Splash Debut: Despite Youthful Appearance, Death of his father, Sion Cavana Steers Catholic-BR to State Swim Title in First Season

by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor

The Division I state swimming championships on Nov. 22 weren’t quite complete and the cell phone of first-year Catholic High Sion Cavana was already blowing up.

Word had begun to spread that the Bears were on their way to the school’s 10th state championship and second in the past four years.

The 24-year-old Cavana, a former Catholic High swimmer, had been tasked in his first season with keeping the program’s gold standard in swimming alive and well.

He managed to do so despite a low point in his life when his father, Jeff, unexpectedly passed shortly before the start of the regular season.

When it was all over with, Catholic battled Jesuit back and forth for the Division I crown, the texts were more than just congratulatory.

They were poignant.

“They were saying,” Sion Cavana said, “your dad would be proud of you.”

It was a lump-in-your-throat moment that brought tears to Cavana’s eyes, the culmination of a leap of faith that brought him back as a steward of the Bears’ program he thrived under former head coach Doug Logsden.

“It was very impressive to see a guy in his first year be able to handle that moment like he had been doing it for 20 years,” Catholic athletic director Ben DiPalma said. “That’s a credit to his family.”

Cavana’s a third-generation swim coach with his grandmother, Eleanor Walsh, having started and coached her own swim club in her native Cockermouth, England where she was a two-time British coach of the year. His mother Helen is a former swimmer in England and LSU and has coached the past 10 years at Crawfish Aquatics.

Jeff Cavana is a member of the Wright State University of Hall of Fame where he coached for seven years and led the team to a fourth-place finish in the NCAA Division II championships in 1987.

He was then an assistant for 10 years with the LSU swimming and diving program before being promoted to head coach in 2000. The men’s program was ranked in the top 20 seven times, while the women were a constant in the top 20 rankings in 13 of 15 years.

Jeff Cavana decided to take a step back from coaching and began to raise a family that would include four sons – Jake, Sion, Ian, and Max.

“The biggest thing that sticks out that I’ve consistently heard over and over again from old friends, was that he was always extremely, genuinely happy to see everybody,” Sion said. “There wasn’t a façade. You could always see his face light up as soon as he saw someone he knew. It was just a genuine joy to see
him.”

Heeding a second call

Cavana was the lone member amongst his brothers to make swimming his passion, competing in his first meet at the tender age of 2. He maintained that pursuit of elite-level swimming
until he reached Catholic High.

“Our parents let us go our own routes and my other brothers chose other sports and some of them are still involved in that,” Cavana said. “I can’t say why I gravitated toward swimming. It was a sport I enjoyed growing up and doing over the summers. They had all of us involved in just about every sport.

“I remember having the best fun swimming,” Cavana said. “Then I went into it year around and one thing led to another and I kind of progressed in the sport. I had a love for it. Being around my mom, dad, and grandma, just helped grow the love of the sport even further.”

Under Logsden, the Bears won three state titles and were state runners-up during Cavana’s career. That was supposed to lead to a career at the Air Force Academy where he had received an appointment until being medically disqualified.

Cavana took a “gap” year and coached at Crawfish Aquatics in Baton Rouge and re-applied to Air Force but was unable to get a medical waiver and wound up attending St. Louis University.

After swimming there for a couple of semesters, the COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping the world and because of financial difficulties, Cavana returned to Baton Rouge, and found a job working in a local warehouse where he’s since elevated himself into a sales position.

Cavana never left swimming, remaining as a coach at Crawfish Aquatics along with his mother – providing for a busy lifestyle that didn’t leave much wiggle room while coaching at Crawfish Aquatics.

Before moving into his current position, Catholic had found itself in the market for a head coach when Logsden retired after a successful career to move into the school’s administration.

DiPalma targeted Cavana for the job in 2023 but because of his commitments to his job and helping at Crawfish Aquatics, he turned down the position.

He revisited the overture from his alma mater at this time last year with a change of heart.

“I really couldn’t really make it work last year,” Cavana said. “I was just starting in sales, and they (Catholic) went another route with another coach, and they came knocking on my door again and I said we could make it work, and we did.”

DiPalma said he understood Cavana’s constraints that prevented him from becoming Catholic’s swim coach. When the opening came back following the ’23 season, Cavana remained the school’s focal point for the position.

“I knew the family and the person that he was,” DiPalma said. “He was always the first name at the top. Being a young guy, I knew he was starting his career. It’s my desire to have the best coaches in the state in every sport and that never went away.

“He was always a guy I wanted back into the program if I could,” he said. “When the opportunity this year came along, and I called him, he was more settled in his career and more receptive to the idea. There’s a big draw coming back to your home school.”

Cavana represented the best of both worlds as a candidate for the Catholic High job that rivals the best in the state.

Because of his skill level in the pool, Cavana was an astute prodigy of Logsden and his philosophy for the program. Because he coaches at the club level, Cavana understands the balance swimmers need with their time commitments, but when it was time for the high school season, he could command their attention and respect in putting together another winning product.

“He just knows the program and knows the culture here at Catholic High,” DiPalma said. “Our guys are loyal to their clubs and when it comes down to the high school season, we’re truly a team. He understood that and he did an unbelievable job this year.”

It was also important to DiPalma to have the input of Logsden in the hiring process.

“I told him he would be a big part of this,” he said. “This is your program you built, and I trust Doug’s judgment of people. Doug was a big fan of Sion. He’s just so presentable when you meet him. He’s a guy that’s going to do the right thing by the kids and at the same time, he’s going to push the kids to be
excellent which is a hard balance in our business.”

Father’s coaching influence

Among the traits Cavana possessed for the job at Catholic, coaching experience at the high school level would have appeared to be the one deterrent.

DiPalma was quick to dismiss that component, instead factoring his knowledge of the sport and maturity, characteristics that foster both organizational skills and a clear vision.

“I don’t weigh age into the equation,” he said. “You want to have somebody mature, emotionally mature, and can handle the pressure of dealing with kids, parents, and officials, making a schedule. I’ve always found that that level of maturity is not necessarily dependent on somebody’s age. If those qualities are
present in a 23-24-year-old, then I’m great making that hire.

“Sion’s incredibly mature and focused for somebody in their 20s,” he said. “He’s got the mentality of a 40-year-old coach. You can see that from the first time you meet him.”

Cavana recalled his father’s enthusiasm for all of his sons and their endeavors. When he became the head coach at Catholic, Jeff Cavana was beaming with pride.

“He was ecstatic about me getting the Catholic High job,” Sion said.

Sion had his own technical insights into coaching, but his principles were a direct result of the positive nature of his father coached with an equal handedness he shared with all of his swimmers.

“I remembered his excitement, his love for the sport, and his love for his swimmers,” Sion said. “He wasn’t just a swimming coach, he truly cared about the individual. It’s not so much about what the top end of his team was doing, it was about the bottom end. What were they doing?

“You’re only as good as the lower end of the team,” he said. “He made sure the walk-ons were taken care of, seen, and developed and cared for in the same way your scholarship stud, SEC champion athletes were.”

Cavana later learned of his father’s commitment to family and the factor it played in his decision to step down at LSU and begin a ‘second’ life filled with four boys and their assorted athletic pursuits, both in and out of the pool.

“It’s a tough balance,” he said. “The reason he took a step back was to spend more time with family. It’s tough when he would get home, and were going to bed. I don’t know if that style of coaching would be on the table for me. For now, high school is very doable.”

The same level of devotion Jeff Cavana had for his sons has served as a template for Sion to follow with his swimmers, both at the club level and for Catholic High.

He believes it’s his responsibility to nurture such a role. “All I can do is pass that on,” he said.

Dealing with range of emotions

Cavana’s eagerness for his first season at Catholic was doused by the death of his father on Sept. 4.

He was a first-year coach on the brink of coaching in his first meet for one state’s top programs and instead had to grieve the loss of one of his pillars before the beginning of the season.

“I couldn’t fathom going through that as someone in their 20s,” DiPalma said. “I wanted him to know whatever time he needed he had my support and the school’s support. I also expected that
the best thing for Sion in that moment was to be where he was most comfortable and where he could thrive.”

Cavana didn’t take a leave of absence. The family celebrated the life of their patriarch at St. George Catholic Church in Baton Rouge where an overflow crowd showed up for his visitation
and his funeral.

Catholic’s High season started, and Sion’s life moved forward a little slowly without the recognizable smile or support of one of his biggest fans.

He remained immersed in the daily development of his team with afternoon practices aimed at making his swimmers better, shaving seconds off their times for another shot at glory in Sulphur in November.

Two months later the Bears arrived as one of the favorites at the state meet along with Jesuit.

That’s exactly how the meet played out within the preliminaries, setting the stage for a memorable final day that ended with a traditional jump in the pool – Cavana included.

“You can see where the points are going to fall going into it (finals),” he said. “We knew where we stood after prelims and Jesuit made up a lot of that gap after prelims, so we knew we
had to swim lights out.”

There are a myriad of ways to win a state championship and Catholic’s was predicated on superior depth.

Sophomore Noah Vargas delivered the team’s only individual championship in the 100-yard breaststroke. The Bears were also victorious in the 200-medley relay with the team of Blake Talbert, Vargas, Khoa Nguyen, and Eric Jurkovic.

“We had a few that came close, but it’s more so the depth,” Cavana said. “It’s not necessarily what our first and second guys are doing in an event, but what are Nos. 3 and 4 doing since we have guys in each event.

“Having three guys in the ‘A’ finals of the 800 back, we’re stacking up those points,” Cavana said. “We had numerous guys making second swims. We only had three out of 32 swimmers that did not score for us. We had 28 scoring positions which was huge.”

Vargas was also third in the 200-individual medley and was part of the Bears’ third-place 200 freestyle relay finish along with Jurkovic, Austin Martinez, and Jackson DeJean.

Jurkovic picked up a pair of third places in the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle races, while DeJean was fifth and Talbert seventh in the 50 free.

DeJean was a big scorer with a leg on the second-place 400 freestyle relay third in the 200 freestyle and a tie for third in the 100-yard freestyle with Jurkovic.

DeJean was joined on the 400-relay team by Jonathan Kirk, Austin Martinez, and Talbert.

Kirk was third in the 200 freestyle, Max Williams fourth in the 100 breaststroke, and Nguyen fourth in the 100-yard butterfly.

“It’s been tough all season long to pick a star out of the team,” Cavana said. “Having multiple guys make the top eight was huge.”

Catholic went into the final event – the 400-yard freestyle relay – with the team championship already sewn up.

That’s when the finality of the moment began setting in.

“I was full of emotion,” he said. “At that point, it was relief, joy, and getting congratulatory texts before it’s even over.”

DiPalma doesn’t profess to be a swimming savant but understands the scoring system and the potential turns a meet such as a state event can take.

He’s positioned next to Cavana and assistant Kristen Pasquier throughout, checking on the ebbs and flows of the meet with a careful eye on Jesuit’s standing.

“Sion was a statute, he was confident,” DiPalma said. “To watch him have that quiet confidence about him, he was calm. Every time a kid came out the pool and whether they did great or whether they didn’t do as well as they thought, he immediately grabbed them.

“He just excelled in his first state meet in how to handle the kids, how to handle the pressure,” DiPalma said. “We were expected to win. Any time you are up against Jesuit, it’s a fight and it doesn’t matter the sport. I was proud of the way he handled it, and you could tell that his attitude had already rubbed off on our kids. They were mature in the moment. They never got too up or down.”

DiPalma also credited Pasquier for the role she played in the team’s success this season.

Pasquier, a former swimmer at LSU, is a science teacher at Catholic High who jumped to the top of DiPalma’s wish list to join the coaching staff after Logden’s promotion and Cavana’s
hiring.

“She knows swimming, but what she does for our program is indescribable,” DiPalma said. “She’s lined up hotels, buses and made sure the kids are fed and their paperwork’s in. She makes sure the parents are taken care of. That’s allowed Sion to dedicate all of his time to making our kids better. They work
really well together.”

With Catholic’s state championship complete – a 51-point victory over Jesuit – it was time for the jubilant jump into the pool to celebrate the team’s accomplishments.

With all team members having taken the plunge, it was Cavana’s turn to take the same leap he’d done three times previously during his competitive career.

He did do in his full coaching attire – cannonball style.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him,” Cavana said of his father. “I’m going to keep it going. I’m going to keep the family tradition going. With as much as he poured into the sport, he loved the sport, and I’m going to continue doing the same.”