Sonja Bruxvoort is drowning…in her schedule. Between her second year teaching English at West and her first year being head coach of the girls TrojanBolts swim team, she’s got a lot to learn. Both roles are proving to be challenging, forcing her to lose sleep as she races to beat deadlines. She’s struggling just trying to keep her head above water. Even with all the challenges, Bruxvoort is able to manage her schedule and learn to adapt to the many changes coming her way.
Bruxvoort isn’t new to teaching and coaching — with six years of teaching and five years of coaching experience from her previous job at Northwest Middle School, she knows what she’s doing. Along with her prior teaching and coaching, she did her student teaching, was a long-term substitute at West High School and worked under Elizabeth Bruening and Mitch Gross at Northwest Middle School.
Due to her professional history, she developed a reputation for being a well-loved coach and teacher, which helped provide a smoother transition between NWMS and WHS. Having her teaching and coaching abilities well-known made her a perfect candidate for West High School.
“[West] came to me knowing that I could offer some things that were missing from the program over the last few years in the absence of Byron,” Bruxvoort said.
Despite her skills, Bruxvoort has a long way to go before she reaches the finish line. She’s already been forced to adapt, relying on her family to support her along the way: “My family is definitely picking up the slack while I’m not taking care of things at home as well as I should,” said Bruxvoort.
Between preparation for meets, planning workouts, sending out weekly emails and many other things, Bruxvoort is feeling the pressure as she also rushes to complete her English responsibilities. Being both an English teacher and a swim coach requires many hours of outside work, hours that she doesn’t have. Bruxvoort has also had to take the time to extend her capabilities to cover things that WHS’s sports teams include that NWMS’s doesn’t. A few things she has learned this season is how to run meet technology, such as meet manager and touchpads, how to score diving and how to drive school vans.
“There’s been a lot of mistakes made, but there’s just a lot of growing moments,” Bruxvoort said.
Along with this new transition, Bruxvoort has been working hard to make the girls TB swim team a more welcoming environment for all. She’s listened to previous feedback from swimmers and is making changes for the benefit of the team. “It’s just really like a thoughtful, lengthy, long process to make sure everybody’s in there, everybody’s accounted for.” In the past four years, the girls TB swim team has had four different head coaches. This caused a sense of instability within the team, something Bruxvoort is working hard to fix.
As the season progresses, Bruxvoort has proven her dedication and determination to better the team. Despite coming into the season with much to learn and no clear instructions left behind, she’s received a lot of positive feedback. She’s been pushing for a sense of camaraderie within the team and is making sure to develop a good relationship with the swimmers. “I would like all of our swimmers to have the same experience with me, that they all feel like they’re part of this team or cared for. That their coach is going to show up and support them,” Bruxvoort said.
Despite a lot of trial and error, Bruxvoort has managed to be a great addition to West’s staff. She has made many amazing strides for the swim team and helped numerous students with English. While much of it is done alone, she still has her own support system of students, family and co-workers, something she wants everyone to have. “I think that opportunity to make the friendships, have the fun and create the memories, tends to be the most important part, because that’s what kids walk away and remember with it,” Bruxvoort said.
Even with all the stress, Bruxvoort does love her roles at WHS and is planning to stay as both an English teacher and the girls TB swim team head coach.
