Earlier this week, The King’s Academy announced that they would be naming the interior of the Full-Page Aquatics Center to the Jonathan Zuchowski Lobby.

For almost a decade, the TKA Lions have dominated the aquatics world, led by legendary Head Coach, Jonathan Zuchowski. Since taking the helm of Lions’ swim in 2016, Coach Zuchowski has led the program to the following accolades:

Men’s Swim:

1x Palm Beach County Championship (2019)

4x District Champions (2019, 20, 23, 24)

2x Regional Champions (2019, 20)

3x FHSAA Class 1A State Final 4 (2020, 21, 23)

2x FHSAA Class 1A State Runner Up (2020, 21)

Women’s Swim and Dive:

2x Palm Beach County Championships (2021, 22)

3x District Champions (2022, 23, 24)

2x Regional Champions (2022, 24)

4x FHSAA Class 1A State Final 4 (2021, 22, 23, 24)

1x FHSAA Class 1A State Runner Up (2022)

The success as TKA athletes has most certainly translated to the NCAA level, as Coach Z has helped develop 23 collegiate athletes, with 14 swimming Division I.

While all of these statistics should most certainly be applauded, the true strength and determination of the program was found out of the water. In the summer of 2017, Coach Jonathan Zuchowski was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a form of cancer that attacks the white blood cells in bone marrow. Over the following months, a situation that normally turns into concern and unease served as a rallying call for the Lions’ swim team, and the TKA community as a whole. Even while receiving extensive chemotherapy treatment at the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa, Coach Zuchowski never missed a practice, despite every doctor’s plea. One year later in 2018, Coach Zuchowski was declared cancer free, and the TKA swim dynasty as we know it continued.

As someone who spent their developmental years under Coach Zuchowski’s leadership, I can confidently state with every fiber of my being that the overwhelming majority of the successes I’ve had in my life have come from the lessons that Coach Jonathan Zuchowski instilled in me. This achievement is more than earned, and there’s no words strong enough to describe the legacy Coach Zuchowski has left on TKA, Palm Beach County and the sport of swimming as a whole. Congratulations Coach.