Head Coach - Mike Moran
Mike Moran lives in Castlewood with his wife of 30 years, Randi. 2024 is Mike's second season with the Castlewood Barracudas.
Mike was born in California’s San Joaquin Valley and has always enjoyed outdoor activities and competitive sports. In high school Mike found his footing in competitive swimming and water polo. This in turn lead to him attending USC as a water polo player and Aerospace Engineer. A 10-year career as a Marine Corps officer and aviator followed during which Mike flew the AV8B Harrier “Jump Jet”. Mike returned to USC in 1996 after leaving the Marine Corps to pursue and obtain his MBA.
Leveraging his education and leadership skills developed in the military, Mike has enjoyed a long and rewarding career in operations management. He continues to indulge in his passion for outdoor activities and competitive sports including hiking, biking, running, swimming and he looks forward to passing that passion on to the next generation through coaching and mentorship.
Assistant Coach - Keira McElligott
Coach Keira has been with the Barracudas since 2018. She has always loved the water. She worked at the American Swim Academy, helping children and adults learn to swim for over 10 years. She has been a second grade teacher for the last 8 years, currently teaching in Dublin. Coach Keira loves the look of pride on swimmers’ faces when they are finally able to do something that has been challenging for them. She loves to help swimmers grow and develop their abilities to gain more confidence in the water.
Keira never got the chance to swim on a swim team as a kid, but she has a love for open water swimming and has made the crossing from Alcatraz to San Francisco several times. She enjoys running, hiking, and being active anyway she can. She is looking forward to another great swim season and is excited to finally be back at Castlewood’s pool this summer!
Assistant Coach - Desiree Dare
Desiree has been an assistant coach at Castlewood since 2018. She grew up with a love of water which led her to join her high school swim team as a freshman. Desiree swam all four years in high school and moved on to swim and play water polo for Ohlone college. Once graduated from Ohlone she continued her love of swimming and joined the swim team at Cal State University East Bay. In addition to spending most of her time in the pool Desiree has also done the Alcatraz swim three times as well as tried out surfing.
Desiree worked for the American Swim Academy for 17 years in various positions from instructor to director of the Fremont location. It was there she learned to share her own passion for the water with many children and adults. Desiree coached for one of the Fremont summer league teams, the Kennedy Seals, as well as Kennedy High School in Fremont.
These days Desiree is a kindergarten teacher, wife to husband Mike and busy mom to Castlewood swimmers Graeme and Ellie. Over the summer Desiree loves being on the pool deck at Castlewood as well as behind her family’s boat wake surfing!
Locations
