When Emmanuel Lanzó moved to Ridgefield in 2013 to coach at the Ridgefield Aquatic Club, the swim program was already good, but he thought it could get better.
“I wanted to be the best team in Connecticut,” he says.
In the years since, Lanzó has emerged as one of the world’s best swim coaches. He has coached Olympic bronze medalist winner Kieran Smith and other award-winning swimmers such as Conner Hunt, who won a silver medal at the FINA World Junior Open Water competition as part of the U.S. team.
Lanzó is also a coach with USA Swimming’s national team and recently coached the top female swimmers in the country as part of Team USA’s national select camp. The work with Team USA is in addition to his full-time work as Ridgefield Aquatic Club’s head coach and CEO. And, yes, he has fulfilled his dream of making his Ridgefield swim team the best in the state and as a result, has won four Coach of the ear awards.
Lanzó was first drawn to swimming through his family growing up in Puerto Rico. His dad was a lifeguard at Escambròn Beach, Old San Juan, and his parents met and fell in love there. Ultimately, his parents had a swim instruction business, so learning to swim well was a requirement for young Lanzó. “I was born in an environment where we would go to the beach, and we would need to swim,” he says. “Eventually, when I was like 12 or 13 years old, I started helping with the business. I started teaching the little kids how to swim.”
In high school, he fell in love with the competition side of the sport. “It’s a type of sport where you have friends, and they become your family with the carpooling and the long hours at meets,” he says. “I liked the ability to not just compete against a person next to you, but it was good to compete with your own potential.”
He got a swimming scholarship to the University of Puerto Rico. After college, he forged a successful coaching career in Puerto Rico, working with some of the top swimmers in the territory. When he was offered the job in Ridgefield, he thought he would take it for a year and then return to Puerto Rico.
“I never went back home,” he says. “I met great people here, and that feeling of family and belonging grew.”
Lanzó and his wife fell in love with the culture of Ridgefield. Lanzo’s parents and his nieces live next door – their mother, Lanzó’s sister, passed away some years ago.
“My parents, my nieces, my wife, everybody loves the small-town feeling,” he says. “I go to places where people smile at me and ask me how I’m doing.”
Swimming takes up most of his time, but Lanzó also enjoys working as a personal trainer at the Ridgefield Recreation Center. Additionally, he is the DEI co-chair for Connecticut Swimming and works to encourage more diversity in the sport in
that capacity.
As proud as Lanzó is of the elite athletes he’s worked with, his passion is coaching younger kids who are newer to the water, and he still prioritizes doing that work on occasion. Beyond the medals and records his swimmers have set, he’s proudest of the culture he’s instilled – the swimmers and their families support each other and other athletes, and are joyful in their approach to the sport. “They always have a beautiful smile on their faces and are making an impact anywhere they go,” he says. “I hear it all the time that wherever the Ridgefield kids go, they improve the culture. So that’s very satisfying.” •
