Sports

Ridgewood Barracudas Head Coach Leaves After Four Years

Ridgewood Barracudas head coach Cindy Woll is stepping down after four years as head coach and 13 total years of coaching with the Barracudas. 

"I just felt it was time to move on and let some other talented people take over," Woll said.

Woll's husband is now ultrarunning, and Woll wants to support him on his weekend runs. Her father is also suffering from health issues, and she'd like to make time to take care of him.

Woll grew up in the Woodbridge area and started swimming near Quantico when she was only 5 or 6 years old. She later graduated from Woodbridge High School. 

When she moved back to the Woodbridge area 15 years ago, she started teaching swim lessons at the Woodbridge Sport & Health. The Barracudas head coach at the time, Nancy Dogget, saw her swim lessons and asked if she would help coach the Barracudas developmental team the next summer.

When Dogget later stepped down as head coach, Woll became assistant head coach under new head coach Amanda Bonnett. And when Bonnett stepped down, Woll applied for and got the head coach position.

"I used to run the developmental program and kind of created the monster that it is now," Woll said. "I wanted to be head coach because the team meant a lot to me and I wanted to keep it in good hands and not hand it over to someone who would change my philosophy."

Woll's three daughters all swam on the team, and the oldest and youngest daughters ended up coaching. Woll thinks everyone should learn how to swim.

"It's a lifelong sport that you can do until you're 95 or 100," she said. "You can always get in the water and swim for therapy or recreation, whereas you can't always do that with softball or soccer or football. It's also a life skill that you can use to save your life or save the life of somebody else. Knowing how to swim is just imperative to me."

Woll loved seeing the swimmers master their skills. 

"I really enjoy seeing the progress of the kids and the excitement on their faces when they do well and when they finally get something," she said. "Some kids really catch on quickly and they learn very fast and their accomplishments are almost instant. and some take awhile and struggle, and those ones have a special place in my heart because they have to work so hard, and when they finally get something, it means so much. Just to see their smiling faces--it's the sense of the community that we all have together." 

Woll's Barracudas coaching career ended on a high note, with the team winning the White Division Championship against the Ashland Stingrays and the Lake Ridge Lancers. 

"It was such a surprise. It was a great ending to 13 years of coaching," Woll said. 

Though Woll is leaving the Barracudas, she'll still be the head coach for the Woodbridge High School team, where many of the Barracudas also swim. She'll also still check in on the Barracudas occasionally.

Delegating will be key for the next head coach, she said. 

"Have faith in your coaching staff," she said, in a recommendation to the new head coach. "Have faith in the parents and volunteers. And delegate, delegate, delegate. You can't take everything on yourself. That's why you have additional coaches. And that's why the parents are there to help you. The more responsibility you give to other people, the more of a vested interest they have in helping the team."

Woll gave a shout-out to Barracudas assistant coaches Alison Cooper and Lauren Downer saying they were "instrumental in my four years" and "wonderful, dynamic women."

"There's just no way I could have done it without them," she said.


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