Why Choose Crawfish

Our Story

Crawfish Swim School is the product of the dedication and hard work of many people for more than 20 years at our parent organization, Crawfish Aquatics. Crawfish Aquatics was founded in 1999 around the owner’s kitchen table and started with a small masters (adult) group. It expanded to a youth swim team with swimming lessons starting the summer of 2000. By the summer of 2016 over 4,000 children would come through the six swimming lesson sessions offered between April and July.

Due to the year-round swim team programs and the cooler indoor pool temperatures, Crawfish Aquatics was only able to teach between April and July each year and because of this, we would see swimmers gaining confidence and swimming skills in the water during the summer only to return eight months later having lost a lot of that progress. It was on our hearts to offer the opportunity for children to swim, and more importantly be water safe, all year long. Again, around a kitchen table, the idea for the Crawfish Swim School was born.

Our first swim school opened on Siegen Lane in January of 2017. Our second location in Prairieville followed closely behind, opening in June of 2018. The Crawfish Swim School teaches with a proven curriculum we’ve developed over our 20+ years of experience.

We believe in teaching with love, compassion and empathy knowing that learning to swim can be a scary process for people of all ages and backgrounds. At Crawfish Swim School, we take each skill, each lesson and every relationship with swimmers and their parents to heart, knowing this essential skill is a gift for life.

Our Founders: Steve & Jan Ripple

About Dr. Steven Ripple
Dr. Steven Ripple is a New Orleans native and a graduate of Jesuit High School. He attended Louisiana State University for his undergraduate degree and continued there in the LSU School of Dentistry, where he earned his Doctorate of Dental Surgery degree. He completed his Pediatric Dental Residency program at the University of Kentucky with extensive training in anesthesia, as well as treating medically compromised, handicapped and special needs children.

Dr. Ripple has spent over 35 years not only practicing pediatric dentistry, but has incorporated the experiences from his personal athletic and academic endeavors into coaching and mentoring others in the area of fulfillment of potential and service through personal sacrifice.

The beginning and driving force into his passionate development in the profession of coaching was training his wife Jan, a collegiate swimmer, in the sport of triathlon. Under Steve’s tutelage, she achieved national and international recognition as one of the top triathletes in the world. Competing in over twenty countries and spanning five continents, Jan held the title of U.S. Triathlete of the year, World and National Champion. With over forty-five professional victories during the eight years of competition, the foundation for coaching multisport, functional, dynamic performance was developed.

Following Jan’s professional career, Dr. Ripple served as his daughter Shelly’s strength and conditioning coach as she burst on the national and international elite swimming scene. Shelly’s development of functional strength contributed to her achieving four national age group records, U.S. senior national champion, American record holder, World Champion, NCAA champion and 24-time NCAA All American at Stanford University.

Serving as coach to numerous local high school athletes along with his son Kyle and daughter Kate, Dr. Ripple continued to develop champions. His teams at Parkview Baptist High School combined to win six state titles in swimming, six titles in cross country and one state title in track and field. His son Kyle continued his athletic career in collegiate basketball, while Kate excelled at collegiate soccer, signing with Texas A & M, and completing her career at LSU as team captain and leading scorer.

Keeping children active and healthy while instilling lifelong values of success is a passion of Dr. Ripple’s and is apparent through his outreach.

His pursuit of positively impacting the youth of all abilities through athletics was the driving force for the opening and development of Crawfish Aquatics in 1998. Under his guidance and leadership Crawfish Aquatics established a second home in Lafayette in 2010 and then a third location on the campus of Nicholls State University in Thibodaux in 2013. The goal of the additional locations was to continue to meet the needs of those communities through aquatics.

During the local expansion of Crawfish Aquatics, Dr. Ripple continued to be involved with the development and pursuit of excellence at the elite level. From 2005-2012, he served as the voluntary strength and conditioning coach for the Stanford Men’s swim team. Under his tutelage and guidance in this area Stanford athletes continue to achieve national and international recognition individually and collectively. Exerfit and Crawfish Aquatics served as the host to the Stanford Men’s swim team Fall Training Camp from 2006 to 2011.

Crawfish Swim School, a year round lessons facility opened in January of 2017 on Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge. The Bayou Oaks development followed in 2018 as the home for the second Crawfish Swim School to serve the Prairieville and surrounding areas.

About Jan Ripple
Jan has a passion for teaching children of all ages the benefits and lifelong lessons that come with the sport of swimming. She established the Capital City Swim League as the governing body of swimming for the Baton Rouge area and as the Parkview Baptist Eagles Head Coach she led the team to six state champion titles.

With over 25 years experience in teaching swim lessons, she has established the Crawfish Aquatics Swimming Lessons program as the leader in professional swimming instruction in our area.

"It is my passion that every child has the opportunity to learn how to swim,” she says. “I am privileged to be able to do something I love that benefits the children in our community."

Dr. Ripple and his wife, Jan, are the parents of three children and proud grandparents of eleven grandchildren.