After a run at a career in real estate, Kaitlyn Orstein is going back to her more natural habitat.

In effect, she's leaving one family business and diving into another.

Orstein, 22, of Mt. Lebanon, a champion swimmer at Mt. Lebanon High School and later at Washington and Jefferson College, will be an assistant coach with the men's and women's swimming and diving team at NCAA Division III Dickinson College in Carlisle beginning this month.

Her father, Mike, is the head swimming coach at W&J, so in one sense, she is following in her father's footsteps after stepping out of her mom's.

Orstein got her real estate license a year ago and went to work with her mother at Prudential Preferred Realty in the South Hills with an eye toward a real estate career. It did not take long for her to realize that swimming -- in this case coaching swimmers -- was where her passion lay.

"I really didn't enjoy real estate all that much and I realized swimming and coaching was where I wanted to be," Orstein said. "I have been doing some coaching [this summer with the Peters Township Aqua Club] and I thought I would give coaching a shot.

"I didn't want to do high school coaching. When you get to college, it seems the athletes are more committed to the sport. In high school, a lot of swimmers are there because their parents make them go. I thought I would enjoy college coaching more because of [the commitment of the athletes]."

Orstein enjoyed great success during her high school and college swimming careers. She won 15 gold medals in 16 tries during four years of WPIAL competition and six of eight gold medals in individual events at the PIAA level. She still holds the PIAA record in the 200 individual medley and holds nine Mt. Lebanon school records.

She helped Mt. Lebanon to three WPAL team titles and one state championship and in 2004 was named the Post-Gazette High School Athlete of the Year in addition to several other similar awards.

At W&J, she was a 25-time All-American, earning honors in a number of individual events multiple times. She competed in the 2004 Olympic Trials in Long Beach, Calif., finishing 28th in the 100 breaststroke and 32nd in the 200 IM, missing out on a chance to make the team for the Games in Athens.

"By the time the [U.S.] Nationals rolled around in March this year I was kind of burned out on swimming," Orstein said. "I wanted to get into something else. But now, after watching the trials on television, I think I might want to do it again.

"It's kind of up in the air [as to whether she would continue to swim competitively] but I'm thinking about it. After seeing it on TV, I got kind of mad at myself that I didn't try."

Orstein will be 26 by the time the next Olympic Trials roll around. She says her age will not be a factor.

"There is no age limit," she said. "[Olympic team member] Dara Torres is 41 and she's still great. There's no reason I couldn't do it."

Her attention for now, though, will turn to coaching. She pursued several opportunities and talked with a number of schools before deciding on Dickinson, where she was familiar with head coach Paul Richards.

"I went to a [swimming] camp at Kenyon College [as a coach in June] and I made a lot of contacts there," she said. "There were a whole lot of great coaches there and I really learned a lot. Kenyon has had a lot of great teams. They're a real dynasty.

"But I kind of knew Dickinson's coach. His team has competed against my dad's for a long time and I know they have a great program. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity."

Orstein worked with a number of high-profile coaches at Kenyon, including Roque Santos, who won the Olympic Trials in the 200 breaststroke in 1972 and Michigan coach Mike Bottom, who coaches current U.S. Olympian Gary Hall, Jr.

She is hoping lessons learned from them, as well as those she has learned in her competitive career, will help her in her new role at Dickinson.

"They have a solid program and I think I can help," she said. "For one thing, since I'm so young, I can relate to what the swimmers are going through with trying to juggle swimming and schoolwork and all that goes with it.

"I know I will have to earn [the Dickinson swimmers'] respect. They might respect me for what I have done, but I still will have to earn their respect as a coach.

"I'm looking forward to it. I think it's a great opportunity to get started in my career."