Head coach of Cavalier Aquatics, Gary Taylor, dives into the strategies that help lead his team to excellence among USA swim teams. In an engaging conversation with Champion's Mojo host Kelly Palace, Coach Taylor pulls back the curtain on the meticulous process of sculpting versatile, well-rounded swimmers, like USA National Team stand-out Thomas Heilman. Cavalier Aquatics swimmers are trained to be capable of excelling across various strokes and distances. Discover the underpinning philosophies that have propelled Cavalier Aquatics from gold to silver medal status, and how a city like Charlottesville has become an unexpected hub for swimming excellence.
Take a peek inside the stunning training facilities of Cavalier Aquatics, where the natural beauty of Virginia is as much a part of the pool as the water itself. Coach Taylor shares his wisdom on the importance of fine-tuning even the smallest details in training, fostering a synergistic relationship with the University of Virginia's successful swimming program, and the value of collaboration in the coaching community. The rapport between Taylor and UVA's head coach, Todd DeSorbo, isn't just a friendship; it's a strategic alliance that's making waves in the world of swimming. For those passionate about the sport or simply intrigued by stories of ambition and achievement, this episode presents a unique narrative filled with insights from one of swimming's most innovative minds.
Head coach of Cavalier Aquatics, Gary Taylor, dives into the strategies that help lead his team to excellence among USA swim teams. In an engaging conversation with Champion's Mojo host Kelly Palace, Coach Taylor pulls back the curtain on the meticulous process of sculpting versatile, well-rounded swimmers, like USA National Team stand-out Thomas Heilman. Cavalier Aquatics swimmers are trained to be capable of excelling across various strokes and distances. Discover the underpinning philosophies that have propelled Cavalier Aquatics from gold to silver medal status, and how a city like Charlottesville has become an unexpected hub for swimming excellence.
Take a peek inside the stunning training facilities of Cavalier Aquatics, where the natural beauty of Virginia is as much a part of the pool as the water itself. Coach Taylor shares his wisdom on the importance of fine-tuning even the smallest details in training, fostering a synergistic relationship with the University of Virginia's successful swimming program, and the value of collaboration in the coaching community. The rapport between Taylor and UVA's head coach, Todd DeSorbo, isn't just a friendship; it's a strategic alliance that's making waves in the world of swimming. For those passionate about the sport or simply intrigued by stories of ambition and achievement, this episode presents a unique narrative filled with insights from one of swimming's most innovative minds.
Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo hosted by two world record-holding athletes. Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your hosts, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.
Speaker 2:Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast. I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, I am with my co-host, maria Parker. Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be with you here today. Yes, and Maria, this is a special edition of Champions Mojo from the pool deck and we have a great interview for you today. It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful.
Speaker 3:Yeah and we. I wasn't there, but I was able to listen to the interview and some great takeaways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways. And here we go. I am on deck with an on deck inspiration with Gary Taylor. Gary is the head coach at Cavalier Aquatics in Charlottesville, Virginia. Gary, good to see you again.
Speaker 4:Yes, nice to see you. Congrats on your new mile round.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. So we're at the Swem RVA Commonwealth Cup and Gary seems as having an awesome meet. They are leading the meet, and, gary, how long have you been in Charlottesville now?
Speaker 4:I've been in Charlottesville for about two years. I arrived just after Labor Day weekend in 2021 and it's been a very nice, pleasurable two years. Charlottesville is a great city and a good place to live.
Speaker 2:So you're really building a great team there, and I've been at this meet all weekend watching your kids perform great. And everybody wants to talk about Thomas Heilman a little bit. But, hearst, before we go there, I just wanted to check in with you. How many kids do you have, hank? What would you say? Some of the strengths are of your team.
Speaker 4:Charlottesville is not a metropolis right, so our program is about 200 swimmers large. We were a 2023 gold medal program, a USA gold medal program, and for 2024, we're a USA silver medal program. For a small program, I can't. We punch well above our weight. We've got some really good swimmers both in the developmental age group and senior levels and ultimately, our goal with Cavalier Aquatics is to develop really good swimmers, not primary events. We want great pyembers, swimmers that are great, the 200 and strobe. They can swim from the 50 up to the mile and really everything in between. So the goal and not really a whole lot different than it was the collegiate level maximize the little details and continue to develop inter-opportunities for growth or weaknesses to create the best swimmer possible in the pool.
Speaker 2:Very nice. So are you training at the YMCA in Charlotte? Do you have any other areas, or what is your primary schedule there?
Speaker 4:Certainly. Our senior groups train at 5.30 Monday through Friday. They train at six o'clock Saturday morning. They're always in the morning and then our age group programs are typically the afternoon, from about four until eight thirty. We've got a beautiful facility ten lanes, twenty-five yards. We've also got a three-lane developmental pool which works well for us. But it's fantastic. We've got a good situation. Probably many teams are looking to do we're always looking to expand, but we're very fortunate to have the facility that we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've actually surprisingly swum in your pool there and it is stunning. My husband and I stopped in there and we swam more like wow, it's like a wall of glass everywhere.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Yeah, Very much. It almost has the look of trying to bring the natural beauty of the outdoors indoors and I thought they did a great job in building the facility and really capturing that. Many wives across the country tend to be old cinder block, not many windows. We're very fortunate that our YMCA, when it was built about six years ago, was done in such a way that it brings nature inside. It's a beautiful place to work and work out.
Speaker 2:It's been fantastic, yes and one has to notice that Charlottesville, Virginia, is a hot med of NCAA swimming right now, especially in the women. They've three-paided the NCAAs. I know you and Todd the Sorbo are very good friends and how does the programs mesh there? Do your kids go watch dual meets? What is that like being at the University of Virginia in the same city of such an amazing swimming program and having this relationship with Todd?
Speaker 4:Yeah, certainly a big, very appreciative of my relationship with Todd. He's done a phenomenal job with UVA men's and women's programs. Obviously, the outcomes on the women's side have been tremendous. And then the men continue to get better, continue to build. They just got a fantastic recruiting class. I think that connection has been really important, not only for myself and the club portion of Cavalier-Fuanitz, but just the swimming community in general. They do a great job hosting meets. We had a lot of kids at the Texas Duel Meet a couple of weekends ago and we were kind of looking over numbers. There are about 94 swimmers on the US National Team this year, swimming-wise, and nine of them are housed and home in Charlottesville. So one tenth of the US National Team resides in the area. For a small town you don't see that too often, so it's really unique For a small city. There's a lot of really fast swimming in the area and that's something we're proud of and looking to build off of, not only presently but in the future as well. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:And what advice might you give to a USA team that is in the same city with the university team to have some of that rub off Hersch would.
Speaker 4:Foremost. It's a partnership, so it goes both ways. I do think the club programs being willing to reach out to the collegiate programs get a nose. Coaches asking them to stand on that watch workouts, connect with them, is really important. But I also say too vice versa, like sometimes I feel the collegiate coaches and programs around the country could probably do a little bit better job connecting with the USA club programs or YMCA club programs in this case, and I think Todd and his program have been willing to do that, really willing to support the YMCA Cavalier of Poitards and just the community of swimming there in Charlottesville. I think it goes both ways and I think it's really just opening up the lines of communication and working to get to know one another. We're all in the same thing and the benefit at the end of the day is the community of swimming and, most importantly, the swimmers, the children, the high school athletes, the collegiate athletes. So there's a lot to be gained, I think, for both ends, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So let's give to Thomas Heilman. He is your swimmer and he's now committed to going to the University of Virginia. He's going to stay in Charlottesville there. Tell us what kind of training you have Thomas doing right now Maybe some sets, or just in general how it is coaching him.
Speaker 4:First off, he's got great parents, great family. I had the pleasure of working with his older brother, matthew as well, who's at your VA, and they were just raised well, respectful, hardworking. It's the basics, right. Everybody wants to know the secret sauce and the magic, but it's really just being coachable, having a tremendous work ethic, the desire to become your best and being all in for the team, and I can say that he checks all those boxes off. So I'm very fortunate to have an opportunity to work with a special swimmer like him, and he's a lot of fun to coach. Look, most importantly, the person he is outside the pool is the reason you want to connect and get to know him. That's person foremost, I think.
Speaker 4:In terms of training, a couple of years ago he was looked at as just a spreader, maybe just a free sourd, just a butterflyer. We've really worked over the last two years to develop his IOMs and grow his weaknesses, which he's done a phenomenal job of. He is so detail-oriented and focused on improving himself between the flags and, most importantly, between the flags and the walls and underwater. He does a tremendous job of that, but really it's just probably not a whole lot different than the collegiate swimmers I work with growing threshold capabilities, rolling VO2 max capabilities, lactate work, giving him a steady dose of all five strokes, being flyback, breast-free and underwater. It was getting him out of his comfort zone from time to time which, quite greatly, could be hard to do because he's always willing to step up the challenges and it's just continuing to take the assets that he's already got and give him confidence and continue developing those.
Speaker 4:So, in terms of shots man, what have I seen him do? Quite, honestly, a lot of things lately. He's been consistent, been really good. We did six dive 100s off the block two Saturdays ago and his performance is range from 47.5 to 48.5, motorfly, which I thought was pretty solid. He's also, I would say, what was?
Speaker 4:the interval on those Probably about six to eight minutes on the dive 100s. So we did six of those within about 50 minutes. Some good performances there. Yeah, he's been a lot, I will say. His active rest and a little bit, I am has become really strong. He's starting to get to a point where he can pretty consistently swim under, no matter if he won 50s, 200s, 250s, 300s. He can press the double L barrier and really go at subcases pretty far below that. So I think that's been tremendous. We've worked a whole lot this year. We've added doubles. So he's done more training in the afternoon, more volume, more work. He's started to implement more power work. And then the other thing we've done a lot of kick on the brick kickboard this year and his kids already really are read, but it just continues to get better. So really a number of things, not one thing. It's just working everything with them to allow him to be his best swimmer Swimming salt. All right, gary.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll let you get back to the me here. Really appreciate this time. Thank you, Gary.
Speaker 4:Team up the great work. Thank you very much, kelly. Congrats again. Appreciate Zahira Richardson speaking. Thank you, take care.
Speaker 2:Gary Taylor, the head coach of Cavalier Aquatics in Charlottesville, virginia, and a connection to Todd DeSorbo. So my takeaway for Gary is how important relationships are, because Gary Taylor and Todd DeSorbo were both assistant coaches together for many years when they were at North Carolina State and they developed a friendship. And so when Todd became the head coach at the University of Virginia and Gary was invited to come and hey, probably told about the job at Cavalier Aquatics by Todd, I'm sure and then they've been working together, helping one another, and that is based on keeping your relationships going and I think that is just. It's such a huge takeaway that wherever you are in the world, the people that you're interacting with on a daily basis maybe at that moment you don't know what role they're going to play in your future, but I love that.
Speaker 2:And that relationship is developing as assistant coaches and now is developing between a college coach and a club coach. The club coach is doing really well and that is another little skip over. Even if they hadn't had that relationship as assistant coaches, they are demonstrating how important it is and I think we talk about this with Rick Walker master's programs partnering with club teams Right, it could be college programs partnering with club teams. It could be club teams partnering with swim lesson groups, your aquatics director. But my takeaway is that when programs partner, when they share ideas, when they share goals, when they talk with each other, everyone wins.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I like that too. I love that they have. I guess right there in Charlottesville they had something like 10% of the best swimmers in the country right there in that small town, partly because they work together and they help each other. So, yeah, cooperation is always a good takeaway. So how about yours?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he talked about his, one of his stars swimmers right now, thomas Heilman, and one of the things that he said that I really like this because I want to be this way. He said, obviously, this person works really hard. He focused on the details, but he said he's fun to coach and if you think about that, I want to be fun to coach. When I walk into a room and somebody's trying to help me with something, or somebody makes some suggestions, I want to be that person who's fun to coach because I listen, I focus on the details, I'm intrinsically motivated and I work really hard In any aspect of my life, even in my marriage. I want to be fun to coach by Jim if he's got something to teach me. I want to take that attitude of listening and working and trying to become a better person.
Speaker 2:Oh, maria, this may be my very favorite takeaway, in fact. We may have to create a t-shirt that says I'm fun to coach. Yeah, I love that, because I think that is such a great thing to aspire to just be fun to coach. You and I are coaches, and how great is it when you have somebody that is fun to coach. I love that. Oh, that's great. And no wonder Thomas Heilman is doing so well, my gosh she is just rocking. So another great one in the books. Maria love you.
Speaker 3:Love you too, kelly. Bye-bye, bye-bye.
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