Her school had no official team, but Stephanie Dawson knew her sport.

And the Knoch graduate continues to make her mark in it.

Dawson, 25, was named head varsity boys and girls swimming coach at Penn Hills High School just before the season started. Her boys squad is undefeated.

The girls, who graduated 15 swimmers last year, have yet to win a meet.

"That's just how our numbers worked out," Dawson said. "The girls' times are improving and we'll win soon."

Dawson knows all about winning. She was a team captain at Westminster College, maintained a 3.60 grade point average there and was part of school record-setting relay units.

When she graduated from Westminster in 2002, she figured she'd eventually get into coaching.

Just not this soon.

"I was thinking about my profession first," Dawson said. "I wanted to get into teaching first."

She did, accepting a sixth-grade teaching position in 2003-04 at Linton Elementary School in the Penn Hills School District.

Dawson decided to attend graduate school at Slippery Rock University - before being offered the swimming coach position at Penn Hills.

Previous coach Sara Pomaybo left the area to coach Olympic hopefuls at a program in Georgia. Her assistant has young children and gave up her post because of time restraints.

"I wasn't expecting to get this job," Dawson admitted. "They had it posted for a while and got several applicants from outside the district. They couldn't find anyone with enough experience.

"The athletic director (Neil Gordon) approached me about the job in mid-October. He interviewed me for about two minutes and offered me the job."

Gordon said he already knew Dawson was a good choice.

"I never go into an interview cold," he said. "I research the person first. Stephanie had all of the qualifications.

"I'm big on coaches having discipline, toughness, responsibility and maturity. I like when our coaches are on staff and I wanted somebody young for stability. Stephanie fit the bill on all those things."

Dawson's first-year assistant coach, Erica George, is a Penn Hills resident. That's proved helpful to the head coach's schedule.

Living with her parents in Butler, Dawson leaves home at 6 a.m., gets to school by 7 a.m., teaches until 3 p.m., conducts swim practice until 5 p.m., drives to SRU for night classes Mondays and Tuesdays from 6 to 8 p.m.

"I'll leave practice a few minutes early to get to class on time and Erica takes over," Dawson said. "The one night we had a meet when I had a class scheduled, I missed the class.

"My professors at Slippery Rock know my situation and they're very cooperative with me in working around it."

Filling a temporary vacancy as a ninth-grade guidance counselor during the first semester this school year, Dawson was able to work in the same building as the swimming pool, "which helped somewhat," she said.

She returns to her teaching post in the second semester.

Leading a hectic schedule is nothing new to Dawson. She swam with a few classmates at Knoch when there was no official swim team nor a pool at the school.

There still is no pool. But Knoch has formed a swim team since Dawson graduated.

"John Chamberlain coached us and made us feel like a team," Dawson said. "We didn't have the numbers back then, but much of what I learned about coaching, I learned from John Chamberlain."

Dawson is Penn Hills' third swim coach in 10 years.

"We've never won the WPIAL or PIAA as a team in swimming, but we've had our share of individual success," Gordon said. "Stephanie is doing a marvelous job. She's already exceeded expectations for this year.

"There's been no complaints from parents, the kids are happy and the times have been good. She's making my decision look very, very good."

Dawson insists it will get even better.

"This first year, we were kind of thrown into it," she said. "We had no time to actually sit down with the swimmers and devise a plan. This year's like a learning experience for all of us.

"We're all having a good time. I'm planning to relocate closer to the school and my life will settle down. I'm hoping to be here for a long time."