2021 Volunteer of the Year, Joe Cucchiaro

Joe Cucchiaro has been an active member of the Maryland swimming community since 2007, when his six-year-old daughter started swimming competitively, to be joined the following year by Joe’s younger daughter. Their first team was the Taylor Village Tigerfish summer team, which is a member of the Central Maryland Swim League (CMSL) and is sanctioned by AAU.

Joe initially started volunteering with the Tigerfish to help set up for meets and work as a timer. 

He soon decided that he wanted to become an official and has been officiating ever since, both for the summer league and for the various year-round club swimming teams his daughters eventually joined. Joe was invited to join the Tigerfish parent board in 2011, then he accepted the role of AAU representative on the CMSL board the following year, without fully understanding what the position would entail or even what AAU really was. Nonetheless, he enthusiastically tackled the role that would result in him becoming a valued member of the AAU community.

During the summer of 2012, Joe spent much of his time learning about the budding relationship between CMSL and AAU. He recognized the potential for a strong partnership and made it his goal to solidify those ties. As a result of his efforts, he was invited to attend the AAU annual banquet that fall with his older daughter. They were the only two swimming representatives there, which further strengthened Joe’s resolve to make swimming a larger part of the AAU world.

Joe began working closely with AAU’s Ben and Antoinette Dubose and the CMSL board to increase awareness of AAU among the league’s 50 or so swim teams and to help them understand the benefits of their AAU memberships. Joe was particularly instrumental in establishing the AAU Award for CMSL Leadership, to be awarded to up to two members of each summer team every year. This new award was very well-received by CMSL athletes, coaches, and team representatives, and there were 78 recipients of the award in 2013. In addition, three swim team parents were awarded the AAU Governor’s Award for their life-saving efforts in an incident involving a coach who suffered a medical emergency.

Attendance at the AAU banquet increased from just Joe and his older daughter in 2012 to more than 100 CMSL athletes, family members, and coaches in 2013, becoming the sport with the second-largest representation at the banquet. As awareness of AAU continued to grow throughout the swim league, the number of AAU/CMSL awards also continued to increase, culminating in 2016, when there were 98 athletes receiving the award, and when swimming became the sport with the most representatives at the banquet.

In the years since Joe first began working with AAU, he has earned the John G Considine award for Sport Director Membership as well as the William “Bill” Stevens club executive award multiple times. In addition, Joe has also been the recipient of the AAU Governors award multiple times.  In 2021, Joe was awarded the AAU volunteer of the year award, an honor typically reserved for AAU leadership. Joe has also accepted numerous other awards on behalf of CMSL for their participation in AAU.    

Joe’s final summer working with CMSL and AAU was in 2022, more than 15 years after he first started volunteering as a swim parent, 10 years after becoming CMSL’s AAU rep, and shortly before he and his family moved out of state. During that time, he took a relationship between CMSL and AAU that was in its infancy and grew it into a strong and successful partnership. Joe’s devotion to the sport of swimming is truly unmatched, and his positive impact will be felt throughout Maryland for many years to come. Everyone at AAU would like to thank Joe for his many years of service, and we wish him well as he moves on to his new adventures with Minnesota swimming!