KO’s first swimming and diving meet always takes place the Wednesday after Thanksgiving break at Hopkins School. Anxious swimmers – freshmen who will be swimming in their first-ever high school meet – and excited coaches travel down New Haven. Once the bus manages to pull into the extremely steep parking lot, students must scale over 60 stairs to reach the building. They will walk down a long cold hallway into a dungeon-like locker room. Once KO swimmers assemble on the pool deck before the meet begins, Hopkins swimmers will carry out a long-standing tradition: all their swimmers walking down the pitch-black tunnel to the pool deck banging a drum and chanting – something that most swimmers will never forget. Hopkins pool is memorable to a lot of these swimmers; however, it is even more memorable to Dean of Students and Head Coach of the girls swimming and diving team Kata Baker.
Coach Baker in just her sophomore year of high school at Williston Northampton set one of her six records at Hopkins, a record she claims to be her most memorable. She would continue to set records and achieve great things throughout high school and college before ending up as a swim coach at KO. You may only know Ms. Baker as Dean of Students; however, some of us are lucky enough to have her as a teacher or coach, too. Those who don’t know her well may not know what an incredible, kind, strong woman she is and what she has accomplished throughout her life. As my advisor and swim coach, Ms. Baker has impacted my life more than she may ever know, and her story as a swimmer and coach is one worth sharing.
Before she became Coach Baker, she was just like any other KO swimmer, spending countless hours in the pool. The record she broke at Hopkins was in the 50-meter freestyle. “I was just having a good day,” she explained to me. “Molly Ward, I’ll never forget her name, was a senior from Hopkins. She was headed to Harvard. I remember she was seeded first going in, and I was seeded second.” Coach Baker said she could not remember how much she beat Ward by, but remembered it was down to seeing she had one and finally breaking 25 seconds. She reflected on how she was in awe and shock the whole bus ride home, in disbelief at what she had just accomplished. To this day, she still holds this record, and when the KO swimming and diving team (KOSD) has away meets at Williston, they can still see their beloved coach’s name up on the record board.
Coach Baker has been swimming her whole life ever since she was three years old. She describes herself as a water bug who has always felt at home in and around pools. “I do not remember a winter without swimming,” she said. “A winter Saturday to me is on a pool deck.” She began swimming at Williston as an eighth-grader on their high school team, and she swam at the school for five years. Over the years, Coach Baker has achieved so much on and off the pool deck. After graduating from Williston, she left with six school records. Three of them were relay records, including the 200 Medley, 200 free, and 400 free relay. She also held three individual records in the 50 free, 100 backstroke, and 100 free.
Coach Baker had a very successful high school career in swimming but also excelled in water polo, a sport that she described as an escape. When she would become frustrated with swimming, whether it was not breaking times or feeling burnt out, she could play water polo and take a break. Coach Baker shared many memories with me when I talked to her. She described a particularly special meet: “It was a January meet in my senior year, and my parents brought the envelope from Connecticut College, and at the end of the meet were like, ‘I think this is your acceptance letter.’ So that meet is stuck in my head,” she said. Coach Baker also shared that she talked to the Connecticut College water polo coach before the swim coach.
In all her high school glory, it seemed like Coach Baker was cruising along and nothing could get in her way. However, she noted the challenging adjustment she was forced to make in her first few years at Conn. College. She majored in science, which consisted of quite a workload. On top of that, she was swimming twice a day for the first time, which led her to feel quite overwhelmed. She mentioned that she even considered quitting the swim team at the beginning of her freshman year. Her coach wouldn’t have it. “Every day, I’d be like, ‘I don’t think I can do it,’ and he’d be like, ‘Get in the water,'” she said. “He held me on all through freshman year. Sophomore year was tough too, but at the end of sophomore year, I was in a better place.”
After Coach Baker overcame some of the new challenges of collegiate swimming and settled in, her coach invited her to Kenyon College to be a counselor at their swim camp. By helping out with camp, she was able to train with the Kenyon swimmers and practice at a higher level. This was her first taste of coaching, and she loved it, even describing it as transformative. She would then go on to coach at Bates Swim Camp. These camps helped her realize that she wanted to become a teacher and coach. She had prior plans to go to medical school but said that her coaching guided her to teaching. Coach Baker explained that coaching and teaching are strongly intertwined. “I will take to the grave the idea that the best teachers are coaches,” she said.
A previous student of Coach Baker and senior Captain Maggie Poulin shared how Coach Baker has impacted her in and out of the pool. She described Coach Baker as a positive, upbeat, and fun coach, someone she could always rely on. “She’s my school mom,” Maggie said. “I just adore her.” Maggie also noted that Coach Baker has given her endless advice about swimming, school, college, and life. Without hesitation, Maggie summed Coach Baker up in one word: supportive. This says a lot about Coach Baker and her character. She is one of the most supportive and kind coaches, teachers, and people I will ever come across. I have cried to her, laughed with her, and shared with her. No matter what, I know she will always be there for me.
Maggie was not the only individual to point out how supportive Coach Baker is. Boys swimming and diving Head Coach Alex Kraus talked to me about how supportive she is not only as a coach but also as a teacher. “She supports students in challenging things, whether it’s bio or swim,” he said. Mr. Kraus also acknowledged how busy Coach Baker is and shared his appreciation that she continues to coach. “Often when female teachers become parents, especially of young children, they’ll stop coaching, certainly stop being head coaches,” he said. “And when any faculty member becomes an administrator, department chair, or a dean of something, then they often stop coaching.” He went on to say that she is doing both of those things and how grateful he is.
I know many female swimmers look up to Coach Baker. She has had such an incredible journey. She swam throughout high school and college, graduated, coached, became a teacher, got married, had two wonderful children, and is still a head coach and Dean of Students. She is proof that you can achieve anything you set your mind to, and she breaks stereotypes of what a ‘female teacher’ should be and do.
Coach Baker is a mom to two amazing boys, Callen (seven) and Andrew (three), and she has introduced both of them to her beloved sport. Cal will start swimming for the West Hartford Waves swim team soon, and Andrew is currently in swim lessons. When I talked to Coach Baker, she expressed that swimming gave her an immense amount of confidence growing up and mentioned that she hopes it will be a source of confidence for Cal as well. “I want him to have the same level of confidence,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing. I want him to have something that makes him feel good. And so far, it has.” She lit up when she talked about what swimming could do for her children.I look up to Coach Baker in so many ways, even as a mom. In fact, she is a second mom to me on top of being the most incredible mom to her children. Coach Baker is not only a motherly figure for me but for other students and swimmers. No matter how busy she may become with her many duties she will always make time for the people who need her. She always finds joy in swimming and teaching and is the most incredible coach and teacher ever. The KO community is incredibly lucky to have such an amazing individual amongst us.
