COACHES

Coach Ted Wallach is a lifelong swimmer, starting with summer swim team at age 6 in the small town of Batesville, Indiana. In High School, Ted’s senior year team was runner-up to Carmel High School in the state finals where he anchored the winning 200 Medley relay and swam on the second place 400 Free relay. Coach Ted went on to graduate from The University of Notre Dame and holds a Masters of Education—he has been an educator for the past 24 years.

Coach Ted continues to swim with Ford Aquatics Masters. He has competed in several USMS National Championship meets in California, Texas, Ohio,  Indiana and Arizona. At Nationals, he has often medaled in the top ten and achieved USMS national top ten times in his age group.

Coach Ted also achieved a national championship win in the 1500 at the 2021 Summer Nationals in Cleveland Ohio. Ted has coached with USA Swimming in South Bend Indiana, Seattle Washington and Tucson. One of his biggest thrills in swimming was having the opportunity to attend the 2024 Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Coach Riley Babson has been swimming since he was 10 years old, starting at the OTT YMCA in Tucson. He also swam on El Dorado until he settled on the Tucson Ford Dealers Aquatics. During the high school season, he competed for Cienega High School. He continued swimming in college at the University of Denver, where he obtained a Bachelors in Mathematics and Biological Sciences. 

For his fifth year, he transferred to the University of Arizona to swim and achieve a Masters in Business Analytics. He still currently swims for the masters team out of U of A.

Winter of 2024, he started coaching for the Aquabears, a club team in Tucson. In the summer of 2025 he came back from sectionals in Portland, Oregon, where he took his swimmers to compete against some of the best west of Arizona. 

Also, he has taught ICS081, a math course at Pima Community College, and will teach MAT187 - college precalculus- this semester.

Most proudly, he volunteers at the Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) to assist the more than 400 dogs with walking, playing, feeding, etc (and he would encourage anyone to get into it too)!

Scott swam at the University of Arizona from 1984-1988. He got into coaching as an assistant coach while still competing.  

He was head swim coach at Santa Rita High School in 1993 and Amphi High School in 1994, before moving on to pursue a career in journalism.  

Scott currently owns three local restaurants, Finis Landing, The Landing, and Cabali Tiki Bar.  

He has remained active in the sport throughout his adult life and is still competing on a local water polo club team. 

Scott is excited to support the efforts of Coach Ted and Coach Riley, in providing a fun, productive and rewarding experience  for this year’s swim team.