A veteran Columbia Falls swimming coach will lead the combined Columbia Falls-Whitefish high school swim team this season.

Mike Nelson has been an assistant coach with the Wave Ryders Swim Club in Whitefish for the past three years and was the head coach of the Columbia Falls summer swim team for five years prior to that.

The Columbia Falls and Whitefish school boards recently approved Nelson as coach for the high school program. The team’s first practice date is Nov. 20.

The new team will practice together but compete separately under Montana High School Association rules. Nelson said about 30 athletes are expected to join the teams and the coaching strategy is team unity, whether they compete separately or not.

“I want to bring Whitefish and Columbia Falls together,” he said last week. The scoreboard may tout individual accomplishments but “I always push it as a team sport,” he said.

This year’s squad will be young, with just four veteran swimmers — junior Karyssa Nelson, sophomore Colton Babcock, sophomore Zayne Friar and freshman Matthew Perez.

“We’ll definitely be a new team,” Nelson said.

The team will practice at The Wave Aquatic and Fitness Center in Whitefish. While a school-sanctioned program, the team is not school funded. They need to raise all of the $20,000-plus to get the team off the ground.

The program got a big boost last week when the Plum Creek Foundation donated $6,000 to the program.

Nelson is a database administrator for Plum Creek in Columbia Falls.

He grew up in Missoula and swam competitively through high school.