Sexism in College Swimming: A Man's Guide

Yesterday, I wrote about the stunning inequity between men and women in college swimming. The blog focused a lot on the describing the problem that's out there. What it didn't do is talk much about solutions.

Now, rather than mansplaining to female coaches about what they should do, I'd rather reach out to my fellow men. We hold the most power to do something about this situation, and with that power comes the responsibility.

Here are some things you can do as a man to address this issue. For the purposes of this advice, I have split these into a "boss" category and a "colleague" category. We'll start with the most powerful:

For Bosses

1. Actively recruit women to coaching positions- One of the most frequent complaints I hear from men about the lack of female coaches is that they can't find any "quality" candidates for their open positions. This is lazy. Yes, if you have an open coaching position at school you will most likely be deluged by men applying to that job.

That does not mean that there aren't actually a lot of well qualified female candidates out there. Spending time recruiting them will give you a competitive advantage because you will tap into a market for assistant coaches that many of your competitors are ignoring. Imagine if you got to recruit in areas of the country that your competitors totally ignored. Wouldn't that be an advantage?

When I was a head club coach, I easily filled my staff with over 50% women, helped them find opportunities for advancement and generally felt as if I had a competitive advantage because of it. It was a win-win-win.

2. Create a family friendly workplace- The world of swimming jobs is notoriously bad for families. Between the odd hours, the lack of off-season in many Division 1 programs and often non-existent family leave policies in athletic departments, it's a tough world out there, especially for those looking to start a family. Also, don't forget about the bad pay!

Men can be at work the day after a child is born, although I wouldn't suggest it. Women, on the other hand, have unavoidable disruptions with work should they choose to have a family. Some of the worst attrition in among the ranks of women in college coaching comes after the birth of their first child.

If you're a head coach, go ahead and read this excellent guest article on Swimswam. Please realize that Greg Meehan and Tracy Slusser did not lead Stanford Women's swim team to a NCAA title despite her being six months pregnant when she started working there. They made a conscious decision that coaches having a family would be a strength of their program.

There's a giant talent pool of female coaches that have left or never tried college coaching because of the poor work-life balance. This inequity can be a huge advantage if you are bold enough to make a change. 

For Colleagues

1. Don't be a bully- Women are far fewer in number in college swimming. They are often excluded from the socializing and casual deckside banter that is pretty much the lifeblood of coaching relationships and hiring.

They are also easy to pick on. As I pointed out in my article on Teri McKeever, female coaches often get criticized for characteristics that are praised in male coaches. As Toni Armstrong points out in the article above, female coaches are also pushed to "masculinize" their coaching style. Isn't that some paradox?

No wonder female coaching attrition is so high. Isolated, pushed to act a certain way and then criticized for it. The situation can feel hopeless. As a male colleague, you need to break out of this system and rise above it.

2. Be an ally- As a male coach, there are so many things you can do to shift the power balance towards women in swimming.

Cultivate female mentors (there are some amazing ones out there), and talk openly about that mentorship. If you're a male coach and don't have female mentors you are really missing out on some amazing wisdom.

Look for situations where your female co-worker is selling herself short and be the person who tells her she deserves more. As we approach salary and evaluation time, be open with your co-worker about how you will approach the head coach.

At least start

These suggestions are just a beginning. There is so much work to be done! Ultimately, the more we improve the standing of women in our sport the more we improve our sport for everybody involved. 

Are you a woman who would like to speak out on this issue? Write me for a guest posting spot. 

This is a Pay Chasm, Not a Pay Gap

There is a silent crisis going in college swimming. Silent because it's happening so slowly and to an already disadvantaged set of people (women) that it hardly gets any attention at all. That women are disadvantaged in college swimming is obvious. What is not obvious is that things are getting worse.

I sat down last night to comb through publicly available salary data for college swim coaches. Due to public accountability laws, salary information for state university employees exists in searchable databases in many cases. Many large state universities are also some of the highest performing college swimming and diving programs.

I had a theory- that much like many other fields, women were getting paid less. What I found was horrifying. Not only are women getting paid less to do the same work, they are sometimes getting paid less than their male counterparts despite more experience, time served and education at the same institution.

The Not Bosses

I looked at combined (men's and women's) programs from power conferences (SEC/ACC/B1G). Why? Because these are programs with large coaching staffs (allowed up to six coaches on the same staff). In all cases I looked at there was at least one female staff member, (in one case two).

I excluded head coaches, because head coaches of combined programs in these large programs are overwhelmingly male. Courtney Hart (my former boss) remains the only woman coaching a combined program in a "power" conference. Likewise if you look at the collegeswimming.com top 50 ranking of Division 1 teams (men and women), there are only one female head coach of a combined program, Mandy Commons-Disalle at Cincinnati.

Any comparison including these two women would unfairly single them out, something which I have taken great pains to avoid. 

I averaged the salary of non-head coach staff members (male) and compared that with the female average for twelve schools for which such data was readily available. The average male salary was $70,000 a year, while the average female salary was $56,000. This is means that women are earning 79% of what men are for similar positions at these institutions.

The "Good" Jobs

Here is where you may interject and say "well, this post has a dramatic title, 79% is pretty much the same as the nationally cited pay gap". A couple of reasons why this figure is more dramatic than you might assume:

First, the biggest reason for this huge gap in non-head coach salaries is that the better positions are overwhelmingly filled with men. The "special" assistant coach titles like "Associate Head Coach" or "Head Assistant Coach" or however coaches are promoted internally, are almost unanimously male.

Likewise, diving coach positions, which often pay better than normal assistant coaching positions, are almost unanimously male at these top programs. In one of two instances where a woman held an associate head coach position, she dramatically swung what was going to be a far worse gap in salaries.

If you think that a fair, merit-based system has resulted in men almost unanimously having these jobs, then I have a membership fee at ASCA to sign you up for. Finally, these are the schools where salaries are easily researched. The people making these salary decisions know this information can be found! Imagine what is happening at private schools or other places with less public accountability.

But wait! There's more

Other highlights/lowlights from my research:

-At one school, despite a female coach having nearly a decade of experience, she was paid less than two fresh faced male assistant coaches added within the last couple years

-At the other school with a female associate head coach, she was paid half (!) the salary of the male associate head coach.

-In the only program with multiple female staff members, a female staff member with a Doctorate (in a relevant field) was payed a lower salary than the men despite two of those men only having bachelors degrees.

'Tis The Season

The college hiring season is in full swing. Here are some things you can count on:

-If a female assistant coach leaves a position open and she was the only female working for a male head coach at a women's program or a combined program, it will be "unofficially" required that the opening be filled with a female.

This unofficial affirmative action does little to help women, and in fact allows Athletic Directors and Coaches to pat themselves on the back as if they are actually making an effort to make a fair playing field for female coaches

-Returning assistants often are evaluated around this time, and have their one year contracts renewed in June/July. Salaries are negotiated. Want help researching if you're getting a fair salary? I can help

-One of the most powerful women in college swimming, Susan Teeter, is retiring. Whether or not her job is filled by a man will determine whether it follows a national trend, where female coaches from the early days of NCAA sports have generally been replaced by men as the salaries and stature of those positions improve.

Up next, how can we as stakeholders in college swimming make this situation better? 

Do you want information on how to improve the gender diversity of your team or coaching staff. Write me

Don't Visualize With Anxious Athletes

When I bring up the topic of mental skills with swim coaches, I hear one word more than any other: visualization. It sends chills down my spine. While visualization (a sort of mental dress rehearsal for actual competition) has value in certain situations, it can actually do more harm than good, especially when dealing with athletes that are anxious in competitive situations.

Visualization as a technique has existed for a long time, long enough that I remember doing it in the mid 90s as an age group swimmer. For a long time in my career, I dismissed it. When I did give it a try, it was my most anxious swimmer that convinced me that it was the wrong solution.

You see, if someone is anxious about an upcoming event, asking them to imagine themselves in that event is far from helpful. Anxiety plays tricks on your mind, and intrudes on your rationalizing of what will come in the future with horrible, unlikely outcomes.

If you don't address the underlying anxiety an athlete is facing, asking them to visualize is like forcing them to have a nightmare. The visualization will then have the opposite effect you intended as a coach, as it will make the "unlikely" poor outcome more likely, and only reinforce their paranoia.

I'm convinced that one reason visualization is so popular is that it is a "one off" type of exercise, something coaches can pull out at random interval and declare that they did what they could to mentally prepare athletes.

That is not to say that visualization is totally useless. For athletes that are especially visually oriented, (think artists or designers), it can be very effective in augmenting their performance. Just be careful that those athletes aren't also fearful in race situations, as the negative effect will be even greater.

To address the underlying anxiety athletes are feeling about competition, the solution is much more about a long, sustained effort, just like teaching any other technique. As I have discussed in a previous post, there are concrete steps you can take as a coach to address this situation. 

There are a lot better ways to improve the mental skills of your athletes than visualization, with many research backed techniques out there that can make a huge difference. Want to add them to your team or personal practice? Write me for a free consultation. 

Your 2017 Guide to Blaming Teri McKeever For Everything

Ho hum. Another year goes by, another top two finish at the NCAA Championship for Teri McKeever's Cal squad. McKeever, who had to weather being snubbed for the Olympic staff followed by Missy Franklin's decision to train with Cal men managed another stellar year.

Despite her obvious success, McKeever does not receive the adulation and hero worship of her male peers. Instead, she is battered by whisper campaigns that seek to undermine her success. As a result, McKeever has largely eschewed any media engagement the last few years. Why engage when it seems the world is set against you?

To that end, here are some things that Teri McKeever is sure to take blame for in 2017, regardless of whether she had anything to do with it.

Missy Franklin's double shoulder surgery- Surely the physical breakdown of Franklin, the 2012 Olympic darling, has something to do with her time training with McKeever. There is no possible way that Todd Schmitz, who trained her in the lead up to the Olympics and said of her poor performance "I truly don't think it was physical".

Abbey Weitzeil's disappointing NCAAs- Weitzel was expected by many to challenge Simone Manuel in the sprint events at NCAAs. Instead she only finaled in both. If Weitzeil bounces back it will probably be due to the coaching the Coley Stickels provided her prior to coming to Cal. McKeever has zero history of helping talented swimmers come back from disappointing results. 

Kathleen Baker not going 48 in the 100 back- Kathleen Baker, who had an outstanding freshmen season, followed up with Olympic silver, and then dominated at the NCAA Championships, definitely would have swum better with a different coach. 

Cierra Runge adding time in the 500 free- Cierra Runge swam 4:31 in the 500 free her freshmen year at Cal in 2015. She transferred to Wisconsin and swam 4:41 in the 500 free at NCAAs this year. This had nothing to do with Runge or her coaches at Wisconsin and is obviously a residual effect from her time at Cal.

Donald Trump- Many people are blaming Donald Trump for stuff. What they are missing is that Teri McKeever, in cooperation with Russian intelligence, single handedly swung the election in Trump's favor. So, stop pointing the finger at Trump and blame McKeever

You not liking this blog- If you don't like this blog post or are taking the above points seriously, it is because Teri McKeever has used her psychic powers to invade your brain and destroy your sense of humor. 

Chris DeSantis takes swimming very seriously even if he doesn't always take life very seriously. If you are serious about improving your swimming, write him. 

Ways to Compete in Swimming, Ranked

Can you remember the most fun you ever had swimming? For me it was my first year of high school swimming. I stepped up to swim the breaststroke leg of a medley relay. To my right? Future Olympian Erik Vendt.

And although I lost significant ground, it was so much fun to compete with someone on that level, in a distance where I didn't get totally blown away.

We are lucky that swimming comes in so many forms in the United States. It isn't so in the rest of the world, some of the ways to swim I'm about to list are painfully absent outside America. So, without further ado, here are all the ways to compete in swimming, ranked.

1. Summer League/Rec League/Town Team

Is there a focus on the best part of the sport, direct competition? Yes. Is there score kept? Yes. What's the atmosphere like at competitions? Typically people are having a blast, spectators included. 

Recreational swimming has the most coaches involved for the best reasons (certainly not money), to have fun with the sport and to enjoy that sport with kids.

2. High School Swimming

Combines everything great about rec league swimming with a concentration on a certain age group. Bonus points for the recognition swimmers can get among their peers when they compete in something their peers actually understand.

The only reason high school swimming isn't ranked #1 is that in contrast to recreational teams, there is a more fringe of high school swimming sucking the fun out of the sport for kids. Still, go to a competitive high school meet and have the slightest idea what is going on and I guarantee a good time.

3. College Swimming

College swimming co-opts some of the best parts of high school and rec swimming. There are dual meets and championship meets that are often exciting and where score is kept. There is a focus on team competition.

Unfortunately coaching in college has a downside. Often collegiate programs exist without much oversight from their athletic departments, mostly for the worse. Many coaches can get away with poor treatment of athletes and maintain their jobs because of entrenched hierarchy.

4. YMCA Swimming

Although YMCA Swimming is similar to club swimming in many ways, there is a greater focus on enjoyable competitions, as well as the context of sports.

The institutional nature of YMCAs mean that more often than not they are more professionally run than most club programs.

5. Club Swimming

Some will say it is unfair to put club swimming last. There are some truly excellent club swimming programs out there, run professionally with the proper focus on kids enjoying the sport, learning and with the proper perspective on swimming's role in a life well-lived.

Club competitions, however, are mostly terrible and drain competitors, parents and coaches alike. The business model for such meets is heavily entrenched and seems unlikely to change.

We do not have good metrics for rating club programs, so instead use club recognition program that is overwhelmingly results focused and skews heavily towards club size.

The most successful club model, the coach run club, can also be the most dangerous, particularly if there are not good internal checks placed on coaching behavior.

Teams run by board of directors often suffer from a board made up of parents of swimmers on the club, leading to huge conflicts of interest.

We've Got A Lot

Although this can sound critical, the good news is that there are a lot of good options should you choose to get involved in swimming. Parents, coaches and athletes should take into account all factors when considering which teams to get involved with. 

Disagree? Want to know more about how to make swimming better on your team? Write me!

Guest Post: Maximizing the Pro Swim Series

The Arena Pro Swim Series is just like any other USA Swimming toy. They have the resources to make a great event, but the insular nature of decision making means that members get an inferior product. Don't believe me? Check out their latest website that purportedly came with a $2,000,000 price tag. 

Friend of the blog Erik Wiken is a club coach, a studious helper of other swim coaches on the Swim Coaches Idea Exchange Group on Facebook, and a tireless thinker of how we could do things better. He submitted the following plan (edited slightly), which I will feature today, on how to improve the Arena Pro Series:

"In light of recent changes to the Australian Olympic Trials (ed: closer to the Olympics like the US) , Ranomi Kromowidjojo joining the Pro Derby in Louisville, Kentucky this April, I felt motivated to revisit an idea i've long left dormant: bllowing the Arena Pro Swim Series up.

Before I get into it, let me just establish off the top that I will ignore the messy logistical web that could complicate this for the moment to just focus on the series itself. 

We need a two-cluster series in the U.S. for the 2017-2018 year. One in the fall, one in the spring. The fall cluster avoids the Golden Goggles and makes stops where teams across the country will enjoy the weather. The spring cluster starts three weeks after the NCAA championships while avoiding a certain popular, rabbit-centric holiday weekend.

I have proposed locations, for the purpose of attracting international talent. If it goes well, we can change the cities every couple areas, staying near major hubs while offering underexposed areas of the swimming population something to new and exciting to see.

2017-2018 Proposed Schedule

October 5-6 Clearwater, FL (Clearwater Aquatic Center), 25m

October 13-14 Atlanta, GA (Georgia Tech University), 25m

October 21-22 New Orleans, LA (University of New Orleans Aquatics Center), 25yd*

April 12-13 Mesa, AZ (Skyline Aquatic Center), 50m April 20-21

Los Angeles, CA (University of Southern California), 50m

April 28-29 Las Vegas, NV (University of Nevada-Las Vegas), 50m

The purses need to be sufficient to attract foreign national teams and pros, in line with the World Cup Circuit for individual events, WR bonuses and cluster bonuses. For the fun of it and for our young swimmers/fans to reference, make the 3rd stop in the fall short course yards, but up the purse per event to keep the foreign athletes visiting to compete in the final stop

What We Do With These Stops

1. Require National Team members on the APA to choose one of the two clusters to compete a, offering further incentive to compete at both.

2. One of the stops on each of these clusters could be a competition for the National Junior Team, combining it with a camp going into the meet.

3. Each stop will come with it opportunities for community outreach, clinics for professional swimmers.

4. Local clubs allowed discounted tickets and priority purchasing for all sessions, to ensure the most exposure to the USA Swimming developmental level.

5. USA Swimming coordinated training sessions at the pool for national team members who would compete, open to registered USA Swimming athlete members to watch.

6. Education tracks for local swim parents, coaches and athletes between sessions.

7. Live Stream both prelims and finals (need a sponsor!) and have Facebook live on deck (the action, the noise, some interviews during warm-ups, awards breaks, etc.). Keeping it off TV will make it far more enjoyable and accessible.

It’s time the US did something different with this series and put an even greater emphasis on the fan and athlete experience. By clustering these stops we afford athletes and fans alike an experience that will be fun, impactful and intriguing to athletes from around the world. With the right people involved we could do a ton of good and build the popularity of the sport even further."

Erik's plan sounds in many ways similar to Europe's Mare Nostrum serious, where over the course of ten days or so, three elite swim meets happen on the Mediterranean coast. The clustering means that it is worth it economically for international athletes to make the trip and makes for a better meet experience for everyone. 

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The Retirement That Launched A Hundred Resumes

In the world of swimming, there aren't that many "good jobs". That is not to say there aren't many jobs that are rewarding and fun. I'm talking about salaried, stable jobs that pay well.

The Head Men's Swimming coach of THE Ohio State University is a good job. Thanks to public accountability laws, anyone can look up what they paid out to have Bill Wadley coach the team this past year. 

Wadley is retiring, and there is a reasonably large amount of coaches who are qualified or think they are qualified for the job. There are also a ton of coaches that think they could do it better than Bill Wadley.

Regardless, the proof of whether or not that will be true will come when a new coach steps in. Is Ohio State a sleeping giant with NCAA Championship potential? Or are there factors people miss that lead them to overestimate what is possible in Columbus?

Here is the case for Ohio State as a sleeping giant:

Ohio State has a great facility (10 lane 50m pool, shared with the Women's team, superb diving facilities) and great resources in general (wealthy athletic program). They have history (11 NCAA titles, although quite a long time ago). There are very few schools that have a similar combination.

So what will coaches have to overcome to awaken the Buckeyes? Well, for one, the fact that the team is in Ohio. I don't say that as a dig on a state, but more as the fact that Ohio State does not have the same in-state recruiting advantage you get in Texas, California or Florida.

Ohio is also cold, which will mean that there will be a chicken and egg situation with foreign recruiting. Foreign recruits gravitate towards warmer climates, unless you establish a really strong international reputation. So, kudos to Bob Bowman for coaching at Arizona State.

Finally, football success is often overvalued in judging the athletic potential of a school. In swimming, the pecking order within conferences leans harder towards academic rankings. Ohio State trails Michigan, Penn State, and Wisconsin in the US News and World Report rankings, although only slightly so. 

Still, if you do the same salary search that turned up Wadley's compensation on some other top ten NCAA programs, there are many coaches of programs ahead of the Buckeyes who would be in line for a nice raise if hired. Whoever it is, you can count on their fellow coaches to be ruthless if the team doesn't surge in the NCAA. 

Want to make your team better whatever the environment? Contact me!

Overqualified: "Experienced" Coaches Change NCAA Fates

Post-men's NCAA, the focus is rightly on Texas' dominant victory and the possibility that Eddie Reese is immortal and may go on forever. There were several other NCAA teams that saw their fate dramatically change this year with a common thread.

Each of the programs I'm about to describe added a coach to their staff that was at, near or past retirement age but had success as a head coach. I guarantee these programs are not using these coaches like traditional "assistants". Instead, they are leveraging the strengths of these coaches to dramatically improve the success of their teams.

Mark Bernardino joined the University of South Carolina in 2014 after a long, dominant ACC run at Virginia. Bernardino's ACC championship teams were known for their bruising distance success. Not shockingly, South Carolina saw a significant uptick in distance performance in the years following Bernardino's move to Columbia. 

This year at Men's NCAAs, the Gamecocks scored 54 points between the 500 and 1650 freestyle. That could have landed them a 21st place finish at the meet all by itself. Instead it was the driving force behind South Carolina's 15th place finish at the meet. Head Coach McGee Moody has to be thrilled with the results of his hire. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Indiana managed to add the former head coach of one of their chief conference rivals, Dennis Dale, also in 2014. Dale won seven Big Ten titles at Minnesota, many on the basis of being able to mold fast sprinters from seemingly out of nowhere and produce fast relays.

Sprinting was a weakness of the Hoosier program before Dale's arrival, and now it has become a big strength. This past weekend they put a 200 and 400 freestyle relay in the A-final, and individually got big scoring swims from Blake Pieroni and Vini Lanza.

A coach once told me that Ray Looze and Dale were bitter rivals, but somehow Looze found a way to make peace, and the results was that Indiana is enjoying huge success. They finished 7th this year at Men's NCAAs and 8th at the Women's meet. 

Often head coaches can start a hiring process with a role in mind, then work to fit that role. McGee Moody and Looze found a coach that would make their team better and created a role around that. As we enter another hiring season, those with jobs on offer would be wise to follow suit.

Want more insight as to how to make your team better? Write me for a free consultation!

Dear Eddie Reese: Please Retire

I started coaching college swimming in 2007, which means that I have now heard a decade of rumors started by jealous rivals about Texas Longhorns legend Eddie Reese retiring. In case you are living under a rock, Reese' team just won a third straight NCAA title in dominating fashion.

On my previous blog, I wrote a couple posts titled "Please Don't Retire" about veteran coaches who I wanted to stick around and keep kicking ass. The two subjects, Bob Groseth and Mark Bernardino, have done just that (each deserve their own post). 

But whereas Bernardino has helped transform South Carolina into a distance swimming force and Groseth is perhaps the most influential coach you heard nothing about last year, Eddie Reese is just too much. His continued dominance at the college level is an existential threat to the rest of college coaches.

It appeared before this recent run that maybe the torch would be passed. Dave Durden and Cal were the new hot team. Then NC State was coming on like a freight train. Watch out for Alabama! Surely Eddie was on his last legs. Until he wasn't.

So,  on behalf of the rest of college swimming, I'm making a please to the esteemed Coach Reese: please retire. You're creating a situation where coaches will be expected to be on top of their game into their mid 70s! You're crushing the dreams of multiple generations of younger coaches, and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.

If you don't, rivals will have to suffer another agonizing year. They'll have to look into recruits eyes and tell them this next will have to be your last. The ten coaches who could get the Texas job plus the other ten who think they could get the Texas job will have to spend another year working somewhere else trying to set themselves up well enough to get the Texas job.

Won't you think of the children? Please?

When Internal Motivation Is Bad

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about why hard working athletes often struggle with "rest" and "taper" season. At the core of this is that many of these athletes can present as self-motivated, but because this self-motivation is not healthy, we can miss the problem as coaches. 

A reader rightly questioned: how can you identify when athletes internal motivation is poorly wired? This is a crucial question, because if you can do this, you have the opportunity to intervene as a coach well before the end of a season when this problem presents itself. Here is an explanation of how this situation may present itself as well as interventions you can make:

Unrealistic self- evaluation. An athlete's self-evaluation is a great insight to their motivational system. Can your athlete determine when they are doing a good job? Once I asked all of the athletes on my team to rate themselves on a scale of 1-5 on how well they were using practice to get better. 

Many athletes reported a three or lower, which shocked me. When I pressed further, two big things came through: they were scared to rate themselves higher because they assumed I was going to think they were overconfident, and they couldn't see a way they could push the rating up.

When you have athletes that are both worried about your critiques (instead of seeing them as opportunities to get better) and feeling helpless, alarm bells should go off. Many coaches make the mistake of stopping feedback to these swimmers, who in turn take that as reinforcement that their coach does not care about them.

Instead, when delivering feedback (critical or not), make sure you are communicating that you care about the athlete, regardless of performance. Tell them the things that you value about them, so that they can see that they have value regardless of specific performance. Then, you must give them actionable steps that they can take to improve their own self-rating of their performance.

It will take pro-active and consistent work within a trusting relationship to help an athlete change their motivational structure. Many athletes have wired their motivation this way based on relationships with their parents or previous influential coaches, and feel it is "right". They will be scared to change and may believe that they will "lose" their motivation if they do so.

Like any swimming skill, the earlier in an athlete's life you can intervene, the better. Coaches of beginning athletes can set up a lifetime of successful swimming by building a healthy motivational environment. 

Three Things Mallory Comerford Did Better Than Ledecky

NCAA Swimming is great. One of the reasons it's great is that the short course format magnifies a different skill set from the long course swimming we see in the Olympics. Because of this, some of the world's best swimmers face hard races at the NCAA level.

Mallory Comerford did just that to the best swimmer in the world, Katie Ledecky, when she tied her in the 200 free. The Louisville sophomore went toe to toe with not only Ledecky but one of the hottest swimmers of the meet, Simone Manuel. How did she do it? Let's take a look:

Comerford is barely mentioned by commentator Rowdy Gaines off the top, even though she was fairly well known in college swimming circles. With the focus on Manuel and Ledecky, don't miss what Comerford (third from the top) is doing early on to set herself up to tie Ledecky in this race.

Efficiency underwater

Comerford is very efficient in the underwater portions of her race. She actually has a poor start in relation to the rest of the field, jumping too far up instead of out, resulting in a slow entry into the water and landing too deep.

She makes up for it immediately with a compact and controlled kick. Look at how still her upper body is when she is kicking- this shows great control. By managing the size of her kick, she comes far underwater without spending too much oxygen, this is a 200 free after all and she will need it at the end of the race.

Comerford repeats this process for each wall. Off the first turn she puts her feet on the wall almost simultaneous to Ledecky but breaks out ahead, and the next wall flips behind but pulls even again. 

Because Comerford is able to do such efficient work underwater, she can actually relax more during the swimming portion relative to Ledecky, who in this race had to stress to maintain contact with Manuel and push her lead on Comerford.

Pacing

Rather than guess at the psychology of who was "swimming their own race" in an NCAA final, let's take a look at something quantifiable. Comerford swam a better paced race than either Ledecky or Manuel.

Here are Comerford's splits:

23.9/25.5/25.3/25.5

Compare these to Ledecky's

23.7/25.1/25.8/25.6

Ledecky's splits reveal that she went out too fast, as she jumped significantly in time from the 2nd to 3rd 50., Comerford's splits almost appear as if she swam in isolation, trying to hit a strong first 50, and then three splits within about 1.5 seconds of that pace. 

Changing kick speed

Take another look at the above video, with particular attention to Comerford's kick in the first 100 yards. She looks as if she is barely kicking, and if you had never seen her swim before you might guess that she is not a strong kicker.

Then watch the second 100, where she appears to change speeds (even though she is just maintaining speed) by engaging her kick. This is such a smart strategy because kicking in a 200 is like taking out a high interest loan. You will get a big reward immediately but pay it back down the line a lot. Fortunately for Comerford, by waiting to fully engage her kick to the second 100, she only had to pay back her loan in the warmdown pool.

Mallory Comerford may have stunned many with her victory, but probably not her coaches, who no doubt worked on all of the above throughout the season. These are changes that even beginning swimmers can make to the way they approach a 200 freestyle that can make a big difference. 

Do you want to add video technical analysis to your training? Fill out a contact form to discuss plans. 

Project Under: Back in Competition

When I stood behind the blocks last Friday, about to swim the 100 breaststroke for the first time in four years, I was smiling. Was I nervous? Of course. Where I once let my anxiousness overwhelm me to the point that was I relieved that my swimming career was "over", I was excited to swim.

I proceeded to swim a very sloppy race, and my time (1:06.11, with 30.1 and 36.0 for splits) reflected that. Afterwards, my instinct was to beat myself up. I thought about the people who would read this blog and think "this guy thinks he's going to break a minute?". Then I told that part of my brain to quiet down. I know it may always be there, but I don't have time for that crap.

Pre-meet doubt

Let me back up for a second. When I last wrote I was having trouble sleeping, something that has improved moderately since then. I cut back on alcohol and started drinking chamomile tea nightly. I began writing an occasional journal where I wrote out arguments against the nagging internal monologue that tries to convince me I'm a disappointment.

Two weeks before the competition, I was at pre-school picking up my daughter. I squatted down to give her a hug. I heard a loud click and felt my kneecap move sideways. Startled, I gathered myself and walked my daughter home with my adrenaline pumping. I woke up the next morning with my knee throbbing.

What should have been my mini-taper was full of limping, careful dadding (I dare you to try to avoid getting down on the floor with a three year old) and a slow progression towards being able to swim breaststroke. I was able to finally do breaststroke with light pain two days before the meet, and felt confident I wouldn't make it worse by competing.

Seeing What Happens

I know it may sound like i'm making excuses, but I'm not. I swam in the meet, unsure of how it would go, but knowing that finding out where I truly would help me no matter what.

And find out I did. My 1:06.11 was full of information for me. Here were my big takeaways:

1. I need to do a lot more work on my turns, starts and breakouts. I skied my start, ended up too deep and broke out underwater. My turns were loose, especially my pushoffs.
2. I was happy with how my pull worked, with the only minor quibble that I often went into a new pull without really finishing the previous recovery
3. I need to get in better shape. Would I have come home better had I felt confident in my legs? Probably. Would I have an easier time finishing without poor starts, turns and breakouts? Sure! But it is also true that it is much easier to execute these skills when you are appropriately fit.
4. To that end, my training needs more volume. I spent a lot of my breaststroke workouts chasing 15 second 25s, yet my final 25 on that 100 was around 19 seconds. I believe I could use a lot more volume of 16s before I try to build up 15 again.

Here's the race (I'm in the closest lane, lane 8, as my former college teammate Mindy Williams states off the top)

Back to work

This morning I was back in the pool. This afternoon I'll be back in the weight room. This last few months was only the beginning. not nearly the end. 

I swam a 50 breaststroke the next day, and already my start was better with one race under my belt. I even had the fastest reaction (.58) of my swimming career. I'm in the far lane this time, lane 1:

A time, like age, is just a number

This project is titled for the goal of two digit swim in a 100 breaststroke, but that's not what it's about. This project is about the process of achieving that goal. When I stood on the blocks last Friday, I felt like I had already won.

I knew that in the past year, I had worked hard to get to the point where I was, improved my fitness and put myself on the line. More importantly, I knew that I was a good father, a good husband and that I did it all while going through the hardest year of my life.

You can't measure that with a stopwatch.

 

 

Stop Doing General Warmup

Today, I'm swimming in my first swim meet for four years (more on that in another post after the weekend). I will not be attending the general warmup sessions. This is something I haven't been doing for the entirety of my post-college career, and a practice that trickled into the college and club swimmers that I coached.

General warmup is just one of a large group of things that "we do" in swimming that don't make a lot of sense. What is the purpose of a general warmup? To get you ready to race in the subsequent events, right?

Let me use my own meet this weekend for an example. General warmup is taking place as we speak, from 8:00-9:00 AM. My race is due to jump in the water at 2:57 PM this afternoon. There is no way on earth that a warmup from 9:00 in the morning will carry forward six hours to my race.

"But wait!" you say. What about getting accustomed to the blocks at a new place, learning to sight the walls, etc. I happen to be swimming at a pool (Harvard University) where I have swam so many times I've lost count.

Chances are, many swimmers that you bring to a particular meet will be familiar with the facilities. If not, consider organizing some way for them to familiarize themselves with the pool well in advance of an early morning warmup that will not actually warm them up for their race. After all, you wouldn't be trying to teach them a whole knew technique the day of the meet, right?

Lastly, don't even get me started on the "wake-up swim" people. There are plenty of ways to get somebody fully awake well in advance of their race that don't include some useless laps. Oh, and please, please do not swim timed sprint or pace 25s in the warmup. I'll have to write an entire different post on that subject.

The real reason to skip general warmup is not what I've written above, dismissing some of the common reasons people do it. People who choose to do general warmup often see only the benefits without realizing the great costs that general warmup inflict on swimmers. Let me summarize

1. These warmups are often early, and interrupt the natural sleep cycles of athletes, therefore interfering with recovery. The longer the meet, the bigger the impact. Seriously, try no general warmup at your next three or four day meet and see how much fresher everyone is by the last day.
2. Time spent on the pool deck is not healthy, particularly at crowded meets where there is often poor air quality. 
3. With anxious athletes, general warmups can often build tension for them, as they spend hours at the competition site waiting to compete. Bringing them to a competition site without a clear progression leading directly to the race can cause problems.
4. Most swim meets are way too long. This causes cascading problems for us, as parents and swimmers start to weigh the cost of endless hours on the pool deck versus other things they could be spending their time on. Finding a more efficient way to do a swim meet can be a welcome boost.

All that said, there are some situations where you might find it best to have a particular swimmer or set of swimmers at a general warmup. I think those situations are fewer and farther between than what I witness at most swim meets.

Why College Swimming Always Improves Yet Loses

College swimming gets faster every year. While you may be able to find some events in this years NCAA Championships across all three divisions and genders that didn't take a leap forward this year, you will find many that have. The improvement is so dramatic that I wouldn't believe if the times weren't sitting right there.

Take this day three results of the 2003 NCAA Championship, David Marsh' first at Auburn just fourteen years ago. Look at the winning times! Some would be borderline for qualifying for the meet now, we have already seen a d2 swimmer and  expect to see a d3 swimmerl blow away 2003 BRENDAN HANSEN in the breaststrokes. 

These championships represent some of the best things about our sport, as well as it's unique strengths. Whereas there is a huge gap in play between the NCAA Divisions in some other sports, swimming remains competitive. 

Yet simultaneous to this amazing display, there are programs fighting for their lives. When I began coaching and writing about swimming, one of the first people to reach out to me was someone who was extremely passionate about the sport. He said his dream was to coach his alma mater. We exchanged e-mails for a while and lost touch.

A few years later, he realized that dream, and I was always happy when I got reminded of what he was doing. Then, this winter, I read this. That person, Joel Blesh, was unceremoniously cut from the job at his alma mater that he was so passionate about.

What was his crime? Doing the right thing, sticking up and fighting for the survival of his team. Chances are Blesh is not alone, that while we're all celebrating the amazing fastness of Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel and others this next week that behind closes doors college swim teams are fighting for survival. What follows will be a grim spring tradition of programs hanging in the balance.

I don't want to be a party pooper. I will enjoy these meets. In fact, I write because I need to throw some cold water on my own face to stop from being overly optimistic at times like these. I have, at several junctures, imagined that the circumstances beyond a swimming programs control would actually benefit us. They never do.

When I began my coaching career at Penn, I was shocked to immediately find out that the school fundraised a significant part of their operating budget on a yearly basis. At my next stop Georgia Tech, the late 2000s financial crisis and some drunk college kids was used as justification to unceremoniously defund all scholarship money that we hadn't already endowed. 

But if the economic crisis was the reason for the cut, surely as the stock market turned around the scholarships would come back? No. Georgia Tech only regained their "full funding" through donors. 

When colleges were allowed to expand their scholarships to cover cost of living expenses, and momentum started to build towards actually paying athletes in revenue sports, I allowed myself to fantasize that this would be good for swimming. If schools actually had to compensate revenue athletes, then finally their "advantage" would end?

Wrong. If schools began to see a significant bite into their profits from "revenue" sports, they would for sure look down the line to programs like swimming to cut financial weight. And that sucks. It is not fair. But such is the tension: NCAA Swimming is awesome, but unless we throw our own resources behind ensuring it remains funded, it will be taken from us.

So while you are watching your favorite team these next couple weeks (or already did last week), consider cutting a check for their endowment. Or ask if they accept venmo, it's 2017 after all. 

Why the Hardest Working Athletes Struggle With Rest

It's championship season. That means racing suits, fast times, shaved heads (check that, it's not still 1996) and the end of the season tradition all coaches hate. That's right, I'm talking about the swimmer who worked their butt off all year and falls apart on taper.

The great Jim Steen once said, "you can't miss a taper but you can miss a season". He was right, but how do we explain the swimmers who seemingly follow the process all season long but falter when it is time. Why do some of the most dedicated athletes in our sport actually face what should be the funnest part of sport, resting and swimming your absolute best, with dread?

The reason falls with how many of these athletes have motivational and emotional wires crossed in their brains. I have suffered from taper dread in my lifetimes, and with the power of hindsight can see where it all went wrong. Like anything else for the big meet, you need to start working on this wiring early and often to be successful when the pressure is on.

As coaches, we love motivated athletes. We want them to feel drive to work hard "internally", without much prodding for us. What if I told you that some of that internal motivation is the reason why a swimmer really struggles to compete?

I was one of those strongly internally motivated swimmers. But my motivation came from a yawning emotional crater inside of me. I was constantly worried that coaches and teammates were disappointed in me. I believed that at the slightest failing, they would turn on me and question my dedication.

That "internal" motivation drove me to do a lot of things that were counterproductive to my swimming, like training when I was sick. I once developed a habit of going to the pool by myself on Sunday nights if I felt I had a disappointing meet and forcing myself through a practice as punishment.

When it came time to rest, I wouldn't be able to give myself credit for what i'd done. Instead, the easy practices would allow me to fixate on whether or not I had done enough. Even as my body grew stronger, my mind grew more tired from foreboding approach of that day I would find out whether or not I was a disappointment.

You've probably read several times over about how well exercise works for treatment of anxiety and depression. It's better than drugs, they say. I agree with a lot of the research in this field, but suppose you are an athlete that is using exercise to treat your depression and/or anxiety. Then suppose you cut your "medicine" in half? Do you think that would have a positive effect? 

Coaches should be aware of whether swimmers are using their negative emotions and life experiences to feed their motivational furnace. It's imperative to find these athletes and try to help them find the right kind of internal motivation. Y

You want athletes not training or racing scared, but swimming because they love the sport, because they want to do well and improve themselves. You want to use sport to help people who are anxious and depressed, but not as the sole treatment to paper over their anxiety and depression.

So coaches, my plea to you, please never shake your head at the end of the season about how an athlete is a "headcase" or just isn't "mentally tough". Do the work for your athlete all season long to improve their motivational and emotional health.

Want to learn about how to identify and change unhealthy motivation in swimmers? Write me to find out more. 

Four Swimmers that Show Why NC State Is Killing It

NC State can win a men's NCAA title in a couple weeks. That will be a remarkable achievement in a sport where just moving into the top ten is a monumental achievement. One thing that often gets lost when evaluating coaches of any teams is that we focus on the fastest swimmers of the team. 

When I look at what the NC State coaching staff has done, I'm more interested in the swimmers that, given average college coaching, were not likely to develop as much they have in Raleigh. Here are four swimmers who have showed incredible improvement for the Wolfpack:

Adam Linker- Linker was a decent power conference distance prospect coming into NC State. He recorded a 15:32 in the 1650, 4:32 in the 500 and 3:58 in the 400 IM.

All those times suggested he could grow into a solid scorer at the ACC conference level. Instead, in four years Linker has made the leap to an NCAA scoring level. His times from the most recent ACC Championships: (4:13.9 in the 500, 14:44 in the 1650) would have put him in top eight scoring position in all three of those races at last year's NCAA Championships.

Derek Hren- An early weakness of NC State's surge was breaststroke. Their breaststroke leg on medley relays stopped them from being truly competitive at the national level. 

While the Wolfpack still haven't gotten a true breaststroke prospect on campus, in the meantime Hren has had a development nearly as impressive as Linker. Again, his high school times (55.5 in the 100 breaststroke) suggested he would be an ACC scorer. 

Hren has improved three years in a row, and is likely to make that four years at the NCAA Championship. With a personal best of 52.2, he has a good chance of scoring at the meet. His relay performances are consistently good and with three other top notch legs, NC State can compete in medley relays.

Alexia Zevnik- I know I said I wouldn't focus on stars, but Zevnik's progression is too good to ignore. While she definitely had some solid backstroke swims in SCM her final year in Canada (1:00/2:13), those are not the typical incoming times of someone who will contend for an NCAA title their senior year.

Like the two swimmers already mentioned, Zevnik has made a big push forward every year. Rough conversions of those SCM times indicate around a 54/2:00 backstroker coming into college. Where is she now? 50.8 and 1:49.6. How many swimmers do you think enter college at above 2:00 in the 200 backstroke and finish with a performance under 1:50?

Natalie LaBonge- You may be tired of hearing it, but once again here is an example of an NC State swimmer who with average coaching might not have even scored at ACCs. Labonge's incoming times, 23.5 in the 50 and 51.1 in the 100, would have been well outside of scoring at the 2017 meet.

She could have even shown some progression and still missed being a conference scorer. It took 22.8 and 49.5 to score at the ACC meet this year. But LaBonge had more than "some" progression. She swam 22.0 and 48.6 in her senior year, and that progression has paved the way for Wolfpack coaches to get better sprint recruits in classes that came after hers.

I know it's becoming fashionable to hate NC State as they turn the corner from lovable underdogs to hate-able frontrunners. I simply can't find any hate for the awesome coaching and development taking place in Raleigh. 

Advanced Team Building: Going Beyond Activities

I cringe whenever someone uses the phrase "team building activities". Not because there isn't some value to setting aside a specific time and place for working on being a team. In fact, far from it. I cringe because team building is an everyday, every practice activity. 

Coaches talk a lot about creating an "environment" for success. When you are a leader on a team, the bulk of team building is what kind of environment you create for others. You need to create an environment where a diverse set of personalities come together for a unified cause.

Sounds easy right? But many teams struggle with building a cohesive unit. One area that frequently causes conflict is the athletes perception of team values.

Let me give an example. "Work hard" is one of the most obvious values a team can have. But what does it mean? Unless the coach communicates and leads the way, athletes will fill the space with their own interpretation of hard work.

I once had two swimmers in my group that didn't get along. Both thought the other wasn't "working hard".

One swimmer was consistent- never late, always the first in the water, always repeating times like a metronome through pace sets. He attended morning practices (doubles) no matter what. He was always serious at practice- like an adult showing up to work. Let's call him Mr. Consistency.

The other was a wild card. He got into the water last- but then finished warmup before half his teammates. When it was time to give a "max" effort, no one was better. He laid everything on the line, and often paid for it later in practice. He could never gauge his own effort- his paces were inconsistent. If something was off, he was sick or something hurt, he took a more cautious approach and sometimes missed training. Let's call him Mr. Wild

As a coach, I knew that both swimmers were working hard. They both fit into what I valued as a coach. Were they perfect? Of course not. I wished Mr. Consistency would take a day off once in a while- he often concealed when he was sick knowing that I would send him away from training. I wish that Mr. Wild would learn to pace himself a bit better so he wasn't so useless for parts of training.

One of the things I would say to bring these two swimmers together was to remind them of something that swim coaches often say to each other but forget on their own teams. "There are many ways up the mountain". Coaches can get trapped by their own "philosophy" about "how things should be done" and fail to include athletes who are actually embodying their values, just using a somewhat different looking process. 

Instead of valuing "hard work", we valued self-improvement. Were the swimmers doing what they needed to do to get better? In this case, both were, so much so that both would go on to be NCAA Division 1 Championship qualifiers. Eventually they learned that even though they could poke holes in each others approach, they both had a lot to learn from one another.

This is just one example, there are many more situations where you can be inclusive with your values as a leader without compromising high standards. If you do so, you will create an environment where a diverse group of personalities can co-exist and thrive, making you look very good as a leader. 

My Application for USA Swimming National Team Director

Rumor has it, USA Swimming is looking for a new National Team Director. While the mainstream swimming media has chosen not to feature me on their list of "top candidates" for the job, I have had at least two friends jokingly ask me to apply. So, at their urging, here is my open application for the position of National Team Director.

While lists like the one linked above have focused on people with top coaching resumes, I think this misses the point. The National Team Director is not a coaching position. Frank Busch was crucially successful by not being as heavy handed on the coaching side as his predecessor. 

I'm drawing inspiration for my application from Bill Simmons 2008 campaign for Milwaukee Bucks GM. Sure, the Bucks passed Simmons up- but how is that working for them? So I say this to the powers that be in Colorado Springs: learn from the Bucks!

Few have been more critical than me of USA Swimming, but I recognize that I need more than just negativity to justify hiring me. I also recognize that there is a wide swath of "not broken, don't fix it" things with the top national swimming program in the world. So the following is my proactive plan for an even better America's swim team:

1. Bring USA Swimming into the internet age: Here's one area where it is hard to defend USA Swimming. Their website is terrible (it was terrible when it was last redesigned and has only grown more outdated since). How can we bring it up to date? Glad you asked:

-update the times search to feature live search updates. The times search is definitely the most heavily used feature on USA Swimming's website, and also painfully frustrating to use. Go to swimrankings right now. Do a times search. Start typing in a name to an athlete search. WOOSH! Names appear. This technology has existed for years, and yet USA Swimming still forces you to complete a painful search and sometimes click through page after page to find the athlete you are looking for. 

-outsource the sharing of all data, video/technical, and workouts. USA Swimming's insular nature has meant that they have lived in denial that Floswimming smoked them to creating a great sharing platform on minimal resources a decade ago. For the love of god, can we please just pay Garrett McCaffrey whatever it takes to share the best of the best of this stuff? Can we find a more effective way to get Russell Mark's videos out there? YES WE CAN

2. Move to cut ties with ASCA and provide real education to USA Swimming coaches. Can you believe that this position only requires a bachelors degree? How do we have a sport full of brainiac nerds, yet we have never fully embraced that culture from the top?

ASCA's education modules have leached off USA Swimming for long enough. How about we provide some real foundational knowledge to coaches. Engage and compensate people with real educations, not John Leonard's grabby old friends, to make curriculums in exercise physiology, cognitive and motor development, and performance psychology! But let's not stop their with the nerdyness

3. Bring back the Sports Science division. We live in an era of big data, in a sport full of people who understand what it means to conduct professional research. Yet, we have next to no scientific knowledge shared from the national level. 

I propose we create two full time staff at the National Team, to work as a team to collect and analyze data on what actually works in swimming. Let's stop arguing about training methods and actually study them. Let's find out who is actually doing the best job at long term development, and come up with best practices. Does this research need some review? I think there are hundreds of people out there in our sport with knowledge enough to give good critical feedback and establish a good research base.

These are just a few suggestions for making the National Team even better than it is today. Just because we dominate internationally doesn't mean that there are a lot of things that we couldn't do better. By holding onto our traditions that work and adding the best of what's new, perhaps we can continue to wide the gap between us and the rest of the world. 

Why I don't Swim for a Masters Team

It has now been more than a decade since I swam for a team. My last honest attempt came in 2009, when I swam a few practices for a team I was also coaching over the summer.

I've never found that the benefits of joining up with a team outweigh the costs. I love the idea of Masters swimming, and I can see the value that many people get from being on Masters teams. I have never found that it is for me.

To be fair, before I get overly critical of the way many Masters teams are run, I am an odd bird. I am a coach with very strong opinions on how I should train. Those opinions exist still at the fringe of popular opinion in the swimming world. I'm at peace with that.

The reality is that many Masters teams are not a natural next rung from the competitive college and club programs that proceed them. Many are stocked with swimmers that have no interest in competing and just want to stay in shape. Another significant block are triathletes, looking to make sure they are prepared for a long distance open water swim.

Everyone in the sport knows that triathletes, who can often come from non-competitive swimming backgrounds, typically have big pocketbooks and are eager for help, so it makes sense for Masters teams to cater to them. 

Competitive swimmers, especially ones that want to compete in sprint races, are rare. Because of this, training is not designed around them.

To compound this, many Masters swimming teams employ a "coach by committee" design, meaning that if you show up on a consistent basis you may have a different coach standing on deck for each practice you attend. This makes it challenging to expect any kind of continuity for practice style, or stroke corrections, or any of the basic pieces you need to get better.

With my life, working on my own business, volunteering and raising a young kid, I don't have the time to waste on this kind of training. 

So, while it is not ideal, I coach myself and ask coaching friends for help. I video myself and analyze it later. I tailor workouts specifically to my own needs and do them on my own time. I do the same for Masters swimming athletes that could benefit from the same kind of specialization in their training. 

For me, training this way has allowed both me and my clients to get in the best shape of our adult lives, all while finding better balance in our work and personal lives. While I still would like someone to swim with me from time to time, the cost is worth it.

Are you interested in personalized coaching? Use the contact form and you will be contacted for a free consultation. 

The 2017 Easterns and Why High School Swimming is the Best

By the end I could barely croak out a few words. My vocal chords were spent and quite lucky that the competition was only two days long.

The 2017 Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championship was the dawn of a new era for what is still America's top private school competition. Although the meet may never match the glory days of Olympic contenders squaring off, it shouldn't try either.

The world has changed, and elite swimmers have gotten much older since the days when Gustavo Borges could swim at the Bolles School one year and then earn a silver medal in the 100 freestyle the next. Although Borges held on to his 100 freestyle record (now 26 years and counting), his 50 freestyle was finally broken, by Alberto Mestre, a senior from the Hill School.

So what can Easterns hope to be now? Well we started to see it this weekend at Franklin and Marshall. Easterns can and should be one of the most competitive high school meets in the country. The meet had a dramatic improvement of depth from a year ago. It took 4:38 to finish in the top 8 in the men's 500 freestyle, and 57.51 to do so in the men's 100 breaststroke. 

But a meet like Easterns should be judged by more than just the times on the clock. High school swimming is the most consistently underrated area of our sport. In fact, our sport suffers from a great inversion, where the parts of our sport that are actually inherently fun and would help to grow the sport are given the least serious attention from within. 

High school swimming taps into the natural, human love of competition. We love to see individuals and teams go head to head. We like to see a team champion, at whatever scale. Also, in a world where 3 hour plus baseball games test our patience, we like a flow of action that ends in a reasonable amount of time. 

The final crescendo of the weekend was Reece Whitley's high school national best in the 100 breaststroke. It seemed as if the whole pool, swimmers, coaches and spectators, were standing on their toes for it. Two events later, I realized I had the worst headache of my life. I sat down, dizzy. 

After drinking about 1.5 liters of water, I started to feel a little better. I had gotten caught up in the meet- the excitement of the swimmers and coaches, the joy on the faces of not just the winners but that first heat swimmer who went a massive personal best. This is swimming at its best. 

Are you interested in having an announcer bring new life to your competition? If so, use the contact button to send a message. References will be provided!