Chris DeSantis
Hierarchy of Communication

Now I was in the audience. When I get the chance to visit teams, I often take the opportunity to sit in on team meetings or watch practice. In each case, I think they are invaluable learning opportunities for me. One of the luckiest parts of what I do for work is that I get to see coaches from all over the country and across the world run their team.

Chris DeSantis
Empathy is Especially For People You Don't Like

That does mean, however, that when someone is doing something other than what I’ve landed upon at that moment, I can be quite judgmental. If there is a right, then there must be a wrong. Over the years, I have learned to think less black and white while holding on to my own judgments about what is right and wrong. I’ve learned that there is more than one absolute right in any given situation.

Chris DeSantis
Equity for Winners

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.

Chris DeSantis
Greg Meehan Coming into His Peak
Chris DeSantis
Volatile Confidence

For example, someone “has” confidence, or they don’t. Another person might “have” motivation, or not. When I coached in Denmark, I noted several swimmers when quitting or contemplating quitting would say they had “lost” their motivation. It was almost as if it were a set of keys they had left under a couch cushion and had given up on finding.

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Remember Bill Belichick When Hiring Your Next Coach

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Photo By David Shankbone (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Bill Belichick is the greatest football coach of all time. That's at least up for argument this morning after he won his fifth super bowl and crowned a dynasty in a free agent football era. For all the things written about his coaching "genius", one thing has always stuck out to me. In a world where coaching hires are still often made on the basis of playing ability, Bill Belichick stands as the strongest possible counterargument.

Football wasn't even Belichick's best sport. He was better at Lacrosse, where he managed to become captain of Division III Wesleyan University varsity team his senior year. Think about that for a second. Bill Belichick was a below average Division 3 college football player (Wesleyan plays in the NESCAC, a Division III league that forbids its members from post-season play). 

Look further down Belichick's coaching staff, and you'll be hard pressed to find a "star" athlete making game plans. Defensive Coordinator Matt Patricia played at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was also a Division III player. 

Coaching and playing a sport are two totally different skill sets. I've often compared the practice of hiring coaches based on what they achieved athletically to hiring a competitive eater as the executive chef of your restaurant. Yet despite the obviousness, coaching hires continue to happen.

You don't have to look far in the swimming community to see the wealth of coaching opportunities given to former "top" athletes. While some do turn into great coaches (I'm looking at you Rick DeMont), many contribute heavily to the stagnation of coaching development. They try to coach the way they were coached and don't look to advance coaching.

I can guarantee you that Bill Belichick coaches very differently from his coach at Wesleyan in the 1970s. The innovations, the tactics, the ability to get players who "didn't fit" elsewhere to be stars on his team all came from a humble athletic career. That career forced him to think a lot about what it took to influence the winner of the game without his own playing prowess.

So the next time you're making a coaching hire, look for those inquisitive minds. Look for the nerds who never caught your attention between the lane lines but did plenty of thinking on the poolside. 

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Curious Eagles: The Impossible to Define Boston College Team

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Curious Eagles: The Impossible to Define Boston College Team

With the holidays came the quiet resignation of Boston College's 45 year Head Swimming and Diving Coach Tom Groden. Coaches have been openly salivating at the prospect of taking over Groden's program since before I even swam in college. Over time, just as the article indicates that BC's swimming future is clouded, so is the prospect for any new or interim coach to make a meaningful difference in the team's performance.