I’ve often spoken about “Fireman Mode” coaching, where you find yourself running from place to place putting out fires. Most of the time, it’s in the context of the mental health of the coach. Fireman mode is very detrimental over the long haul of a coach’s career, as you begin to anticipate (with considerable worry) problems popping up and having to react to them.
I remember vividly when I first became a “head“coach. In early July of 2013, I was standing on the pool deck of the Danish National Championships. I was embroiled in a bitter “contract dispute” with my current employer. Some time after warmup I was handed an envelope by the club’s board chairman with a contract inside.
Today I woke up to this article on Swimswam. To summarize, a ten-time conference coach of the year, and her assistant coach, is abruptly let go one week ahead of their conference championship. A terse statement from the school says everything and nothing about what actually happened. In the comments section, another career reputation is circling the drains.
Having recently completed a trip abroad, I’m struck once again by how small the swimming world is. Even in Sweden, with nominally a completely different group of coaches than you would find at your average gathering of American swim coaches, connections abounded.
There are many benefits to a small community. One which I continually benefit from is that by virtue of that community being small, my modest presence online nevertheless affords me a lot of familiarity on many pool decks world wide.
One of the problems I have consistently encountered is that when terminology goes viral, it often loses it’s true meaning. Today I want to talk about empathy, which I find has become a buzz word in a lot of contexts, but has also started to lose a cohesive meaning in the process.
I want to offer, to my audience of coaches, parents and athletes, a definition of empathy. At the same time, I want to distinguish it from some of the perversions of the term I commonly see.
Some part of me, though, was having a huge freak out about sitting comfortably in my theater recliner at precisely 6:45 pm when the first preview rolled.
Thankfully, I've learned to limit some of my obsessive control behaviors to general timeliness. In coaching, I've had to let a lot go. I could probably stand to let loose a lot more.
The fundamental here is simple. Harping on the deficits of athletes you are coaching is not an effective technique for getting improvement. This is not about "holding them accountable" or "sugarcoating". It's just a matter of fact: shaming is not a coaching technique
Having said all that, I'm actually quite sad. Even when Lord wrote something that made my eyes bleed I was glad he was there. We could fight online and to the casual observer it would seem quite nasty, but every time I actually spoke with the man on the phone or in person I found him exceedingly nice, polite and reasoned.
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.
Yuri Suguiyama is the new head coach at Wisconsin. The first big hire of this already insane college hiring season is in place. I want to congratulate Yuri, but not on the job.
No, the comments that Suguiyama's hiring inspired on Swimswam are pure gold, and something all coaches should aspire too
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
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
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
The second time I was introduced this past weekend at the Gulf Swimming Coaches Clinic, I became painfully self-conscious about part of my bio.
I am proud that I was coached two Danish Junior National teams. Humbly, I realize that Denmark, as a country, is far smaller than Gulf Swimming. Not only in terms of population but in the number of competitive swimmers.
I'm living the dream.
I'm writing this from my hotel in Downtown Houston. I'm down in the area for the third time in the last six months. Whereas my two previous visits have been solely focused on working with Bridge Bats, this time I have a dual purpose
