Plymouth State University

Anne Barbeau has led the women's swim team since the start of the 2018-19 season and was tabbed to pilot the men's team when the program debuted in 2020-21.
 
Barbeau, whose coaching career spans some 50-plus years, had a decorated swim career that covered roughly 35 years as a sprinter in Canada. In addition to competing in the 1972 Canadian Olympic trials, the four-time medalist at the Canadian University Championships has also competed in the CEGEP Championships and more recently in the Canadian and World Masters Championships.
 
The women's program has shown steady improvement in her time. In her first year, Barbeau led the Panthers to a 4-5 record in dual meets, while earning a fifth-place finish at the LEC Championships and a 13th place finish at the NEISDA Championships – the best finish in five years. The team made even greater strides in her sophomore campaign, going 6-3 in dual meets (the second-most wins in a decade), while finishing fourth at the LEC Championships (best since 2006-07) and 12th at NEISDAs (best since 2010-11).
 
After COVID limited PSU to four virtual meets in 2020-21, the Panthers went 3-3 in dual meets and posted a sixth place finish at the LEC Championships, highlighted by remarkable performances by Madelin Svetin ’22 in the backstroke who cemented her place as the best backstroker in program history after setting school records in all three distances while winning the 50 and placing second in the 100 and 200.
 
The Panthers picked up six dual meet wins during the 2023-24 season, which included an impressive sweep of UMass Dartmouth and WestConn in a double dual meet in January. PSU finished seventh in the ten-team LEC Championship meet, with nearly every swimmer posting season best times in the season-ending event.
 
Under Barbeau's guidance last winter, Olivia Bailey '26 became just the second women's swimmer to earn multiple medals at LECs. She claimed bronze in both the 100 and 200 backstroke, and finished just off the podium in the 50. Most impressively, the women's 400 medley relay topped its previous season-best time by an astonishing 33.87 seconds.
 
The men's program has experienced incredible growth in its five years of existence. After competing in just two official dual meets during the COVID season of 2020-21, the Panthers team established new program records in 15-of-16 individual events and every relay in year number two. PSU was particularly impressive at the LEC Championships, rewriting the record books in the process. A remarkable 11 school records were broken over the three-day meet, with 17 top-10 finishes.
 
Barbeau captained the team to its first dual meet win in 2022-23, while Alex Wasyliko ’26 captured the men's team's first LEC title by winning the 50-yard freestyle. The team scored a program-best 371 points at the championship.
 
In 2023-24, the men went 5-4 overall while shattering program marks left and right. Lyden Fogg ’25 became the first men’s swimmer to earn multiple medals at LECs, taking bronze in the 200 backstroke, silver in the 100 backstroke and clinching gold in the 50 backstroke – each in record-setting fashion. Fourteen of the program’s 17 individual records and three-of-five relay records were set during the season. Aiden MacDonald ’27 also medaled, winning bronze in the 50 butterfly, marking the first time in men’s program history that multiple swimmers took home medals. The team finished with a program-best 424 points at the championship.
 
Fogg captured another three medals at LECs last winter, earning bronze in the 50, 100 and 200 backstroke. He set four individual school records, while the team as a whole broke eight individual records while also establishing a program best in the 400 freestyle relay by nearly 40 full seconds.
 
All told, Barbeau has led the Panthers to six individual titles, six runners-up and 13 third-place finishes at the LEC Championships, while adding four silver medals and two bronzes at the NESIDA Championships.
 
Prior to Plymouth State, Barbeau spent 17 years as a swim coach and private swim instructor at the White Mountain Athletic Club in Waterville Valley, while also teaching French at Waterville Academy.
 
Barbeau got her start as a pool manager, swim coach and lifeguard at the Rosemère Curling Club in Rosemère, Québec, in the late 1960s, before taking on the role of assistant swim coach at Vanier College (Montreal), where she also taught Physical Education, in 1979.
 
In 1983, Barbeau moved to Laurentian Regional High School in Lachute, Québec, where she started the swim program, while teaching PE, Religion and History and also coaching the ski and soccer programs.
 
Barbeau also spent 11 years as the swim instructor at Waterville Valley Elementary School.
 
She resides in Campton, N.H. with her husband Tom. Their son, Thomas, is a Strength & Conditioning Assistant for the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.