This past week I was hosting a panel, one of two I hosted during the CSCAA (College Swim Coaches Assocation) annual meeting. I want to use a question I got there as a jumping off point to make a larger point.
The question came from assistant coach Zach Mertens, who I think might actually read this blog so he’s going to get a shout out. It was to the two outstanding D2 coaches sitting next to me, Ben Hewitt and Andrew Makepeace. I found a way to insert myself because I found it irresistible.
To paraphrase, the question was “how do you manage coaching a group of athletes where you have superstars and people who are not nearly as fast”. A worthy question and one that pretty much every coach has to answer except for a select few.
Here was my answer, and then I want to expand beyond that. I think that the way you treat the “slowest” swimmer on your team is incredibly important for the mentality of everyone else, but particularly the superstar. That may not seem obvious, so before I expand I’ll go further.
Oftentimes, high performers are viewed by their peers as advantaged, and to many extents they are. They may get more attention from the coach, more admiration from their teammates. But inside, they are faced with a conflict that can often torment them. Their relative position is based on something, performance, that could change at any moment.
Therefore they may, consciously or more likely subconsciously, consider that their position is incredibly uncertain. They could lose their spot in the sun at any moment. Unless, of course, they see that their coaches love, their teammates respect is not based on their performance. What more powerful example for that than how you, as a coach, treat the most walking of walk-ons.
I want to connect this idea to another that I felt was in the air, as it almost inevitably at events like this. That idea is equity, and for the purpose of this post I’m going to use gender equity as an example because it’s the most obvious.
I think there is a false assumption about equity that largely blocks any progress towards it. That is because the assumption is self-reinforcing to inequity. Belief in its immutability is really its lifeblood.
That is the idea that privilege is zero sum. For someone else to gain equity must mean that others have to lose. I found myself pondering this idea over lunch with Jen Buffin and Jaclyn Rosen. Side note: Jen gave me a hug when she saw me. Perhaps she knew I absolutely needed a hug at that particular moment. Side side note: anyone who would prefer to give me a hug rather than a handshake upon greeting me is MORE than welcome.
Anyway, I won’t get into specifics of what was discussed at lunch, but I will return to the assumption of zero sum privilege. There is an assumption in coaching too that your attention is zero sum, that however you carve it up is just “how it is”. The real truth is that like most things I talk about here, attention is a capacity. You can develop it, and it can diminish as well.
When it comes to equity, the more we tell ourselves that everything is zero sum, the more likely that everything will stay zero sum. That, in a nutshell, is why I push for greater equity. I am a middle aged white guy from a rich family who lives in a beautiful suburb. I’m the superbly talented superstar in this analogy, and yet I feel my positoon is tenuous.
It’s a joke that pretty much everyone in my profession is someone with a popular white guy name: Mike, Chris, Bob, John etc.
I feel things would be better off if a more diverse set of people were heard from and thrived among us. Because despite my advantage I know that I could one day find myself on the other side of a lopsided inequity. I’d rather live in a place where that was less likely.