Simple Gratitude Exercises for Coaches

Gratitude is not necessarily the first trait people grab for when describing a great coach. Imagine saying "She's the best coach- she's so incredibly grateful". Sounds weird right? Well, I'm going to make a case for how building gratitude more intentionally into your coaching can really help. Then I'll talk about some really easy ways to start doing that.

Gratitude is (hopefully) something we all practice every day. We say thank you to someone who holds the door. Maybe we tell a loved one how much it means to have them in our life. We are not inherently grateful or ungrateful, we are the sum of the gratitude we put out into the world day to day.

When you practice gratitude, you create virtuous circles, the opposite of a vicious cycle. You send gratitude out into the world and good things come back to you. This exchange of gratitude will put you in a more positive emotional state. Being in a positive emotional state has a host of benefits: it helps your relationships, and you are more ready to learn. Simply put, it can make you a lot better at everything you do. 

So how do you cultivate gratitude beyond your daily routine of thank you and please? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Replacing "I'm sorry" with "thank you for...":

For this one I have to credit my colleague Sherri Fisher, who patiently taught me to do this in the last year. There are so many little situations where we end up apologizing where gratitude can fill the space better.

Imagine you are late to a meeting. You burst in the door.

"i'M SO SORRY I'M LATE"

How do you think other people in the meeting feel in that moment? Some of them are probably annoyed. Even though you apologized unconditionally, the statement is still all about you. Try this instead:

"Thank you for your patience in waiting for me"

Now you've shown gratitude to other people, and acknowledged something positive in them instead of making it about you. There are still situations where an apology works best, but gratitude can fill a lot of gaps.

2. Tell people what you like about them

Here's a simple mission: when you show up to the pool today, give a simple appreciation to each person you interact with.

I know the first thing I learned as a coach was to diagnose problems. I could see what was wrong, and what needed improving. On the flip side, I tended to take for granted what was right and what people were already doing well.

But it's hard to have a self-awareness of what you are doing well. Many people, especially younger people, can easily doubt and find fault in themselves. Telling them something you like about them can help them to learn what they are good at.

3. Insert gratitude into tense situations

Do you ever get stressed it starts snowballing? Use gratitude to reverse course. I've been alone with my three year old daughter for a couple weeks while my wife travels, and it's stressful. I try to be a good parent and not let it get to me, but the stress builds.

Last night, my little girl was testing my limits about going to sleep. I was highly annoyed, which wasn't helping. Instead of yelling, I tried gratitude. I looked her in the eye and told her a simple truth:

"I love every day we get to spend together".

A tear welled up in my eye, and all of a sudden I didn't feel so stressed. Neither did she- she looked at me wordlessly and gave me a hug. Five minutes later her eyes were closed.

Want to learn more about how to put Positive Psychology into practice on your team? Write me. 

Be Honest About Your Practice

The first year I coached swimming, I had a set that I went to a lot. It went something like this:

10x100, 2:00

I don't remember how fast I specified that the swimmers went, but I wanted them to go for it. I saw it as a "high intensity" set. I would have probably told you that the goal was for swimmers to at least be at "200 pace". AT LEAST.

I was way wrong.

I went to the set for the reason that many beginner coaches go to certain sets. It was something I knew. It was hard- so at least I could look myself in the mirror and know that I was putting a challenge out there.

What I didn't realize was that by putting out a set where my expectations didn't match the reality of how swimmers could actually swim the set, I wasn't getting the best out of them.

Let me back up and make a couple things clear here. If you set dishonest bars for your athletes to get over, they may end up being honest for somebody. This is why we have exceptional athletes in our sport. I would gather some world class athletes could make something optimal out of such a set.

Furthermore, there are ways to get the psychological advantage that many coaches think they are getting by putting out dishonestly hard sets without lying to the swimmers. Being dishonest actually undermines a fundamental piece of coaching that most of us are shooting for.

"Process" is probably one of the most overused buzz words in sports right now. We all want our athletes focused on process. We're supposed to praise process over results. So why give training where an unrealistic RESULT is the primary thing you are trying to communicate to swimmers?

Let me give another example:

12x50 "ALL OUT" on 1:30

Think about how most if not all of the swimmers you coach would honestly swim such a set. They might be able to go "all out" for few, but unless their speed is very poor, they will face increasingly diminished returns. They will learn something you don't want anyone to learn: that no matter what they do they are helpless.

This is akin to something we would not want a swimmer we coached to do. Imagine if your 1:06 100 breaststroker told you her goal in the next race was to go under :58. And she set that goal for all subsequent races. Would you consider that strong goal setting? How many swimmers would be able to come up short on such a goal repeatedly and keep smiling?

Now before you make the logical jump to "no result expectations in practice!", there is some value to setting a "result" expectation as a coach in practice. Swimmers should train with reasonable intensity and know what they are shooting for. 

So before your next practice, honestly evaluate where your swimmers are and avoid making "aspirational" result expectations for what's going to happen. What do you honestly expect them to do? How can they do it better, and how can you communicate that to them really concisely?

Be honest about your practice. 

The Rumor Mill: Who Will be National Team Director?

I know because I saw on facebook that Frank Busch is officially done doing the job of National Team Director. One would think, then, that his replacement would be named very soon. But, as of the publishing of this blog there has been no formal announcement of the new National Team Director.

Sadly, I have to report that despite my compelling application I was never contacted. So I'm left to wildly guess about who the next national team director will be. Let's have some fun:

1. David Marsh

Why? Because making up rumors of David Marsh doing stuff is fun, for a lot of people. Because people like David Marsh, and he is one of the few people with a resume that fits the job. Because it's been a long time since we had a National Team Director with curly hair, and it's time for a change!

Why not? Umm, well, there is the whole thing that he took a new job a few months ago. One would think that if there was mutual interest between Marsh and USA Swimming they would have wrapped this up before he did that.

2. Bob Bowman

Why? Michael Phelps. 

Why not? Is it really more attractive than his current job? By all accounts Bowman is well compensated by ASU and free to do any number of other things to benefit from his coaching reputation. Being the National Team Director would actually put Bowman in a box that I'm not sure he should or would really want.

3. Augie Busch

Why? Nepotism!

Why not? Because the Swimswam comment section would spontaneously combust

4. Sergio Lopez

Why? Most people consider him one of the best coaches in the world. 

Why not? America can be a bit snobby about our position in the swimming world, so there could be a sentiment against hiring someone who's most similar job experience was for a tiny place like Singapore, no matter how well he did. 

5. Dave Durden

Why? He is very handsome and coached a number of the top athletes on the 2016 Olympic Team. Has been on international coaching staffs for quite a while despite still being young.

Why not? Does he want to stop coaching? The National Team Director doesn't do much coaching. Is he at the stage of his career where he wants to make such a move?

6. Teri McKeever

Why? Because she's really really well qualified

Why not? Life is not fair and misogyny is systemic. 

7. People Not From America

Why? Because they might have fresh ideas about how to improve American swimming

Why not? See the Sergio comments above. The only country "we" consider close to us is Australia and their coaching ranks are a complete mess at the moment.

8. Jack Bauerle

Why? Very successful college coach who is somehow peaking in his mid 60s.

Why not? Because Georgia apparently backed up the Brinx truck to get him to stay. 

9. Greg Meehan

Why? Greg Meehan is so hot right now. 

Why not? Very similar argument to Durden. Does he really want to step off a sure NCAA contender for the next decade at his age to not coach anymore?

10. Wild Card: Susan Teeter

Why? She's available right now. Great at telling the truth.

Why not? YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Why I'm Coaching High School

Because it's fun.

I guess i could stop there. Not much more to say than that about one of the best, purest forms of our sport that is somehow mostly relegated to the fringes of what we consider "serious" swimming.

It's been almost a year since I moved back to the United States and started my own business doing private swim coaching and mental performance training along with some college recruiting consulting. Through that time I've made a ton of progress developing my business and my life. 

I started working out every day. I walk my daughter too and from school and we spend hours together every weekday. My family has something social going on most weekends. 

While that all sounds great, I did find something missing from my old life grinding up and down the side of a pool deck. I missed the tactile feel of day to day coaching. I missed the simple rhythm of showing up to a pool, getting into a coaching flow and having two hours slip by in what seems like a matter of minutes. 

So, to compliment what I was doing I went in search of a job. I didn't need a job, but I wanted one. One where I could get that swimming fix without having to give up a lot of what I'd worked so hard for. 

I tried my old familiar friend college swimming, my old familiar enemy club swimming. Nothing fit. Every time I got close I found myself compromising too much of the life I'd built.

So I went back to my roots. When I graduated from college, I thought that I would have to teach to support my swimming habit. I taught at a boarding school in Western Pennsylvania, the Kiski School, and coached the swim team. I also coached soccer despite never playing in my life, but that's for another blog. 

I'm going back to coach high school swimming at a boys school here in North Jersey. I found a place that shared a lot of values with me. I'm coming back to a part of swimming where the competitions are actually fun without any gimmicks.

I'm excited to see how it goes. 

Shaming is Not a Coaching Technique

When I was a senior in college, just finishing my swimming career, my teammates laid down bets. Their gamble? How much I would weigh by the time I finished school in just a few months.

I was in the best shape of my life that year, a slim 6'1, 180 lbs. The heavy money was on 200 lbs,. and they ended up being right. Inside, I felt shame. Shame was just one end of a pernicious cycle- wherein I would isolate myself emotionally and try to push away shame with food and alcohol. Doing so would only lead to more shame.

The swimmers didn't come up with the idea to shame me on their own. A permission structure was already in place from my coach. His primary tactic for getting me "in shape" was to shame me. 

A lot of coaches think that shame works. It certainly invokes strong emotion, and sometimes that strong emotion can lead to change. But use of shame is playing with fire- a game that many coaches may not even be aware of.

Shades of Shame

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever publicly reprimanded an athlete in front of their peers? I know I have. That's shaming. Although it may feel "right" and "necessary" in the moment, I want you to reconsider.

Have you ever used group punishment for individual behavior? 

I cringe thinking about the time I pointed out that a 13 year old girl should "close her mouth" when eating. As a mom chaperoning our trip pointed out, her braces prevented it. 

Have you ever compared one athlete to another? Even if your intention was to use one athlete as a positive role model, there's a good chance you elicited shame. 

As with any good rule- ignorance of it is no excuse. Shame has serious consequences. So what kind of positive coaching can we replace it with?

Tough Positivity

One objection coaches will immediately say to me is "so I have to stop telling people they are wrong ever? That's how we got this spoiled generation". I am not saying that at all. There is a way, however, to still set boundaries around what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior.

It's harder, but you must communicate one-to-one to swimmers the specific action you consider inappropriate. Be clear that you do not believe that the action is a part of who the swimmer is. Express optimism that they can improve in the future.

For swimmers that struggle with fitness, as I did, there is often a lot of emotional coaching to be done. All of the commonly employed shaming techniques (weighing in swimmers, public comments, etc) only make things worse. As a coach you cannot start from expectations of fitness, but you can have a huge impact on the emotional health of your athletes.

Instead, you can help your athletes to feel positive emotions. Make them feel connected to you- communicate often that you care about them and show it with your actions. Express empathy for what they are struggling with. Show them what they are capable of doing and empower them to do it. 

Learn to recognize shame and talk about it openly with your athletes. Teach them to be empathetic to each other and recognize what things may be leading them to shame. 

Let's drop shame from the coaches toolbox forever.

Want to incorporate Positive Psychology into your coaching? Write me!

Races That Would Actually Be Cool

For all the name recognition involved, I think we can all agree that Thorpe vs Usain Bolt or Phelps vs Conor McGregor would be terrible to watch. Have you seen the swimming scene from Rocky 3? That's what I picture guys like Usain Bolt or Conor McGregor swimming like:

Although, watching it again, Paulie does have a good point about the principle of specificity. These races also have zero chance of happening, which is good because, like Phelps versus the "shark", they would not be entertaining.

So here are a few suggestions for races that we're not likely to get for any number of reasons, but that I'd actually love to see:

Thorpe vs Sarah Sjöström in a 100 free

Think Billy Jean King versus Bobby Riggs except Thorpe is closer to his prime and without the rampant sexism. I think a short course race would be best, if only because it might be easier for Thorpe to get back in shape for it. You might say a 50 would be better but Thorpe was never good for a 50 and I think Sjöström at her current peak would demolish him in such a short race.

Tim Duncan vs Kris Humphries in a 50 free

If I had an unlimited money pit, I would be using it to sponsor Tim Duncan to compete in masters swimming now that he's retired from basketball. For those that don't know, early in Duncan's basketball career it was always mentioned how he was a "swimming champion" in the Virgin Islands before a hurricane destroyed his pool and forced him to play basketball.

Only the swim nerd himself has thrown a little bit of water on the theory that Tim Duncan was some kind of age group stud. 

Meanwhile, Kris Humphries is not half the NBA player Duncan was, but he was actually an age group stud, going 27.7 in the 50 free (LCM) as a TEN YEAR OLD.

Now tell me it wouldn't be fun to watch two guys north of 6'10 with some swimming in their background go head to head in a 50 free.

Caeleb Dressel vs Shark

I'm stealing this one from my friend Garrett McCaffrey, who aptly pointed out the biggest problem with Phelps vs Shark: we had the wrong guy in the race. Looking back at the race film, the shark did not win by much. What kind of shape was Phelps in?

Does it even matter? Dressel proved this summer that he can get it done in any kind of race. He's got the underwaters. He could easily make up the two second deficit that Phelps had to that great white.

Dara Torres vs Katie Ledecky in a 25 free

Katie Ledecky is making her case for greatest swimmer of all time. She is young. Although she is getting more raw speed, the foundation of her swimming is crazy speed endurance.

Dara Torres is still only 50 years old and only five years off from a credible Olympic bid in the 50 free.

Although you might think that the short distance would give Torres some advantage, neither swimmer is or was particularly strong off the blocks. So this would be a knock down, drag out fight for 25 yards.

Now I just have to figure out how to make that unlimited money pit so we can get this show on the road. 

Two Coaches Who Make Other Coaches Insecure

In the world of coaching swimming, there are all kinds of coaches. There are coaches who acquire almost universal admiration (think David Marsh). There are coaches who attract a cult following (Milt Nelms, Bill Boomer). There are female coaches who...well, I think we've already been over that a few times. 

But there's a special class of coaches who seem to drive other coaches mad. They do so because their presence needles away at common insecurities or frustrations. They appear to not be playing by the established set of rules, and their continued violation of these "rules" leave many making up reasoning after the fact for why they don't like them. 

Peter Andrew

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Michael Andrew, and while much of the coverage of his swimming is rightly about him and not his coach, it's possible that Peter Andrew makes many people even more upset than his son.

What they'll say: Many people will couch their criticism of Peter Andrew in the fact that they think he does too much religious talk. This is a criticism I find weird, even as an atheist. Religion makes people happy, so good for the Andrew family. Other criticisms of the father Andrew seem to boil down to him talking about what he thinks has helped his son to be successful, of which he is probably asked ALL the time, so what else shall he say? But I digress

What really makes people feel insecure: Peter Andrew is a dad coaching his kid. In an age where the surest way to get a nice slap on the back from other coaches is to post another article about how "parents these days" are ruining sports for their kids, a parent effectively cutting professional swim coaches out of the picture and then having his son go on to be one of the world's top juniors is very threatening. 

Shane Tusup

In many ways, Shane Tusup represents a nice evolution in the "coach in a relationship with the swimmer he is coaching" progression. Tusup and Hosszu are roughly the same age and met while swimming teammates at USC. Furthermore, Tusup coaches only Hosszu, so there is no conflict of interest to worry about with another swimmer in the "group"

What they'll say: Criticisms of Tusup basically form around him behaving like a stark raving madman on the pool deck. Which, um, I guess is pretty fair. Or, they might accuse his wife of doping, which is not as fair and pretty squarely an attack on him as well given their level of intimacy. 

What really makes people insecure: Much like Andrew, if it's possible for a coach as well regarded as David Salo to be replaced by the swimmer's husband, what does that say for the rest of us? In fact, Hosszu's career has taken off since switching over to Tusup. Gulp.

What about ratios?

In both cases, I think there is something completely different at play. Coaches of college and club teams shouldn't compare what they do to the work of these two. Put simply, however much they are individualizing, they are still dividing themselves into many pieces as coach.

Coach to swimmer ratios matter. Even the best coaches in the entire world cannot do right by a big number of high ability swimmers. Shane Tusup coaching one to one is a better coach than David Salo split 50 different ways- and that's not an insult to either one. 

Want to add some individualized coaching to your own swimming or team? Write me. 

Craig Lord is Swimming's One True Journalist

If you follow the sport of swimming, you can't escape Craig Lord. To call him polarizing would miss the point entirely: within his body of work almost anyone will find something they love absolutely alongside something else they hate just as much. Whether you're enjoying (or hate reading) Lord is irrelevant. Craig Lord stands alone as a journalist in swimming.

I wrote that last sentence knowing that I'll probably get a comment from Lord disagreeing with it. He'll be the first to tell you that there are many others involved with his former (Swimnews) and current (Swimvortex) project than just him. For all the bombast you often find in one of his 10,000 word broadsides, Lord is actually a kind and humble person. So let me clarify what I mean when I say Craig Lord is swimming's only journalist.

There exist swimming media sites that ostensibly do journalistic work. I have written for both of them, so any criticism I level is at least as much directed at myself. They are not as much journalistic enterprises as much as they are content factories. They report every college commitment relentlessly. They report on meets big and small. They occasionally feature quality commentary.

Despite their small armies of writers, no other sites combine the reporting, writing and sheer attention span of Lord. When Craig Lord goes after a topic, his attacks are so ferocious and sustained that they transcend comedy. I know because I once tried to create a satirical version of him called Tom Duke. It was never as entertaining as the real Lord getting on his soapbox. 

Like any human being, Lord has his blindspots. Those blindspots are often where I've gotten into disagreements with him before. But ultimately they aren't in any way disqualifying. They are evidence of a greater problem: we need more Craig Lords.

What I mean by that is we need more people who go after the important topics of swimming (of which there are many) from more angles, with different blindspots. We need reporters willing to develop and tap sources on a consistent basis. We need more passionate, fact checking, voices like Lord.

And maybe we can get Lord an editor. And pigs can fly.

Ethics Should Matter More for a Hall of Fame

This past weekend, Mark Schubert got inducted into another hall of fame. The International Swim Coaches Association (ISCA). ISCA is ostensibly an organization that exists to provide an alternative to the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA). I've already made my feelings about ASCA known. Unfortunately, ISCA seems headed down a similar path.

Mark Schubert is a great test case for where we are culturally as coaches. The argument that he belongs in the hall of fame is based on results of swimmers that he has coached. Three NCAA titles, multiple world record breaking swims, a lot of Olympic medalists. That argument is easy, if that were the only criteria.

And maybe it is, because when you get to the rest of Mark Schubert's record, things get pretty bad. Schubert manipulated Dagny Knutson out of a college scholarship and effectively ended the career of one of the biggest phenoms of her era through his own avarice.

After Knutson followed Schubert's false promises to Fullerton, CA, Schubert leaked rumors of the coach of that team, Sean Hutchison, having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a swimmer. He then hired a Private Investigator with Bill Jewell, who would later be sanctioned by USA Swimming for violating their code of conduct, to follow Hutchison.

His actions led to the complete dismantling of the "Center of Excellence" in Fullerton, leaving swimmers to pick up the pieces. It wasn't the first time Schubert had wielded rumors of sexual abuse to his own benefit. When Rick Curl finally got justice, Schubert tried to represent himself as someone who did the right thing, if somehow telling Chuck Wielgus was all he could do.

Remember that Schubert was not some anonymous member of the rumor mill in the Curl case- he had been informed first hand by Curl's victim, Kelley Davies Currin. 

Over in the sport swimming loves to look down its nose at, football, former Baylor coach Art Briles is so toxic that no one dare touch him. In swimming, Mark Schubert gets a hero's welcome at his old club, Mission Viejo. And an organization like ISCA, with the knowledge of all the above, deems him fit for the hall of fame.

I've heard a lot of people argue that character shouldn't be considered for a Hall of Fame. There are plenty of baseball players in Cooperstown that were terrible people (Ty Cobb comes to mind). But I think a coaching hall of fame is definitely different. Coaches should be held to a higher standard. We should be examples and mentors and principled first, then we can consider results.

Don't we have it all backwards?

Michael Andrew's Swimming Drives People Insane

Night two of the World Junior Swimming Championship taking place in Indianapolis, Michael Andrew was not having his best night. The first swim of the night went alright, with Andrew about a half second off his personal best in the 100 breaststroke.

He had tried to challenge junior world record holder Nicolo Martinenghi, but couldn't hang on the second lap and was ultimately also passed by American rival Reece Whitely.

He still had the 200 IM, the race where he held the junior world record, coming up. That race, however, was effectively over for Andrew after 50m. After an opening volley of 25.71 on butterfly, his fade began almost immediately and only got worse. The final result was more than eight seconds slower than his record. 

That was when the knives came out.

It's Over!

There exists a segment of the swimming follower population that is constantly ready to write Michael Andrew off. Why is there so much furor over a not yet 18 year old junior athlete? Because Michael Andrew violates many of the "values" that a significant portion of the swimming population holds dear.

In no particular order:

1. There are no junior "sprinters" and success at the junior or age group level in short races should be purely incidental, not something you train for. REMEMBER THAT TOM JAGER'S FIRST SENIOR NATIONAL CUT CAME IN THE 1500!

2. Young swimmers should not declare professional, certainly not at 14 like Andrew did. If this catches on then we will be just as bad as those four major sports that we try to look down our noses at.

3. Race pace training doesn't give you the endurance to be good at anything but 50s.

And on, and on, but those are the largest violations he makes. Andrew has had an incredible meet since night 2, setting world junior records in three out of the four stroke 50s. For all the people that are on the other side of one of the cultural wars above, those results have been a boon. And therein lies the biggest problem for Andrew.

Proxy War

Michael Andrew has become a proxy for people's "religious" arguments in the swimming world. I put "religious" in quotes because I'm not talking about real religion, which is an undercurrent of Andrew that I just don't feel qualified to address in this space.

I mean that when it comes to the content of swim practices, many coaches, swimmers and others tend to get a sort of religious zeal about "what works" and what doesn't. Even some of the same people who will tell you that there are "many ways up the mountain" will defend their particular path to the death. 

I'm not going to pretend I haven't occasionally fallen guilty to the same. Mostly I'm just trying to enjoy watching this kid swim. There will be plenty of more ups and downs from here, and Andrew deserves not to be a weapon for the rest of us to beat each other over the head with.

All The Opportunities of No

"No" is not a word we usually associate with opportunity. I have my own troubled history with it. It is the ultimate "negative" feedback. No means "stop, don't proceed" ,it means "I don't agree" , or even "we aren't going to do that". So where does the opportunity come in? It took me a long time to figure that out.

"No" Parenting

We often hear that "millenials", a generational group I'm lumped in with, don't hear the word no often enough. That was not my experience. In fact, I learned from a very young age not to even bother asking for what I wanted, lest I raise the ire of my mother.

I was, in other ways "spoiled". I grew up in a big expensive house in a rich town. I got a lot of things, and I never asked for them. They were what my mother wanted me to want to have. I learned the helplessness of hearing "no" from someone else. Once that other person said "no!", what could you do?. Turns out there were many situations where there were plenty of ways to go from there.

Learned "no"ptimism

I should be unambiguous about one thing. Learning "no means no" in a sexual context is absolutely the best lesson, and the rest of what I'm about to describe doesn't apply to that context.

When I left the protective womb of my elitist liberal arts college I was all of a sudden swamped with "no". I wanted to be a college swim coach, but I heard a lot of "no". Not knowing how to deal with that, I reverted to my child-like state. I guessed that I should stop asking. I soon found out I was wrong.

With new found courage (from my future wife, who couldn't understand why anyone would give up so easily), I started asking again. This time with an open mind. When I heard no from hiring coaches, I kept my cool and pressed on. What could I do to get to "yes"? How could I improve myself? What did they value?

Even more so, I learned how to absorb the ego blow of hearing no and move on from it in the same conversation. 

I learned a lot about the profession I wanted to join before I joined it this way, and it allowed me to start the most important process (networking) of my professional career.

Finding Your Own No

But still harder challenges lay ahead. After learning about all the opportunity that I got from hearing no, I still hadn't learned how to use the word myself. I said yes way too much- yes to doing that extra work, yes to the job I wasn't sure of, yes to all the endless requests from swimmers, parents, and other coaches. I said yes until I was totally overwhelmed.

I found my own no, and though I'll never quite perfect it, I can see now the opportunity it creates for others too. 

How to Explain Talent

Talent: it's a dirty word that we can't get away from in sports. The typical connotation is that talent approximates just how much innate ability a person has for something. People often add redundant qualifiers like "natural talent" or "god-given talent". 

The reason, therefore, talent has become a dirty word is the growing sense that one of the most important psychological factors for success in anything is whether you have a "growth" or "fixed" mindset. The work of Carol Dweck (and others) has done much to convince sports people and educators that having a growth mindset, i.e. believing that success in something is possible by developing and nurturing your collective abilities. 

in 2014, I sat down with the swimmers I was coaching to define talent, partly because I was growing very frustrated with their definition of it. The exercise was simple, but it did a lot to change their attitudes about how much of "talent" was about fixed traits and how much wasn't.

The List

In all, the swimmers pooled together as many as fifty characteristics they believed could go under the heading "talent". I won't repeat them here. Several different categories emerged.

First came physical skills. "Talented swimmers swim with good technique", they said, and have are good at skills like starts and turns. Talented swimmers knew how to get their hand on the wall first. 

Then came physical characteristics. These included height, the length of limbs and lean bodies. Talented swimmers were flexible and had good range of motion.

Mental characteristics made it onto the list. Talented swimmers were confident, specifically in that they believed in their ability to do things. They were "mentally tough" and could shrug off bad performances.

When we were sure that we had a comprehensive list of all the things that "talent" encompassed, I asked them to rate each thing we had written down with a simple binary.

Can you improve it? Or not?

Out of a list of fifty characteristics, we found two that couldn't be improved by some process. You cannot improve your height or the fundamental structure of your body through some process. Everything else is fair game.

Now, no one believes that we are operating on a completely even playing field. There are swimmers out there who could really give their everything and never come close to being world class. But that's not the point! Why focus on the relatively small list of things that you cannot change when there are so many that you can.

Interestingly, I've found that mental characteristics are more often seen as "fixed" by coaches, simply because they have not yet learned the processes for changing and improving these characteristics. However, nearly any of these have a simple process for improvement just like a flip turn, conditioning or freestyle catch

Want to learn more about improving your mindset for performance? Write me!

Well, This is Fun

If there is one criticism swimming nerds must take to heart it's this: our sport can be boring. One thing that often gets lost in the conversation is that swimming has fairly predictable results. This is why we have had dominant swimmers over the ages who rack up big medal totals.

This is also why many the most memorable races are the ones with unexpected results. Unpredictability is at the heart of many widely watched live sports- people feel compelled to watch because they simply can't predict what will happen.

Which brings us to some recent results. Yesterday, everyone's favorite name to say Ranomi Kromowidjojo blistered to a 22.9 in the 50 free SCM, beating the sizzling hot Sarah Sjöström at the Berlin World Cup. Witness below:

The first wonen in the world to break 23s in the 50 freestyle. @ranomikromo pic.twitter.com/6SSs3RV7sK

— Marcel Wouda (@mrwouda) August 7, 2017

Sjöström came off a World Championships where she swam to a world record in the 50 and 100 freestyle and performed her usual 50/100 Butterfly domination. What's fun about this is that Sjöström is swimming phenomenal- but on a given day Kromowidjojo can reach even higher and take a victory.

As good as Sjöström is, Kromowidjojo is perhaps the world's best technician on the start, and even in losing in Budapest she had a significant advantage in the early going. Sjöström's raw speed advantage was blunted a bit by the short course format. 

Likewise, Simone Manuel was lying in wait at the World Championships for Sjöström in the 100 freestyle. Sjöström was just a bit off, and Manuel seized the opportunity to snatch another gold. 

Like the Pellegrini win over Ledecky at the meet, these kind of results point to an ever more competitive world stage for swimming, and that means a more entertaining product. 

I'm not suggesting that it's not fun to watch envelopes pushed to the extreme that one swimmer is dominant for a period. As a swim nerd I love to watch Adam Peaty- but his races have come to take on an air of inevitability. I'm looking forward to him having a significant challenger.

In any case, this is fun, let's hope the competitive level keeps building and we can go into Tokyo with less certain winners than ever. 

How I Would Have Over Coached Sjostrom

Sarah Sjostrom is a phenomenal swimmer. Would you want to coach her? I think many coaches would say yes. The opportunity to work with an athlete on that level is a dream for a lot of coaches.

It's too easy sometimes to say to yourself that the coaches of these phenomenal swimmers are "lucky" to get some one with such "talent".

The truth of the matter is that the higher level the swimmer gets to, the harder the coaching gets. In my career I've worked with a handful of swimmers that ranked in the FINA Top 100. There is still a huge leap from that level to the level of a swimmer like Sjostrom

What I found is that I had a tendency to "over coach", to try to do too much, my first time working with a swimmer that was on a certain level. So I'm trying to do better, I'm trying to anticipate where I might go wrong should I ever get the chance with a swimmer that has Sjostrom's potential. Here's how I might have screwed it up

Stroke Finish

Sarah Sjostrom's completion of her stroke on freestyle and butterfly are something that honestly I wouldn't even think to teach someone until I saw them. Look at what happens in her freestyle. It confounds the technical discussion of "finish your stroke" versus "no, in sprinting it doesn't matter if you finish your stroke". 

More than any swimmer I have ever seen, Sarah seems to get her elbow out early, while somehow still finishing with her hand fairly far back, but with no flick of momentum with that arm up in the air. The stroke finishes hard and transfers energy into the recovery immediately, allowing her to both pull a lot of water and get a fast stroke rate. Look at this video in 0.25 speed from 2:13 (Sjostrom is in the lead):

Likewise in butterfly, Sjostrom has complete control over the finish of her stroke and is able to redirect her arms forward immediately. Compare the ease with which she recovers her stroke.

Sarah Sjostrom is one of the best "inside out" swimmers I have ever seen. The finish, the pull underwater, even her kick all come from an incredible center (the term core is politically incorrect these days) that gives her huge control over what her extremities are doing. 

Pacing

Sjostrom has just had her best freestyle meet of her career. While she has always been highly competitive in 50-100-200 freestyle, the butterfly races have been her bread and butter since age 15.

Sjostrom's butterfly pacing relies on devestating back-halfs. Her speed advantage in fly is such that she can go out in 26 low "easy" and have plenty of energy to swim the back half in 29. She tried to go out faster in Budapest and did not break her own record.

You would think that the same pacing rules might work for Sjostrom in the 100 freestyle, and maybe they will. But it's hard to argue that she should hold back in freestyle when she broke a world record and went 51.7. I would probably be even more likely to second guess this tactic after the 100 free final where she got run down by Simone Manuel.

But would we have seen 51.7 if Sjostrom had played it safe? Probably not.

Overall, Sjostrom's swimming shows a creativity and autonomy from herself as a swimmer that is unique at the top levels of swimming. The lesson we should learn as coaches is not to copy the precise movements she is making in the water, but to find out what process she (and her coach) used to create those movements.

Want help with your swimming technique? Write me.

Pellegrini Has a Strategy and Sticks to It

By Federica_Pellegrini_e_Luca_Marin.jpg: br1dotcom from Milan, Italyderivative work: Bill william compton - This file was derived from  Federica Pellegrini e Luca Marin.jpg:, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25472885i/File:Federica_Pellegrini_e_Luca_Marin.jpg" title="File:Federica Pellegrini e Luca Marin.jpg">Federica Pellegrini e Luca Marin.jpg</a>:&nbsp;<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Federica_Pellegrini_e_Luca_Marin.jpg" class="image"></a>, <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution 2.0">CC BY 2.0</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25472885">Link</a>

Federica Pellegrini will go down as one of the all-time greats. Yesterday, she beat the world's best swimmer, Katie Ledecky, in the 200 free. It was her seventh World Championship medal in a row, dating back to 2005. The result is remarkable, and Pellegrini remains somehow underrated.

The hallmark of a Pellegrini victory is her dangerous final 50. Even a superhuman like Ledecky can fall victim to Pellegrini's late race heroics. While she doesn't always win, she's won a lot of races against a lot of worthy competitors by sticking to her guns and executing a race strategy that works for her.

Let's look at some of the examples of this from the past. In 2011 Pellegrini won gold in the 200 freestyle. Look how "out of the race" she looks halfway through that one:

While Allison Schmitt and Femke Heemskerk tighten up, Pellegrini seems to calmly glide to the front of the field and then take a decisive victory, despite trailing by a body length halfway through. 

Again, it matters little to Pellegrini what the other swimmers in the water are doing. Go out fast? She believes she can catch you. Wait around? You risk leaving her too close at the final lap.. Here is Pellegrini also dispatching Heemskerk (and Hosszu) when the pace was a little lighter on the first 100 at the 2014 European Championships in Berlin:

I often think of Pellegrini as the reverse Pieter van den Hoogenband. Hoogie had a nasty habit of stealing 200 freestyles from all-time greats by setting an uncomfortable pace on the first 100. He was able to use that both to beat Thorpe in a home pool 2000 Olympic race.

Thorpe was ready for that move four years later, but a less experienced Michael Phelps would have to wait four more years for history when caught in the whirlwind of those two:

Anyway, Pellegrini's particular style means that even when she loses, it's exciting to watch her race. You never know if she's out of it, and at 28 she's still ready to teach a younger swimmer something in a World Championship final. Bravo.

Efimova's Revenge Will Define Lilly King's Career

Yesterday, America's #1 Swimming Villain Yuliya Efimova got revenge on Lilly King, She capped the victory by wagging her finger, a move that sent your average American booster in a frothing rage.

Lets set aside, for the moment, discussion of whether such taunting has a place in swimming (I believe it does). Let's also set aside arguments about Efimova's doping. Lilly King is an outstanding swimmer who has, ready or not, crossed over into a new stage of her career.

King's meteoric rise has been marked by the kind of brash, in-your-face confidence we rarely see in swimming. In a way, we can all relate to this kind of confidence. It's how you feel when you haven't realized your own mortality yet. It's a teenager speeding down a hometown road without any fear. Now that teenager has had an accident.

The history of world class swimming is littered with athletes who looked like the next best thing, rising and rising. The rising part is "easy", if you can consider anything at this level easy. It is far harder to confront reality after that first big loss, after you're not the rising star anymore. 

The pressure is now on- the only not disappointing result for King is to be better than everyone in the world. You don't have to look far back for an example of someone who rose nearly as fast as King, only to struggle after that first big disappointment.

Breeja Larson came on like a freight train leading into the 2012 Olympics. She looked like the future of breaststroke. Remember when she held off Rebecca Soni (who at that time had the world record in the 200 breaststroke) on the back half of the 100 breaststroke at the 2012 Olympic trials?

Larson would go on to a disappointing finish in London. She finished 6th at the games. Every year between 2012-2016, she regressed from her 1:05.92, despite being in a stage of her career where she should still be improving.

King will have to be very purposeful in the way she mentally prepares going forward. She cannot ignore this loss, she must deal with it emotionally re-frame her confidence. She will have to effectively confront the doubts that weren't there before.

If she does that, she can make Efimova an afterthought and do all the finger wagging she wants. 

Lia Neal Instead of Katie Ledecky on the 4x100 Relay

The World Championships in Budapest are underway, and despite some pessimistic predictions things are mostly going great for team USA. But a curious reader reached out to me to point out something strange that happened on Day 1. Why was Katie Ledecky on the 4x100 freestyle relay instead of Lia Neal?

Because, Superwoman

The obvious argument is that Katie Ledecky is just such a great once in a generation phenomenon for women's swimming that she deserves the benefit of any doubt. She's the best swimmer in the world, although Sarah Sjostrom is making that closer than it's ever been for the past few years.

When Michael Phelps was the world's best, he swam on 4x100 free relays. For the brief period of time that is quite hard to remember when Ryan Lochte was the world's best, he swam on 4x100 relays. So Ledecky should swim on 4x100 relays? Right?

Well, there's a compelling argument that she shouldn't.

Lia Neal Earned It

Hindsight is 20/20 blah blah, but very objectively we can say that Lia Neal was faster than Ledecky yesterday, but that Ledecky swam on the relay. The decision didn't have any objective cost for the American team, as they still won gold semi-comfortably. 

But Lia Neal was 53.9 in the morning from a flat start, and Ledecky produced 53.8 from a flying start at night. Swimming common sense dictates that Neal would have gain far more than .1 of a second from a flying start. 

Mitigating circumstances

On top of the strong performance of Neal, there were other reasons to use her on the 4x100 relay that night. Ledecky had the 400 free final, while Neal otherwise had the night off. Again, I know Ledecky is superwoman, but swimming a 400 free final at the World Championships will greatly decrease the chance of an outstanding relay split.

And it did just so, where Ledecky swam a pedestrian (for her) 53.8 versus the 52.7 she scorched in Rio. 

None of this is a knock on Ledecky, or on Neal for that matter. Both did their jobs yesterdays and the results were as good as they can be for the team. I can imagine that behind the scenes there was definitely some conflict over how to arrange that relay, especially with Greg Meehan having coached both swimmers.

Expect Weirdness in Budapest from Team USA

A friend of mine (for the sake of protecting his anonymity, let's call him G. McCaffrey) pointed out an anniversary of sorts the last time we talked. With the World Championships in Budapest (the pool portion) about to get underway, it was time for my annual bed-wetting about American swimming.

But nine years in, I've learned my lesson. In the year after the Olympics, the US team usually takes a dip from "extremely dominant" to "dominant" on the world stage. That is nothing to wet the bed over. However, if you don't follow your history, you might be tempted to get concerned as the results unfold next week in Hungary. 

That's why I'm hear with this message: expect weirdness in Budapest. What kind of weirdness? I'm glad you asked. I'll give you a historical example and then take some guesses.

The Relay Blunder of 2009

It's hard to fathom the US every missing a relay final in international competition. That very thing happened in 2009, when the Women's 4x100 Medley squad only managed 10th in the preliminary session

Yes, some of the swimmers on that relay didn't perform to their potential, but the US also elected to not use their fastest stroke swimmer in either backstroke, butterfly or breaststroke. For freestyle the coaches went with a swimmer who didn't even make the 4x100 night relay. Weird indeed.

More Than Just "No Phelps"

A US slip in the medal count will undoubtedly be attributed to "No Phelps" so I won't focus on that obvious narrative. There are other events in which the US all of a sudden finds it's position far less certain than 2016 and could lead to some Budapest Bed wetting:

1. The Men's 1500 Freestyle: The loss of Connor Jaeger puts the US well behind the world standard in this race, in fact our results from trials would have last looked promising for a medal even twenty years ago.

2. Women's Butterfly: Dana Vollmer's continued excellence is on pause to create life again, leaving the US without their most consistent butterfly Olympic medal threat. While the US has some promising swimmers in all distances, they need considerable improvement to make the medal stand in Budapest.

3. Women's IM: Likewise the women's IM are hurting for the kind of performances that Maya DiRado gave us in Rio. As good as Melanie Margalis and Leah Smith swam, there's another level for them to find to break through at this meet. 

4. Ryan Murphy is beatable: Ryan Murphy was the best non-Phelps male swimmer for the US Team in Rio. He crushed Australian Mitch Larkin's dreams and effectively ended the 4x100 Medley relay on the opening leg. But he looked far more human at Trials, He's a candidate for a "swoon" the same way that Phelps himself took a bit of a backwards step in 2005 Montreal

That said, most swimmers would probably kill for a disappointing Ryan Murphy swim.

Ultimately, the post Olympic World Championship meet is always good for a reshuffling of the world swimming deck, and even if the US team seems only normally dominant, any step back always seems to motivate them to crush the rest of the world by the end of the Olympic cycle. 

What's Going on In West Chester?

It's been four months since Jamie Rudisill announced that he was going to retire after 29 years at West Chester University. There are times when a coach "steps down" and you have to sift through coded language from an athletic director to find out that the breakup was not mutual.

This was not one of those times. Here is the quote from West Chester AD Dr. Edward Matejkovic:

"I am not sure that the string of championships that he has engineered can be duplicated".

Rudisill has been successful at West Chester in many ways through sheer will and ingenuity. As the article notes, the learn to swim program that Rudisill developed at West Chester teaches 4000 (!!!!) kids a year. 

So it's a bit curious four months later that there has been no public anything in regards to replacing Rudisill at West Chester. None of the possible scenarios are really good for the West Chester Swimming and Diving program.

Scenario 1: Internal Hiring Process

The lack of even a job posting seeking candidates for Rudisill's position could mean that they are searching for his replacement internally. Perhaps Scott Elliot (see edit below) who has done such a tremendous job as age group coach for Golden Ram Aquatics (as well as helping with the college team) could be sliding up. (EDIT: After finishing this, I got confirmation from multiple sources that Scott Elliot has just passed away from Cancer.)

But if that was the idea, they have done the team no favors with four months of no news. Furthermore, an internal hire's whole advantage is that you can do it quickly and move on without all the inefficiency of a new hire. This is the worst of both worlds

Scenario 2: There's a new AD

One of the things that can slow up hiring processes is if there are key decision making personnel missing in the athletic department. In West Chester's case, the previously mentioned Dr. Edward Matejkovic also retired this Spring. 

West Chester put an interim tag on Terry Beattie (who was already at the school) and he remains in that role months later. So it could be that West Chester is basically paralyzed, waiting to either have a new AD so they can hire new coaches, or for their current interim have that tag lifted so they can proceed.

Scenario 3: There is no hiring plan

None of these scenarios are exclusive of one another. Perhaps there is so much disorder that there is simply no plan for West Chester for how they will replace Rudisill. Which is a shame because the market is only shrinking for possible replacements they could get, and much of what Rudisill accomplished will need to continue running smoothly to ensure future success.

EDIT: After finishing this post, I got information from multiple sources that Jamie Rudisill's retirement would not be "official" until August, and that current assistant coach Steve Mazurek will be taking over. Mazurek is a West Chester alumn and no stranger to the team after serving as an assistant coach there for nine years.

If you have any information on what's going on at West Chester University, write me!

The Recruiting Fallacy in College Coaching

Recruiting. If you have ever held a college coaching job, applied to a college coaching job, or talked to a college coach, you have probably heard this word more than you'd ever like to. Recruiting is the lifeblood of college athletic programs, and most coaches will admit that it is at least as important as your actual coaching ability at this level.

That is true. Recruiting is incredibly important. It's also something anyone can learn to do, and may already have a lot of skills for that they don't even know. Coaches who look past well-qualified coaches because of lack of "recruiting" experience do so at their own disadvantage.

This is one of many reasons that college coaching remains a weird, cliquish sub-culture in the swimming world. Every year, hundreds of otherwise nice resumes face rejection from the college ranks because of this.

What is recruiting? For one thing, recruiting is marketing a college swimming program. A club coach who runs their own business may have experience with marketing. Now, in college coaching you have to deal with NCAA rules around how you can market.

These rules are made by what I can only assume are miserable people paid to ask the question "What would the most insane college football coach try to do to get an edge?" and then get their legislative pens out.

Recruiting is also sales. You sell to a family and a student athlete the promise of studying and swimming at your school. Coaching any kind of practice is it's own kind of sales job- after all you will not be successful as a coach if your swimmers are not "buying" the workouts you are "selling".

In fact, career club coaches can bring a lot to the table that career college coaches cannot when it comes to recruiting. Many of them have way more "reps" in their back pocket interacting with families and high school age swimmers.

They have seen the process from the other side and know what works and what doesn't. They have sat and wondered "why doesn't (anonymous college coach) just call me? Don't they know I could help them right now?".

The final absurdity is the notion that coaches without college experience are a great risk to commit NCAA violations. It doesn't hold water- especially when you consider how easy it is to pass a NCAA recruiting test (an open book test on one chapter of the NCAA manual) and the infrastructure that athletic departments have built in compliance to prevent this very thing.

Ultimately, the divide that exists between the skill set it takes to be a successful college coach and a successful club coach is not as great as the hiring market would indicate. College swimming would benefit from a more open coaching pool, and individual programs that see the opportunities in hiring "club only" coaches will gain a competitive advantage.

Are you looking for help getting involved in college coaching? Write me