Chris DeSantis
Hierarchy of Communication

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

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

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

Chris DeSantis
Equity for Winners

To paraphrase, the question was “how do you manage coaching a group of athletes where you have superstars and people who are not nearly as fast”. A worthy question and one that pretty much every coach has to answer except for a select few.

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

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

Taylor and Lopez Have Their Work Cut Out For Them

Taylor and Lopez Have Their Work Cut Out For Them

In both cases, though, the bar for success has been set very high. While many people liked to rumble that Hawke was underachieving at Auburn, Taylor will have to at least show something in between the last few years and the Dave Marsh years. At VT, Lopez will replace a coach that, in my opinion, overachieved during his tenure. So he'll have to get another level of overachievement.

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Addressing the Latest USA Swimming Letter

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Addressing the Latest USA Swimming Letter

On Friday evening east coast time, USA Swimming sent out a letter to members. It was their first communication addressing "Safe Sport" since Executive Director Tim Hinchey wrote a letter two months ago.

It has been nearly two months since Hinchey's letter, and each passing day begged the question "what are they actually doing?".

Unfortunately, the answer is not much

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Even Wilder Speculation About College Jobs

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Even Wilder Speculation About College Jobs

Yesterday, Swimswam posted an article speculating who might get hired at one of the most coveted jobs in swimming, head coach of Auburn University. This is shaping up to be an epic college hiring season and I applaud the article. It is fun to speculate about this kind of thing.

I would make only one significant edit to Swimswam's list. It is made up entirely of men. That's not entirely Swimswam's fault

USA Swimming Still Loves Pat Hogan

USA Swimming Still Loves Pat Hogan

When USA Swimming allowed child molester Everett Uchiyama to "resign" from his post in 2006, Pat Hogan was the man who helped Uchiyama get a new job with access to kids down the road at the Colorado Country Club with an over the top recommendation.

Which brings us to yesterday. According to this facebook post sent anonymously to the blog, all the members of USA Swimming's club development staff were tagged in a post celebrating the retirement of their "boss

Leave the Door Open With Empathy

Leave the Door Open With Empathy

One of the questions that I often field from coaches goes something like this:

"What do I do about (athlete x)? They are struggling and they blame it on (laundry list of small things). I don't think that's really what the problem is".

This is a frustrating and common problem, one that can even get a bit infectious under the right conditions on a team. Often it leads frustrated coaches to challenge the athlete on the validity of their claims.