter coached U.S. National Team members Allen, Balcerzak-Field and Ashley Mosher. Balcerzak-Field was fourth in the 100 breaststroke at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials, the American record holder in the 50 breaststroke and high point scorer in the 2000-01 World Cup circuit.
Porter coached athletes to five gold medals at the 1999 World University Games. She coached former Alabama standout Rania Elwani at the 1999 World Short Course Championships in Hong Kong. Since 1997, she has served as a member of the Swiss National Team coaching staff, coaching at the 1997 World Championships and the 2002 European Championships.
Porter coached club swimming in her native Australia, starting as an assistant coach with the Victoria Park/Carlisle S.A. in 1991 and 1992 and becoming head coach of the Wooden Valley Swimming Club in 1993.
After studying exercise physiology and human performance at the University of Canberra in Australia, she came to Alabama in the summer of 1993.
Academics are obviously important to Porter. She graduated Cum Laude from Alabama and was awarded a fellowship for outstanding research at Colorado State.
Her emphasis on academics carries over to her athletes. Alabama swimmers and divers have earned Academic All-American honors eight times since 2005 while her Northwestern swimmers were national and conference honor roll regulars and all her Louisville teams earned Academic All-American status.
