A new era in swimming begins with the merger of the Coral Springs Swim Club and Comets Swim Team.

Two of the most well-respected USA Swimming clubs in the southeastern United States will officially become the South Florida Aquatic Club on May 1. 

The Florida Gold Coast’s newest club will combine more than 450 swimmers and 20 employees including two world-class coaches, two 50-meter Olympic-size pools, three 25-meter and 25-yard pools, and diving and teaching pools at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex, Mullins Park and City of Pembroke Pines Academic Village Pool, currently undergoing a training facility and pool deck expansion. 

Between them, SOFLO co-head coaches Michael Lohberg and Chris Anderson have more than 50 years of coaching experience and share the same vision. 

The clubs’ 8-and-under age group programs will remain under the auspices of the Coral Springs Swim Club and Comets satellite programs.

The Coral Springs Swim Club as well as the Comets Swim Team will continue to exist. All 8-and-under swimmers will still be registered under their original club name.

“Chris and I and all of our coaches wanted to do it that way,” Lohberg said. “You just don’t wipe out over 30 years of tradition.”

About two years ago, Lohberg started noticing a trend across the country.

 “There has been a trend in the United States to combine teams for economical reasons and also to make it more interesting for the kids,” said Lohberg, a six-time Olympic coach. “We are facing a lot of competition from other sports. “We have to make it exciting for kids to want to stay in the sport. I don’t look at this as competing against other swim teams, I look at it as competing against other sports.

“The main reason these kids get in the sport is camaraderie, not because they think they can be an Olympic champion,” Lohberg said. “They want to be with their friends, go to competitions together, go on trips and compete in local, national and international meets. It’s fun to be in large groups.

“And, by sheer numbers, together we will be competitive on a high level. It is very difficult for a relatively small team to go up against teams that consist of four or five clubs or run their program in seven different pools.

“The Comets are very strong in the younger age groups and we are strong in the older agegroups. These kids want to be on a successful team and they want to have fun. In the last 10 years, Coral Springs has won more Junior Olympics than any other FGC team. We sent eight swimmers to the 2008 Beijing Olympics with Dara Torres winning three medals. I call that success, but today success is defined differently than it was five years ago.”

Both Florida Gold Coast clubs were recently recognized among the nation’s best with excellence awards from USA Swimming’s Club Recognition Program.

Coral Springs earned the Gold Medal Club achievement award as one of the nation’s Top 27 clubs.

The Comets earned the Silver Medal Club award, ranked between 28 and 100 in the country. The prestigious awards are based on the performance achievements of the athletes.

“We are taking an older age program and younger age program and putting them together to have a complete program,” said Anderson, also an Olympic coach.

“This is going to enable us to do a lot more dynamic things with not only educating our staff because we have a larger staff now but to bring on people like a sports information director to add the extra flair that we need to run a program of this stature,” Anderson said. “We want to make a huge impact nationally.

“It will give us the flexibility between the two pools to better service our athletes in the water,” Anderson said. “We are already getting our kids to be more competitive in practices that we merged together. That level of training has risen already because of that, which I think is wonderful. It’s giving the dynamic skills that these kids really need to be successful in life.

“We are all on board,” Anderson said. “We know this is for a bigger and better cause of developing swimming in South Florida. It’s going to be really cool to watch these 8-year-olds and see where they’re at age 17. We are going to have a wonderful junior national team and senior national team.”

While awaiting the mandatory 120-day waiting period, the merger has been a gradual progression the past few months. Parents, swimmers, coaches and booster club members have met and exchanged ideas. Head age group coaches Luis Soler of the Comets and Bruno Darzi of Coral Springs will also play key roles in the merger.

At this past week’s Florida Gold Coast Short Course Junior Olympics, host Coral Springs opened a swimmers’ lounge for SOFLO members to socialize and get to know each other during prelims and finals.

The swimmers will be outfitted in the latest swim fashion. The national team colors will be blue, turquoise and black. The age group team colors are blue, turquoise and white. A new logo is being designed.

SOFLO will cater to all branches of swimming and other aquatic sports from babies to masters. The Tri-Star Triathletes Club has also been formed as well as Coral Springs also has an active triathlon club. More details will be released later on both teams.

All three club websites in addition to basic information, will feature daily meet coverage on the local, national and international levels, swimmer and coach features, general swim stories, photos and blog to fill the void left by lack of coverage in shrinking newspaper sports sections and magazines, both locally and nationally.

“We think we are headed in the right direction,” Lohberg said. “We have a common philosophy of swimming in terms of coaching, administration and how you teach your kids. A lot of times these mergers are teams that are thrown together regardless of chemistry and just come together for the swim meets. We did not want to do that. We are doing things together not because we have to, but because we want to.

“The chemistry between the coaches and swimmers from both teams is wonderful. We are having a lot of fun with this. I can’t wait for the first big meet together as a new team.”

Sharon Robb can be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it