Coach Sue: Leading and Inspiring Others to Achieve More

Welcome to our regular weekly feature, Wonderful Wednesday. Every Wednesday, Naperville Patch will introduce you to someone doing great things in the community. Do you know someone who deserves the spotlight? Contact Local Editor Mary Ann Lopez at maryl@patch.com. 

This week, we recognize a coach who has inspired countless individuals in Naperville through her work with the Naperville Waves, Naperville Park District master swim program and coaching the girls swim team at Naperville Central. She also helps rescue Labrador retrievers. Lynn Walsh nominated Coach Sue Welker for Wonderful Wednesday, saying, “She is a great leader and an inspiration.”

Welker did not go to the Bobby Knight school of coaching. Welker, who coaches hundreds of swimmers in Naperville, said she tries to make training fun while bringing the right amount of challenge to the process.

Before she made fitness her career, Welker was a nurse and she said the need to nurture others has helped in her coaching.

She worked as a nurse until 1999 and then about 12 years ago she started a swim program, the Naperville Waves, at . She knew there was a demand for the coaching when about 45 people showed up to the introductory meeting. Now, she has almost 200 swimmers of varying abilities involved in the program.

Along with the Waves, she also coaches a master swim class offered at  through the and coaches the Girls Swim Team. Those she coaches range in age from teens to those in their 80s. 

Welker used to race competitively in triathlons and also swam competitively in high school and college, she said. After tossing out the idea of becoming a full-time coach, the response from friends was overwhelming and “it just took off,” Welker said.

She characterizes her time spent as the head coach of the girls swim team at Naperville Central as volunteer work. 

“A lot of time and work goes into the program,” she said. But, the coaching isn’t only about swimming. She also helps impart life skills to the girls, along with tools for good nutrition and health. 

“I’ve been given a gift to be nurturing but tough when it comes to coaching,” she said. “I bring something new to coaching than the old Bobby Knight mentality.”

While she may be nurturing and offers positive feedback, Welker is all about the technique.

“I really feel strongly about technique. Rather than volume, work on precision rather than being fast,” she said.

The longer she has coached, the more her confidence and expertise has grown, she said.

Over the years she’s dealt with a fair amount of egos, but she’s been coaching successfully long enough that she has earned respect from those she trains.

For someone who coaches active people, it is challenging for Welker to sit on the sidelines and not be able to train herself. Welker had an injury that has required several back surgeries and makes high-impact workouts impossible, but she walks, bikes and trains in moderation. She said she has learned to accept where she is in life and might get back to swimming competitively one day.

Between all of the programs, she attends 30 practices a week with the Naperville Waves and six days a week she is working with the Naperville Central swimmers during the four-month swim season. She spends about six hours a day, six days a week at the pool, she said. The thought of spending more time swimming is hard to consider right now.

While she may not be able to do high-impact exercise, Welker said she enjoys outdoor activities such as biking with her husband, Brian. She’s been married 27 years and has two children Kyle, 24, an engineer, and Kailey, 23, who works in business.

“My husband has always been very supportive,” she said. “He’s just a really nice guy. I got lucky on that.”

Along with spending what free time she has with her husband, Welker also enjoys taking her dogs for walks.

In the last year and a half, Welker has fostered 14 dogs at her home. Working with Midwest Lab Rescue has allowed her to spend time outside being active while helping dogs in need, she said. 

For the past two years, Welker has been involved in the Midwest Lab Rescue and she also assists other shelters in need. She recently took in a foster dog from a rural Indiana shelter that was about to be euthanized. She is also collecting used dog items, like leashes and collars for rural shelters, she said. 

As a child, she never had a dog, but her children wanted one and after she had undergone two back surgeries in three months, Welker said she had become depressed.

“I realized the therapeutic effects of having a dog,” she said. “I was depressed and so it brought things into perspective. … If I could only be half the person my dogs think I am.”