DANVERS — St. John’s Prep’s swimming and diving team has won 17 state championships in 19 years, the latest coming this season when the Eagles lapped the field and captured the Division 1 title by a whopping 169 points.
But if you ask Coach and St. John’s Prep Aquatics Director Jeff Fiore, a member of the team from 2005-2008 who won three consecutive titles, it was something that happened in North sectionals that may have made this championship extra memorable.
“We said that if we had a good lead, we’d sit some of the regular relay team down and put in some of the kids who never get to race at that level,” he said. “We knew we had a big lead, so we put the captains in. We knew we had already won the meet and told them to just go and have fun, but swim fast. I wasn’t sure if the other coaches, given our success, would think it was being cocky to do that, but we felt it was the right thing to do because every kid on our team plays a role in our success. I was happy that the responses from the other coaches were all positive. I feel good about that.”
For the record, Charlie Sununu, Will Kennedy, Reese Martinez, and Jimmy Mahoney acquitted themselves quite well, contributing points to the team’s final score.
A Lynnfield native, Fiore attended the Huckleberry Hill Elementary School from kindergarten through second grade. His family then moved to Peabody, and that’s where his passion for swimming began.
“We had a pool and my mom hired an instructor to teach my two brothers and me. The instructor thought I had potential and suggested I join a swim team, so I joined the Danvers Y team,” he said. “As I got better, we started to look at higher-level programs, so I started swimming at North Shore when I was 11.”
Fiore enrolled at St. John’s Prep after attending Higgins Middle School. The Eagles didn’t win a state title that year, but won the next three. Along the way, Fiore set school records with the 200- and 400-freestyle relay teams – ones that have since been broken.
“I think our time in the 400 was seven seconds slower than this year’s relay that had the top time in the state by four seconds,” he said.
Fiore knew he wanted to swim in college and looked at several schools around the Northeast. He credits former Prep Coach Tony Padvaiskas for encouraging him to look at Tampa.
“It was very late in the process and I was leaning toward Marist, but I had one more overnight visit left,” Fiore said. “He had a stepdaughter who was there, so he was familiar with the school, so I went for a visit and it was awesome. Almost all of our meets were outdoors, which I loved, and the place was so beautiful. I started thinking, why would I ever want to go to school up here when it’s so tough to get up in the cold and get to the pool?”
Fiore was promised a spot on the roster as a walk-on and made an immediate impact.
“The very first meet, my times really dropped, so I had a great first year,” he said. “I swam well enough to get on the 800 free relay team and got to go to the NCAAs all four years.”
Primarily a freestyler (100 and 200), Fiore added the 200 individual medley to his repertoire during his sophomore year and found he was pretty good at it.
“I was looking at finding a Day 1 event, so I tried the 200 IM,” Fiore said. “I loved it because it was different and more fun than my other events.”
It took Fiore just one year to establish himself as the top IM swimmer his final two years. By the time he graduated in 2012 with a degree in communication, Fiore had collected four straight all-American nods and was selected to the Sunshine State Conference Commissioner’s honor roll.
Fiore said he treasured his time at Tampa. While the team’s best finish at nationals was eighth (his freshman year), Tampa hit the jackpot in 2024, winning the Division 2 national championship.
Fiore said the current team has a shot of going back-to-back in a couple of weeks.
“Both the women’s and men’s teams are ranked high, so they could win another one,” Fiore said. “I am proud to be an alum of a high-level Division 2 program. I always tell the boys I coach, ‘You want to go where you will enjoy the experience and have the best chance to improve. That place for me was Tampa, which in hindsight is comparable to my experience at The Prep as a swimmer and coach, where swimming is treated as a team sport. That’s always been the philosophy at St. John’s. Kids swim events that give the team the best opportunity to win.”
Fiore has served as aquatics director at The Prep since 2018. That first year, he was also an assistant coach of the swimming and diving team. In 2019, he stepped up to head coach, leading the Eagles to state titles in 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
He’s also coached the water polo team since 2019. With 80 kids on the no-cut swim roster, 20 on the seventh and eighth grade swim team, and a record 45 kids on the water polo roster, along with total responsibility for managing all activities at The Prep’s John A. Driscoll ’90 Aquatics Center, Fiore is a busy man.
“I am very fortunate, as you don’t see many high school wellness centers like ours. We’re more like a small college facility,” said Fiore, who, as if it wasn’t enough already, also teaches physical education swim classes. “Our goal is always to get more of our community into the pool.”
Another goal: Win it again next year.
“Some of those kids on the middle school team who will be coming up are talented,” Fiore said. “That’s the advantage of having a middle school team. Kids can transition right in to fill the gaps. We’re fortunate to always have that depth.”
