A native of Lowell, Mass., Patrick Swett enters his sixth season on the UMass Lowell coaching staff and will be responsible for the women's and men's jumpers and vaulters.
Under Swett’s tutelage Garrett King has set the school’s pole vault record at 15-feet, 5 ½-inches indoors and 15’ 5” outdoors during the last couple of years. He has worked with current River hawk high jumpers Gilberto Brown and Oluwatoni Onikeku, both who have cleared six-feet, 10¾-inches, and are challenging the seven-foot mark.
After a stellar athletic career at Westfield State College, Swett spent eight years with the Lowell H.S. track and field programs, including the last six years as the head girls' coach/boys' assistant coach. During his tenure, he led the girls program to a plethora of honors, including 46 athletes to the MIAA Division I Championships, 10 to the MIAA Championship and three to the New England Championships.
Additionally, his girls' team eclipsed nine indoor records and 14 outdoor records over that period and also earned the MIAA Academic Excellence Gold Status Team Award for a collective grade point average of 3.08.
Swett was named the Merrimack Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 2005.
With the boys program, Swett worked with the varsity sprinters, high jumpers and pole vaulters, and helped the Red Raiders to MVC indoor and outdoor titles in 2003 and 2009.
A two-sport athlete at Westfield State, Swett was a four-year standout with the football and track and field teams and was named WSC's Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year as a senior, an award presented to the graduating student-athlete with the highest grade point average.
Additionally, he was a member of the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference (MASCAC) football and track and field all-academic teams from 1999-02 as well as WSC's 3.0 GPA Athletic-Academic Club all four years.
Swett captured the New England Track and Field Alliance championship in 1999 in the high jump, clearing 6 feet, 4.0 inches.
A cornerback on the football team, he was a member of WSC's 2001 squad that captured the New England Football Conference (NEFC) title as it cruised through the regular season undefeated.
Swett graduated from WSC with a 3.4 grade point average in history education. He went on to earn his post baccalaureate teacher certification at Salem State in 2003 and his master's degree in education from Cambridge College in 2009, graduating with a 4.0.
Swett is a certified sports conditioning specialist with the American Fitness Professionals and Associates as well as a U.S.A. Track and Field Level II coach in the jumps. He earned his Massachusetts Track Coaches Association (MSTCA) pole vault certification in 2002.
Swett lives in Lowell, Mass., with his wife, Kaitlyn, and their two children, Olivia Jane (5) and Ryder (1).
