Teachers
Mark Swiger
Mark Swiger is a career educator, former collegiate track and field coach, and private education consultant. From Elkins, West Virginia originally, Mark received his bachelor degree and was an NCAA national meet qualifier at Bethany College where he ran for 1972 800 meter Olympic Champion Dave Wottle. In 1996, Mark was inducted into the Bethany College Athletic Hall of Fame for his achievements as an athlete. He received in master degree in secondary education with a focus on international studies from West Virginia University.
As a coach, Mark began cross country and track programs at Cameron High School in Cameron, West Virginia and helped maintain a storied program at John Marshall High School in Glen Dale, West Virginia. He is the founder of the cross country and track and field programs at NCAA Division II Wheeling Jesuit University, where is men's and women's teams won 21 WVIAC Championships from 1990-2003 and was a 17-time WVIAC Coach of the Year. He coached hundreds of All-WVIAC athletes in that span, coached 22 NCAA All-Americans and 3 NCAA Champions. He was awarded USTFCCA NCAA Division II Distinguished Service Award in 2003. In 2006, Mark was inducted into the Wheeling Jesuit University Athletic Hall of Fame for his work as the school's most successful coach in any sport. His overall in-conference record for cross country and track and field was 290 wins – 41 losses (.876) and in his last seven years as a coach, Mark's record was 203 wins – 15 losses (.931).
Mark, as a coach, teacher, and consultant saw tremendous value in what was going on. Since that time, Tom has worked with Mark to envision what the present program provides; a mixture of nutrition tied to physical activity. This vision was way ahead of its time, looking back more than a decade later at what has happened with our nation in regard to health indicators and fitness levels of children. It was during the formative stages of discussion that Mark began to explore his contacts with a variety of local, state, national and international contacts and came to the conclusion that the gaps in fitness and student achievement ran parallel. His assumption that fit young people are smart young people and that achievement gaps are a by-product of a much more devastating gap, a student engagement gap. With that in mind, Mark and Tom went to work putting together educational programming that truly engages learners with exciting learning opportunities that address school needs.
The result: "Standards-based learning activities" that are NOT AN ADD ON, but a tool to address what schools all over the country needs. As a teacher, Mark understands that in order to be innovative in education, programs have to take into account the challenges that schools face, none more important a challenge than having to address standards to student mastery. The curriculum being developed by Throwing Zone is standards-based. The existing Learning to Throw Systems gives schools a jump start at addressing curricular and cross-curricular programming, including Science-Technology-Engineering and Math (STEM) education opportunities for science and math activities.
Subsequent to the South African experience, Throwing Zone Athletics has developed an education mission to include teachers as key partners in delivering content. Learn to Throw Systems™ is a concept developed envisioned in the mid-1990s and developed into a product. Learn to Throw Systems is under revision presently, but the existing product is included in school kits and kits for parks and recreation programs and track and field kits. Upon completion of the new and improved learning tools, along with curriculum, an online database tracking system and connections through social media should help to connect our community of learners.
Learn to Throw Systems is based on the concepts of:
- Use of levers from both sides of the body in order to optimize speed, distance, safety, and accuracy in throwing.
- Body positioning that focuses on "throwing over center-of-gravity" and use of total body position in a manner to control all of the facets of throwing in our previous point above
- Emphasis on "Weak-side" and "Strong-side" training that creates for learners a strong sense of balance, strength, mobility, and agility for throwers.
Presently, the learning team is actively engaged in or in the planning of programs that:
- Tie special education learning components for Special Olympics, an official event that was promoted successfully by Throwing Zone Athletics. This has to include training special education teachers, certifying them and bringing them on to the team in order to bridge the gaps for professionals wanting to work toward certification of some sort.
- Blended curriculum that ties physical activity to nutrition that uses such activity as engagement for learners who've traditionally been disengaged from both activity and proper nutritional behaviors. Body positioning that focuses on "throwing over center-of-gravity" and use of total body position in a manner to control all of the facets of throwing in our previous point above
- The physics of track and field throws events. Turbojav's partner implements are an emphasis in these integrated science units; Turboshot, Turbodiscus, Turbohammer. (STEM Education)
- Special activities tied to the competitive and collaborative nature of young people.
- Ties healthy living to sustainable schools programs in multiple states.
- Creating baseline databases and then tracking student improvement through student engagement
The results of this work will strengthen partnerships directly between Throwing Zone and schools, districts, state education agencies, and other partners. Our idea is to build a collaborative team between all stakeholders in the health and wellness of our greatest resource, our young people.
Mark has consulted with:
- Throwing Zone Athletics-Turbojav
- Past Chairman of USA Track and Field-Three Rivers Association (Board of Directors)
- Multiple School Districts in many states
- Documentarians and Museums and Instructional Design emphases
- Green Schools Leadership Institute™ (Co-Founder)
- Many universities and education foundations
- NASA™ Sponsored Classroom of the Future (PBL Design/Training)
- West Virginia Department of Education
- US Green Building Council (Board of Directors)
- Create West Virginia (Board of Directors)
- US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools
- West Virginia Sustainable Schools Program
- Education Information Resource Center (EIRC) (NJ)
- Intel™ Thinking with Technology Program
- Palm™ Education Training Coordinator
- Instructional Practices Inventory (IPI)
- Special Olympics
Throwing Zone's Education Division has the intent to utilize opportunities to collaborate with schools, districts, and partners who would like to be involved in designing and utilizing research-based strategies to engage, facilitate, and assess where students are, where they want to go, and how they are going to get there. We work in grant procurement, utilization of existing education funding, and creatively addressing how to find sponsorship and other funding sources for our programs.