Coaching a high school athletic team can be a tough and stressful job at times. But along with all the rough times are rewarding moments when you see your athletes succeed. Erin Hall is the swim coach at Yukon High School and she says that seeing the kids make positive strides is something she loves to see.

“I most enjoy witnessing my athletes get the best times after putting in the hard work,” she said. “I know how hard the sport can be. I know how hard it is to shave time off. So when everything clicks, and they get those best times, it’s amazing.  My favorite part is when they come back to talk to me after that with massive smiles across their face.”

Hall is in her second year at Yukon High School. Along with coaching the swim team, she also teaches seventh-grade English at Yukon Middle School. Before becoming a teacher, she was a news reporter for KOCO 5 News in Oklahoma City.

With a history of competitive swimming of her own, Erin made the decision to do what she could to help with the sport that she loves.

“I started coaching because I wanted to give back to the sport that gave me so much,” she said. “I swam for Owasso High School and took home two gold medals at state in 2012. Then, I moved on to swim at the University of Arkansas. I now swim for USA Master’s and for Bison Aquatics’ USA swim team. Swimming has been such a large part of my life, I wanted to share my passion with others and watch them grow in this sport.”

Though she has been coaching at Yukon for a couple of years, Erin says that she and her team have made some great memories.

“So far, some highlights have been all the records our team has broken,” Hall stated. “This is my first year as the head coach and it’s astonishing to watch our school records break. We’ve already had countless relay records broken both from the boys’ and girls’ teams. We’ve also had a handful of individuals broken. Even some of our freshman have broken records. I can’t wait to see what happens the rest of the season.”