Jordan Boyce has spent her life both in, and beside the pool. Her first experience in the water at three years old grew into a passion for assisting others in achieving the best version of themselves within swimming.

   “I was inspired to become a swim coach by growing up at the pool. My dad is a swim coach (Head Glendale Swim Coach & former Kickapoo Athletic Director) and I always knew that I wanted to make that same impact he has with his swimmers and fellow coaches,” Boyce said.

   Boyce’s family likes to say that her first practice was when she was three years old. Her mother had a doctor’s appointment, and so her father took Boyce to a high school girls practice at Parkway South in St. Louis, where she met girls that she still has a relationship with today. 

   “The girls wanted to hold me in the pool so that was my first time in the water. We still see some of those girls, and now I get to go see the meets that those girls coach and hold their kids,” Boyce said.

   From the first moment when her body touched the water she began to hone her skills, first as a swimmer and teammate, and later as a mentor and coach.

   “I swam summer league starting at four years old at Fremont Hills, summer league at Southern Hills from six to 13. I swam club off and on at Springfield Aquatics, and then finished my career swimming at Glendale before I tore my rib out of place and had to quit,” Boyce said.

   However, even in the midst of injury, Boyce still had a passion for coaching and helping all different kinds of people with the sport, which had developed during her teenage years.

   “I started helping coach the little kids at my summer league pool when I was 13, and have been coaching ever since then,” Boyce said.

   Currently, Boyce is the head coach for both the girls and boys team for our school, and just finished her first season coaching them. She spent four years assisting at Southern Hills Pool. Also, was an assistant and head age group coach at Missouri State Aquatics for two years. In addition to coaching our team, Boyce works at Pershing.

      “I am a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at Pershing Middle School. I also am the Head Swim Coach at Emerald Park Neighborhood in the summer,” Boyce said.

   So far, the most memorable moment was when senior Bryce Ruder broke the school record for the 500 yard freestyle, which had been set in 1998.

   “It was a crazy story where we thought he had just barely missed it, the wall at the school had the wrong time on it. The guy that had originally set the record was actually at the meet and kept thinking the time did not sound right, we looked it up further and found more results that said Bryce had actually broken it. I was so excited that he made it, he deserves every bit of having his name on the wall of records,” Boyce said.

   Boyce’s favorite thing about being a coach is watching her athletes succeed and be proud of themselves. She often tells her athletes to focus on the good habits and little things that they can do to get better every single day. However, like any sport, coaching athletes has its challenges.

   “The biggest challenge is teaching how to handle disappointment. In swimming you either drop time or add time. It is very hard to drop time with how often we are training, so they really have to trust the process and train for the end of the season,” Boyce said.

   Boyce is inspired by the people who her dad swam for at Drury University: The current head coach, Brian Reynolds, and one of his assistants, Dave Collins, who is now the head coach at Missouri State University. However, at the end of the day, it is her dad who inspires her the most.

   “He has been coaching now for 34 years and it is crazy to see how many other coaches he has inspired to start coaching, or the coaches he has been with that have been like second parents to me,” Boyce said.

   Boyce’s father is adored by many of his athletes because of how inspiring and motivational he is. 

   “He just got inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame for his success swimming as an athlete and as a coach and helping the sport in general,” Boyce said.

   Boyce takes inspiration from her father when it comes to some of her warm-ups and other practices, however, she has been coaching long enough now that she has developed her own way. She loves helping her athletes and wants to continue to inspire them, like her dad has done for so many.