This week on the Swimbrief, Swimlikeafish’ Abbie Fish joins me to break down a couple of great swims from this past couple weeks conference action. We talk through Kieran Smith’s excellent 500 free and Erika Brown’s standout 100 freestyle:
Swimming Agent Cejih Yung
As promised last week, here’s the podcast recorded with swimming agent and all around sport enthusiast Cejih Yung.
I think Cejih has a clear sense of what swimming is as a business, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. For the sport to thrive, the value of what we’re doing needs to be connected to those who can support it, and Cejih has done just that for a group of top level professional swimmers in the US.
Joel Shinofield
Today the long awaited and teased podcast with the Managing Director of Sport Development for USA Swimming, Joel Shinofield. We trace Joel’s history in the sport, back to his earliest days teaching and coaching up to the present day.
We get into what motivated some of the twists and turns in his career, before finally pivoting to a conversation of his current role and what he’s trying to accomplish right now. Joel even turns the tables on me at the last minute. Enjoy:
Easterns Revival With Glenn Neufeld
This week I’m joined by my friend Glenn Neufeld to discuss last month’s Easterns, and the road to reviving the meet over the last three years.
We also talk about some of the surprising things at the meet that make it a little different from your average swimming competition:
Garrett McCaffrey
This week I got Garrett McCaffrey to come in and do our swimming version of sports talk radio. We discuss pro swimming, whether we think it’s time to buy/sell stock in Ryan Lochte and finally we use the crazy story about Sun Yang as a springboard for a broader conversation about doping.
Enjoy:
Grooming and Parents
I recorded a podcast yesterday with Monica Strzempko and Sarah Ehekircher yesterday. We wanted to highlight the issue of grooming and how it paves the way for abuse. For more on Monica and some context around why we spoke to her, look to yesterday’s preview.
Cultural Knowledge, Richard Foster and More
Today I'm joined by Sarah Ehekircher and for the first time, Dia Rianda. We talk through how cultural knowledge, often damaging, is handed down from coach to coach, and work through a few examples we have seen.
Later on, Dia helps us understand the latest news about Richard Foster, and I rant a bit about the piece I wrote on Dick Shoulberg yesterday:
Chris, Sarah and Trever
Today I return with Trever Gray and Sarah Ehekircher, to follow up on our podcast of last week. If you want to read more from Trever go here. If you want to hear more from Sarah her blog is here and she’s active on twitter.
Both Trever and Sarah have new research to bring to the fray this week. We turn from there to a discussion of Steve Lochte and Swimswam beginning to report on interim Safe Sport suspensions. Finally. we discuss Steve Penny, the former head of USA Gymnastics, getting arrested this past week and I go on an extended rant about Tom Brokaw. Enjoy.
Ryan Wochomurka
Today a long awaited chat with the University of Houston head coach Ryan Wochomurka
Ryan is building something in Houston after being a part of the incredible development of the University of Louisville. We talk about his journey in coaching to get to this point, as well as the spirit that makes Houston such an exciting place to live and work.
From there we look to the future to see what he and his team are doing to, in their words, "elevate" the program, and the project we're working to make that a reality. Enjoy.
Chris, Sarah and Eva: The Senate Hearings
A few weeks back I teamed up for a podcast with Sarah Ehekircher and Eva Rodansky. This time, we got to talking about the Senate hearings with Olympic sports leaders.
Eva was there and a part of some pretty compelling events outside of the hearing. Sarah watched from home. We talk about whether there is true progress and momentum.
Just one note: this was recorded last Friday, and there is a discussion about the independence of Safe Sport vis-a-vis banning coaches that USA Swimming failed to ban. Later on in the day, Sean Hutchison was banned, which is an interesting test case for this. Although, Sean had already been very prominently exposed and USA Swimming has already admitted some wrongdoing in the way they handled the investigation, specifically with the termination of Susan Woessner.
Also we talked a bit about a rumor that Hutchison had fled the country. News reports quote his lawyers as saying he is still stateside.