Why "Soft" Coaching Is Better

"And that's why English is the official language of America...". I was doing my thing- staring right through my seventh grade history teacher as she droned.

"There is no official language in America!" I blurted out, with embarrassed blood rushing to my face. What was I doing?

"Chris, please don't interrupt, and besides, as I said, English is the official language of the United States of America". 

I shook my head. The next day, when she admitted she checked and that, in fact, America had no official language, she didn't say I was right. Rather, she reminded all my classmates how rude it was for me to interrupt her while she was speaking.

That was the day I realized that anyone could be very wrong about something very basic, and would insist that they were right anyway.

But simply beating them over the head with the fact that they were wrong was not very effective. In fact, if the power relationship was imbalanced, it often made things worse for you. That's when I learned another way, a softer way of getting through.

A "Soft" Coach

As a coach, I've never been known for anger, or yelling, or for having the most torturous practices. In a meeting I will often speak far fewer words than whoever I'm talking to. I'm pretty proud of that.

I started my career at the University of Pennsylvania and was immediately thrust into a chaotic environment. Swimmers often got into the water late, sometimes not at all. One of my fellow assistant coaches showed up constantly late to morning practice.

Coaching there was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I learned that, if you made an engaging practice, swimmers were more likely to get in on time for it. I learned that swimmers were far more motivated by somebody that saw the best in them than somebody they feared.

I learned that drumming up the importance of a swim meet hurt athletes performance more than it helped. Much better to give a supportive hug and remind athletes every day that you care about them regardless of their swimming results. 

I learned that the less punitive force you had to put on people to get them do what "needed to be done", the better. Nobody likes being backed into a corner, they like choosing their own adventure.

Taking Your Own Medicine

I've never understood the impulse in coaching: "do as I say, not as I do". 

Why do we call young swimmers "student-athletes". Because we want to emphasize that they have a more important mission (education) than sport, even if sport is it's own education. Why then, do we just call coaches "coach"? 

Don't coaches have a greater mission? Aren't I a Parent-Coach? Why do so many coaches tell athletes that they are doing sports for something bigger than sports, all while living a life so focused on sports?

"That's Not the Way It is"

When I hear one of my peers or elders giving all sorts of weird, pseudo-masculine advice on coaching, all because that's the "way it is", I'm back in my seventh grade classroom.

But instead of blurting out an interruption, I listen. What are they really saying?

"I don't know any better ways to do it, this is what I was taught".

So instead I try to show them another way. I don't expect them to take me on my word, but on the results. I'm still working on it. 

Want to learn more about "soft" coaching?

The Real Reason Susan Teeter was a Princeton Legend

Yesterday, it was announced that Bret Lundgaard will be the new head coach for Princeton's Women's Swimming and Diving team. Lundgaard had for years gotten nothing less than a full-throated endorsement from his boss, Tennessee head coach Matt Kredich.

Kredich's endorsement holds enormous weight, as prior to Tennessee he was undoubtedly the best women's swimming coach in the Ivy League. I say all this to establish one thing: this blog is not an attack on Bret Lundgaard, who applied for a job and did all the right things to get it. Lundgaard is not the problem here, and will in fact have an opportunity to be part of the solution.

Princeton's previous head coach was Susan Teeter. Teeter is a Princeton institution, so much so that I had nearly forgotten that she too came from the University of Tennessee to coach the Tigers. But her impact went way beyond her results at Princeton. Teeter was a mentor to more coaches, men and women, than you can shake a stick at.

In fact, she's definitely in my top five "Coaches I wish I had worked for", along with the aforementioned Kredich, Mark Bernardino, Bob Groseth and George Kennedy. Teeter often provided more guidance and support to assistant coaches on opposing teams than the head coaches of those teams.

To say Teeter is a "female coach" is like saying that Princeton is a "New Jersey Private University".

But to not discuss Teeter's gender is to ignore a disturbing process that is felt particularly hard in swimming. As I mentioned in a previous post, the situation for female coaches in college sports overall is getting worse, not better. I'm sorry to report once again to my fellow men, but it's on us.

Again, it is not Bret Lundgaard's fault. To understand who is to blame, and what somebody like Lundgaard can do to change this, you need to understand the process by which head coaches are made.

College swimming operates on an apprenticeship model. Many coaches start as volunteers, graduate assistants or other low paying positions. If they prove themselves, they can advance to be full-time, paid assistant coaches. Many of these assistant coaches are not well-paid, but they are in their 20s and early 30s and can find a way to survive.

At this point, part of the head coaches job is to develop their assistant coaches to be head coaches. This is what Matt Kredich has done for Bret Lundgaard, and Lundgaard was quick to thank Kredich for that development during his time at Tennessee.

Many of these assistant coaches start working their way into the head coaching ranks in their 30s. Often this is the huge attrition point for women in college swimming. Here is a list of excuses for this from my fellow men that I don't have patience for anymore.

1. "These darn women have babies and then don't want to coach anymore" HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE A WORKPLACE IN 2017 WHERE A WOMAN DOESN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN HAVING A CHILD, A FAMILY AND WORKING THERE.

2. "We don't get any quality female applicants!". Sigh, There might be a little work involved here. Recruit women coaches. Find some women coaches you want to apply and ask them why they aren't. Correct these things. 

3. "But, like kids and child raising". Ok, I thought we already addressed this one but here's another idea for you. There are literally hundreds of great women coaches who have compromised their coaching careers for their children, but now those kids are getting a little older, maybe even going off to college.

Consider hiring them and developing them and not being agist and, I don't know, thinking about how maybe the experience of raising a child from a helpless infant to 18 years old might be extremely relevant to the job you are doing and actually might really shore up some of your own weaknesses.

Since the overwhelming majority of head coaches in swimming, even women's swimming, are men, it's up to us guys!  I hope that Bret Lundgaard, more than any result, fulfills Susan Teeter's legacy by developing great coaches for the future. 

Sports Bullying and The True Fight

Over at Swimvortex, Craig Lord has published an editorial by former National Performance Director Bill Sweetenham on the subject of bullying by coaches. Sweetenham, who was himself accused of bullying but ultimately cleared during his tenure, has a lot to say on the subject.

Before we get into his arguments, I will say I do not agree with Sweetenham on several points. His defense of bad behavior by coaches communicates a message I find dangerous: that elite sports is somehow so special that it justifies behavior we wouldn't accept in normal walks of life.

In his editorial, Sweetenham begins with a cringeworthy comparison between sport and war. Both are "abnormal" to him, in terms of what must be done to best the other side. This comparison is tired, ridiculous and insulting to the real risks of armed combat. No one dies if they lose a swimming race.

The rest of Sweetenham's piece centers on the fact that athletes must be motivated and pushed to exceptional efforts to get exceptional results. 

No one would question this, but the issue of bullying in coaching is not this. Concern for the behavior of coaches is not about how hard the training they are giving is or what they are demanding. It is often not a question of "what" or "why". It is a question of "how" they are doing this "motivation".

Ranting and raving and unleashing a childish temper on an athlete at a swimming competition is not coaching. I've seen it many times, it simply shouldn't have a place in sport. I've heard it justified hundreds of times by colleagues because it "gets results".

You can scare an athlete into trying harder in the short term and maybe get a good result, but you are damaging them in the long term, and that's not what coaching is about.

I have seen so much behavior in the coaching world that is totally unacceptable, and the coaches escape any consequence because of the strange culture we have created around sport. This is the real problem, not the very small chance that athletes are lodging false accusations against coaches as some sort of revenge plot. 

Sweetenham ignorantly declares that "Any experienced coach knows that sporting administrators, theorists, psychologists, change culture experts, external motivators etc. do not possess a real feel for the athlete and the process." Which is a nice way to justify anything a coach does under the auspices "only a coach can understand what needs to be done here". 

I reject this argument. Coaches need to be held to a higher standard, not excepted because others just don't 'get it'. The next generation of elite athletes will have input from many sources, not just one "god" coach, and that will be a good thing. The world outside of sport has a lot to tell us about how we should motivate athletes positively to even higher planes of performance.

Want to learn exceptional motivation techniques that also help athletes succeed in life?

Specialized Coaching is Not Just For Elite Athletes

In the world of coaching swimming, it's dangerous to call yourself a specialist. Even in the college ranks, where there are 'sprint", "middle distance" and "distance" coaches (the most common specialties, coaches fight it.

They fight it because getting pigeon-hold with a specialist title means that you could miss out on that next big opportunity. If you're known as a "sprint coach", and "they" really want somebody who knows "distance", well you're out of luck.

The fight against specialized coaching is a silly one. It's denying reality, and good for no one involved. Imagine if Anthony Ervin was out there, insisting to everyone that he was just as good at the 1500 free as the 50. Would that be good for anyone?

No, and in the same way, it is ok for coaches to admit what they are good at (and what they are not good at). It is also far too simplistic to say that a coach is "bad" at coaching sprinters or "good at distance". Coaches have a set of skills that work in a system. The sum of those skills can mean positive outcomes for certain swimmers and negative outcomes for others.

This is where specialized coaching comes in. By knowing and admitting what your skills are, you can augment how many swimmers will be successful by having swimmers coached by coaches with different skills, skills that may connect more with them being successful. While we often think to do this at the elite level, it is actually equally important at lower levels, where we miss opportunities to move potentially great swimmers developmentally because we fear specialized coaching.

Let me give you an example. In 2015, I was with the Danish Junior National team at a meet. We had a swimmer on the team, a sprinter. She had poor skills, bad turns, bad dive and did not know how to perform a relay start (even though she was due to be a on a relay).

How was she relatively successful then? She had a coach who connected with her enthusiasm for the sport. She loved to race and compete, and she overcame a lot of her skill deficiencies with her attitude. Her coach was not perfect, but he had done a good job.

Now imagine if that coach had been able to team up with a coach or coaches who's skill set was all built around teaching the details of swimming. The more a coach brings other specialties into the mix, the greater chance for success they give all their swimmers.

At Chris DeSantis Coaching, I'm not trying to do anything that I'm ok at, or pretty good at, definitely nothing I'm bad at. I'm only working in the areas where I am exceptional, and that I know I can make a big, lasting difference in only a small amount of time. Are you interested?

ASCA Is A Waste of Money That Hurts Our Sport

Hundreds of times, I've uttered the sentence "I didn't get into this sport to get rich" to a fellow coach. There's always a knowing laugh on the other end. Most swim coaches get into this sport because they love it, and they love sharing that love with others. The feeling of doing so is so addictive that they will even go so far as to threaten their own health to get that fix.

So it makes absolutely no sense that many coaches, with so little in personal resources, let an organization like the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) have some of those resources. The organization persists for all the wrong reasons.

I'm writing this knowing it paints a target on my back. The American Swimming Coaches Association, and its Executive Director John Leonard, hold immense sway in the world of swimming. 

Leonard is a con-man. He paints himself as a crusader against corruption. He is corrupt. With one hand he rails about drugs in the sport, a safe "controversy" as you would be hard pressed to find any American swim coach with a "pro-doping" stance. With his other hand, he fights the culture change swimming so desperately needs.

John Trembley, MItch Ivey, RIck Curl are just a few of the big names that could rely on Leonard/ASCA's support right up to the very end. Joe Bernal got inducted into the ASCA Hall of Fame a few months before being banned by USA Swimming.

The more benign con of John Leonard and ASCA is that they institutionalized themselves to such a degree that even ethical, well meaning coaches often feel compelled to dance for ASCA. Look at nearly any club coaching position and you will find some sort of "ASCA level" in the job qualifications.

I don't blame the parent boards who include ASCA certifications in job postings. They are desperate for some sort of independent body to tell them whether a coach knows there stuff. Unfortunately, the ASCA education program, and even the performance qualifications for coaches to reach levels, is no such guarantee.

The final piece of the puzzle is ASCA's annual convention. Again, many ethical, fine coaches feel compelled to attend. It's the biggest such gathering of swim coaches in the United States, and almost nobody goes to conventions for the talks. They go to be in the same space with other people who are doing the same thing. They go for the social scene.

However, as long as the good coaches out there hand over their hard earned cash to ASCA it will continue to exist in present form. There's nothing inherently wrong with a coaches organization, an educational program for coaches, and the people in it. But ASCA is not the organization swim coaches deserve.

It's time to choke it off, so please stop sending money for useless certifications and plan your own weekend getaway with coaches you like. You'll be doing something really great for the sport of swimming.  

Why Your Swimmers are "Choosing" Backstroke

Let me set the scene for you. Your in the heat of a swim practice. Your the coach and you've written a set, a set where you dreamed that all the swimmers could work on their stroke (non-freestyle). It all seemed perfect in your head. You made it "choice", because you're smart and you know that the swimmers will be more motivated if they have some autonomy over what they do.

Except they all chose backstroke. "YOU CAN'T ALL BE BACKSTROKERS!" you scream, either internally or out loud. You look at lane two. There is Agatha. She complained to you last meet about how "we never train breaststroke". And she's swimming backstroke. Your blood starts to boil.

Take a deep breath. Count to ten if you need to. Here are some reasons why your swimmers might be making this choice, and what you can do about it.

1. They might be backstrokers- Have pity on them for being the most inferior sect of swimmers. Shots fired Garrett McCaffrey. 

2. The sendoffs could be wrong- One of the biggest rookie mistakes in constructing practice is to assign a single interval time for all three strokes as if they are equal. Backstroke and butterfly are much faster than breaststroke by an order of 3-4 seconds per 50m on the elite level.

Also, if you are not training race pace (why aren't you training race pace?), then backstroke will be much easier to do at below race pace, for longer distances. 

Swimmers instincts to avoid butterfly and breaststroke when sendoffs do not allow them to do the reps at quality are correct. Common technical problems in these two strokes are a result of "struggle" technique when forced to do repetitions with inadequate recovery or too long distances.

If I were designing a race pace set of 25s for butterflyers, backstrokers and breaststrokers to all do together, it might look something like this:

30x25 on :30/:35/:40

Backstrokers able to go under 1:00 should start on the :30. Backstrokers 1:00-:1:12 on :35. Breaststrokers up to 1:00 on :35, Breaststrokers up to 1:12 on :40. Butterflyers up to 1:00 on :35, up to 1:12 on :40

Any butterflyers or breaststrokers who struggle to string more than a few together at 100 pace, you could consider adding 1 sec to their 100 pace, focus on efficiency, or making every 4th one "easy"

3. Your swimmers are scared- Do you know the theory of learned helplessness? It's really important to understanding why people don't do things that would benefit them. Training hard, particularly in breaststroke and butterfly, is painful. 

As a coach, you need to build a bridge between this painful training and results. If your swimmers are scared and avoiding it, it is because they don't see the bridge. Yelling at them may scare them enough to take the leap, but will ultimately just be adding another painful thing to avoid.

Have empathy for your athletes, and connect with them on the level they are on. Figure out at what level they will be willing to risk themselves, let them go there and make sure they see the progress that results. 

4. Their backstroke technique is poor- I thought of backstroke as an easy stroke when I was a swimmer. Why? Because my backstroke technique was terribly. 

Specifically, I barely kicked when swimming backstroke. Kick is the most obvious thing that all coaches want swimmers to do, but much like breaststroke and butterfly, it makes things much more painful. But much like an appropriate risk in butterfly and breaststroke, this pain brings better results.

If swimmers are going to insist on swimming backstroke, you need to insist that they maintain a steady, narrow kick. Don't allow backstroke techniques that make the stroke "easy".

If you've tried all of the above and your swimmers still insist on swimming backstroke, don't give up hope. Someday, they may grow up to win an NBA title.

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.

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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.