Our Coaches

Head Coach Bobby DeSandre

 Robert (Bobby) DeSandre began swimming at age 5 for Hamilton Aquatics, under Sue Welsh and Jeff Lowe. These two coaches helped him understand the value and impact a great coach has on a young athlete. This was a large reason he has wanted to give back to swimming, as those coaches did for him as a child. Coach DeSandre continued to progress through Notre Dame High School where he was coached by his father, Henry DeSandre.  At Notre Dame, he set several school and county records in a variety of events.  Coach DeSandre continued his career at Rider University where he was coached by Head Coach Stephen Fletcher and assistants Shannon Daly and Dean Hutchinson.  It was at Rider, under this trio of coaches, that Coach Bobby truly learned the importance of technique work and the art of training competitive swimmers. Coach DeSandre’s dedication to technique and training is the main reason he set 11 University, Coppola Pool, and MAAC Conference Records in a variety of events, including the 200yard Butterfly and 400yard Individual Medley.  Coach DeSandre was a key member of the Rider University Men’s MAAC Championship Team in 2004 and ECAC Championship Team in 2005.  Coach DeSandre excelled in the classroom as well; he was awarded the 2004 Rider University Men’s Scholar Athlete of the Year Award for his performances in and out of the pool.
Coach DeSandre earned his B.S. degree in Accounting at Rider University and worked for 2 years at Ernst and Young in Auditing before changing careers and going to work for the family business, DeSandre Brothers. He was a volunteer coach at Rider for two years and in 2005 started his own high school level clinic that has become very successful.   Here he developed his own style of both water and dryland training based off the success of his previously mentioned coaches, with his own flare.  Coach DeSandre joined Penn Aquatics in 2010-11 with Coach Dean and quickly became an important part of the Penn Family.  He has had lofty goals with this program and looks forward to guiding the program in the direction in it has already started under coach Dean.

Coach Kathy Diringer

Kathy Diringer is the new Head Diving Coach for Penn Aquatics. She has coached youth diving in summer leagues and high schools in Bucks and Mercer counties over the past two years. Kathy is safety-certified as a USA Diving coach, as well as being an AAU registered diving coach. She is a nationally-ranked USA Masters Diver and regularly practices on 1 meter and 3 meter boards at The College of New Jersey. Along with several American Red Cross safety certifications, Kathy is a licensed professional engineer in New Jersey, a certified public manager and a certified pool operator. She lives in Ewing, NJ with her husband, Bill, two cats and a turtle.

Coach Jason Clark

Coach Jason advanced in high school where he lettered in 3 sports (including swimming, of course!) for Roxborough High School.   While there, he was All Public as a member of the record-setting Medley and Freestyle relay teams. Coach Jason graduated from Temple University in 1984. While at Temple, he was a swim team member and lettered as a college swimmer.

In 2007, Coach Jason led the LMT (Lower Makefield Township) Gators to a Lower Bucks Swim League Red Division Championship. A tremendous accomplishment considering the fact that this was his first year as coach of their summer swim program! He is also a certified USA swim coach and works tirelessly with our other USA coaches and swimmers at practices and USA-sanctioned meets. This year, Coach Jason will continue to serve as the Suburban Aquatic League Coordinator for Penn Aquatics

Coach Amanda Mayfield Mohan

Over the course of her 9 year coaching career, Amanda Mayfield Mohan has led her teams to Division, League and State Championships. She now is the Head Coach for the Penn Aquatics 80 member boys SAL team.  She also leads the Penn Aquatics learn to swim Seahorses program and coaches the 8 and under Otter Swim team.  Her personal swimming accomplishments include numerous records and accolades as a swimmer at The Jersey Wahoos, Willowdale Swim Club and Eastern High School (Voorhees, NJ).  At Eastern High School, she was a four-year Varsity swimmer winning the Most Valuable Swimmer award in her sophomore and senior seasons.  She also received the Unsung Hero Award and The Swimmer of the Week award from The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Amanda has held high school level coaching positions at Haddon Township High School and West Windsor Plainsboro South High School where her teams won the New Jersey State Championships in 2009 and 2010.  During the summers, she was also the head coach at Fox Hollow Swim Club.

Amanda received her Bachelors Degree from Boston College, where she was a member of the Varsity Crew Team. She received her Masters from Rowan University.  Since her graduation, she has worked as a teacher and in the educational testing field.