2024 Coach / Official Inductee - Tony Metayer

Born on June 28th 1972 in Montreal Quebec, this year's inductee in the Coach / Official category, Anthony (Tony) Metayer began swimming at a very young age. A long-distance swimmer whose best event was the 1500 M freestyle, he qualified for all national level swim meets as a Senior swimmer and by the age of 18 was ranked in the Top 10 in Canada. Unfortunately, he would fall short of his goal of reaching the Olympic Games.

Tony began coaching in his early 20's, enjoying the process of teaching, encouraging and motivating swimmers to reach their goals. After attending college, he moved to Wallaceburg to begin his career and soon learned of the local swim team. After briefly volunteering with Head Coach Marilyn Pollard things got very busy with his own family and he stepped away. In 2005 his kids were old enough to swim and he again volunteered with the club. Two years later in 2007, Marilyn Pollard retired from coaching and Tony Metayer took over the duties as Head Coach of the Wallaceburg Marlin Swim Club. He admits to being very nervous heading in, but the nerves quickly went away when he realized the wealth of talent there was to work with. From 2014 to 2017 he helped Nancy Shinkleshoek coach the WDSS swim team until he retired from coaching.

He says his greatest accomplishment as a coach will always be seeing the look of joy and happiness on the faces of athletes after they have pushed themselves harder and further than they thought possible in order to achieve their goals. Some of Tony’s swimmers have gone to other schools to compete in national and international events. Others have moved on to high school competing at OFSAA and earning scholarships for post-secondary education. He states that regardless of the level of success, being involved in coaching an athlete to demonstrate heart, grit, determination, and tenacity has and always will be an honour.