Torey Ortmayer, who has led the Yorktown Patriots to numerous team championships, recently stepped down after eight seasons as the head coach of the high school’s swimming and diving teams.
Ortmayer is leaving to start a new year-round club swimming organization named Hydra Aquatics. It will be located at the Tuckahoe Recreation Club pool in McLean, and will open this fall.
Ortmayer already is the aquatics director and has been the coach of the pool’s summer swimming team at Tuckahoe since 2000. He will continue as the summer coach.
Tuckahoe and Ortmayer have been discussing starting a small year-round club program for a number of years. Ortmayer said the program will have no more than 300 swimmers, primarily for ages 18 and under and of all abilities. There will be opportunities for swimmers older than 18 to be involved, as well.
Other year-round club programs in the metro area have many more swimmers.
“It’s a lot of work, but we are super-excited about this,” Ortmayer said. “We want to create something different, smaller and unique and be able to work personally with every swimmer in the program and give them opportunities. I have learned a lot from all of my coaching experiences, and we want to use all of that.”
Ortmayer, 31, has been well-connected with year-round swimming in Northern Virginia. He also coaches at the York Swim Club, but that likely will end once Hydra Aquatics begins.
Ortmayer was a summer swimmer at Arlington’s Overlee pool, a longtime power in the Northern Virginia Swimming League.
As the Yorktown coach, Ortmayer led the girls team to four state championships, including a third straight this past season, and multiple runner-up finishes. His Yorktown teams also won numerous district and region titles.
His boys teams at Yorktown were perennial district, region and state contenders, winning one region crown and a couple of district titles.
Ortmayer’s replacement at Yorktown has not been selected.
During the summer, Ortmayer has coached Tuckahoe to three NVSL Division 1 championships, including the past two summers, and one runner-up finish in his five seasons. The 2020 campaign was not held because of the pandemic.
Ortmayer grew up swimming for Dominion Hills and Overlee pools in Arlington during the summer, and was a three-year varsity water polo player and swimmer at Gonzaga College High School.
In 2016, Ortmayer graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he continued to play water polo.
