Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I'm Chris DeSantis, and today on the debrief, where we get personal with people sometimes around the swimming community, sometimes not. We got somebody who's um a little bit of this, a little bit of that today. Um the former head coach of University of South Carolina, swimming and diving, current financial advisor, current high school swim coach. You still coach in high school a little bit?
SPEAKER_00That too. That too. McGee Moody, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invitation, and I'm always looking for opportunities to talk swimming and uh to talk about how things are evolving and things like that. So I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm very excited to have this conversation as well. In fact, I was having a good time talking to you before we started, and then I realized, you know, like it's one of those situations I've got to actually, you know, I've got to actually start recording. Save something for the podcast, Chris. Right, right. Um, I really feel like I wish I had a backup recording that just started at this the second things booted up and and and finished, because like the some of the best stuff I get with people is like the five minutes before we start recording and the five minutes after. Yeah, the conversation, such as life. You can't simulate that kind of um relaxed piece, but we're we're gonna do our best. Um here's here's where I want to start with you. Uh you know, even just to establish the personal connection here, um, because I think some thing that we're gonna talk about a little bit today is some of these like branching possibilities in life. And I think I find myself thinking a lot about a branching possibility in my young coaching career. I think we were we were maybe we were at the Georgia Senior Champs uh meet. It was at UGA, and you you you pulled me aside in the stands and you were like, hey Chris, I'm gonna have a job opening coming in you know this offseason. Would you be interested in applying? And I was like, my heart wanted to scream yes, and my my head was like, you gotta go check at home, and you probably know what the answer is, and the answer is no. Yeah, yeah. But I've I've thought a lot about that moment um since, and I guess where I want to start is um that's that's a that's a sort of inflection point in both of our pasts. Um now you have I introduced you as the former head coach of University of South South Carolina. How many years has it been since uh since you left USC?
SPEAKER_00I I left coaching, well, in a roundabout way. I left college coaching um back in 20, I guess it's 2021, so a little bit over four years now. Um and and I've I've stayed connected in different ways. Uh, you know, my my my daughter is a swimmer, my youngest daughter's a swimmer, um, had the opportunity to uh to coach uh her high school team. When she started high school, uh it was it was very interesting. The the athletic director, the former coach for this this team that she was going to uh was one of my former swimmers. And so Abby was getting ready to go down to Florida to finish her master's, and so she said, you know, uh you should call Coach Moody. He'll do it. And so she volunteered you. Yeah, she she voluntary me this is what was gonna happen. And uh so the athletic director and the principal gave me a call and said, Hey, um, this is not really an interview. Uh we're not asking whether you're qualified, we're asking, would you please take this position? And I thought about it and I was like, you know what? I've never had the opportunity to coach my daughter. I've got to do so many really cool things uh in swimming, and swimming has provided me so many opportunities to see different parts of the world and uh represent you know my country and all of these different things through coaching and through being an athlete. I'd never gotten a chance to coach my daughter. And I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to coach my daughter. So I called them back and I was like, yeah, I'll do it. And they were like, well, you know, you know, you know, we're not gonna be able to pay that. I was like, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it for the money. Like, I don't know any coach that does it for the money. Um, and so I had this opportunity, so I was able to stay connected there and and did some did some stroke instruction with different athletes that were teammates of my daughter and things like that. So I'm stayed connected, and then my best friends on this planet, they're all coaches. Um and and I still talk to them all the time. Uh talked to Steve Youngbluth last night until about 11 o'clock p.m. Talked to Sergio all the time up at Virginia Tech. I talked to a lot of these coaches that were really dear friends of mine. Anthony Nestie is a part of our hunt club up here at South Carolina. So, you know, like uh I stay connected to these these coaches, and it kind of keeps me connected to the sport. Um, and then as a financial advisor, uh NIL has now kept me connected to the sport in ways that I never thought um I would be connected. Uh so you know that that's a very interesting thing. I have a lot of college athletes that are clients of mine now, uh, either football players, basketball players, um, you know, you name it. Uh if they have opportunities when name image and likeness, a lot of them will come and sit down and talk about that. So and what do you now now you piqued my curiosity? What do you do for them? So these and the numbers, you know, the numbers that you hear rumors about, they're real. Uh and and I I have very mixed feelings about NIL. Um I understand the need and the want to be compensated for the time that you put in, or the need and the want to be compensated for your name, image, and likeness. Um I think it's devaluating or uh devaluing college athletics in in a very big way now, and it's going to um ultimately, I think it's gonna cost some opportunities. Uh, we've already seen it in especially in Olympic sports. The the model that we have in college athletics right now is not sustainable. It's not. Um they can say whatever they want to. There's not an athletic director right now uh in the country who has a plan past two years.
SPEAKER_02They just don't.
SPEAKER_00And and so that's a pretty scary thing. But when these athletes, when they sit down and they they get these money, this money, and they they the dollar signs that we're talking about are large. Um you have you have some that react the way you would think they would, and they spend that money as fast as they get it. And then you have some that come in and go, you know what, coach, and they all still call me coach, this is an opportunity for me. And I can change the trajectory of my family, I can change the trajectory of the life for my children, and they want to know how to do that for their future. I have one young man who was a client here, he was a basketball player at South Carolina. Um, and what he wanted to do with his NIL money was open a barbershop for his father. And his father had always wanted his own barbershop, and this kid took his NIL money and we managed it in a way that allowed him to open this barbershop for his dad. And and so you know, there are stories like that that are that are pretty awesome. Um that's how I, you know, a lot of you know, unfortunately, you're not seeing a lot of NIL dollars with swimmers. Um but the dollars that you are seeing are are real, and and football and basketball are reaping the benefits of that right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I think with the NIL stuff, I I look at it and I I think it's so hard to sort out all the details because on on one level, I agree that it's not fair that you know, like Nick Saban makes ten million dollars and the guys who play the games, you know, are getting like scholarship plus, right? And like you know, spot scholarship and change. That that seems like an inequity that needs to be addressed, but you know, the application of these things is messy. It's really messy, and I I do worry, like you do, like almost I think everyone in the swimming community does, that in that messiness, we're just gonna get thrown away. Yeah. Because we know it because it's happened before, right?
SPEAKER_00You know how college athletics works, and this is what's happened with NIL. If if that door cracks open, coaches and athletic directors and administrators and everybody kick it down and run through it, and we'll figure it out later on. Like we got to get in here and get part of this and get it moving. And now what's happened is you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. There's very little regulation. It is the wild, wild west. You could literally walk up to an athlete walking down the sidewalk, ask them to do a cartwheel, and pay them $10,000, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Um you know, and that that's the thing where uh there has to be some sort of regulation if it's gonna continue to work. And um so, you know, and that's that's for people that you know that's not that's not my wheelhouse. That they got to figure this out. But I do believe that what started out as being very well-intentioned, you know, uh is turned quite chaotic, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Uh I want to get back to some of your reflections at USC. And I I think you make a good point there about you know the value in coaching. I mean, that's why my heart was like, gosh, I want to go up to South Carolina, because I I I wanted to work with you. I had a feeling like, you know, I was gonna get something more than a coaching job at an SEC school. That was gonna be cool, also, right? That part of it was was was uh definitely enticing. But I think for the most part, one of the things that sometimes people miss when we're arguing about you know swim coaching jobs and like, oh, people should get paid more, this, that, the other thing. You know, I think our profession has existed for a long time with people making very little money doing it, and how does it attract good people? It attracts good people because it has value to them that goes way beyond whether or not they're making money. When you think about your time coaching in college, like just on a raw level, what do you miss the most? And on the flip side, what makes you think to yourself, gosh, I'm so happy I'm not doing that anymore?
SPEAKER_00I miss the athletes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, me too, man.
SPEAKER_00Terribly. I I miss those that I always told our athletes that that they kept me young, and the the opportunity to um to be on deck every day and to try to um set standards that I got to watch these athletes blow past on a daily basis, and then the the look on their face when they did it, and then watching them, walking them from very, very raw, very nervous, very scared freshmen till the time where they walk across that stage and get their diploma, and they're either branching off into their professional career or they're gonna continue swimming, which was just starting to evolve. Like that really wasn't a thing before I got to South Carolina. Most swimmers, when you graduated, that was it. You're off to get a job. Now they have the opportunity to continue on. But but I miss that that part of it, the relationships with the athletes, the relationships with the coaches. What I've found is um honestly, you can't really replicate those anywhere. And I've tried. I've tried. I don't think you I don't think you can, and because it's through that, it's through that partnership that a coach and a swimmer share, um, and and and what you ask that athlete to do and the effort that they give you in return that creates this bond as as they go forward in their career, but that I can't you can't replace it. And then with the coaches, like coaches have a bond like nobody else has because I I know what you went through as a coach. You know what I went through as a coach. We we joke, I joke about it all the time. I never really knew how tired I was as a coach until I wasn't tired anymore. Like I know, right? I thought everybody got up at 4 45 in the morning and was leaving their house at 4 53 and they were on deck at 5 30, and you were making recruiting calls at 11 o'clock. I didn't know that people didn't do that. And so only coaches know and can relate to that level of of work and that level of uh complete 100% locked on attention to detail inside the job. Nobody can really understand that outside of outside of coaches.
SPEAKER_01You know what I you know what I think about in regards to that all the time is so I you know my kids are a little bit older now, right? They're 11 and 7, but I remember, you know, when we had my daughter, my our first child, and there were those moments where you know, inevitably you gotta wake up in the middle of the night and you gotta comfort a crying baby. And I remember just thinking, like, this is not so bad. Like I hear all these people complain about it, I was like, I don't even have to leave my house. Right. I can like sit in a rocking chair and and cuddle with this, you know, creature that I love more than anything else in the world. And I I it makes me think back on my career. I go, like, this is underrated. Swim coaching prepares you for so many things in life. Is is there anything that you don't miss? Uh you you skipped the second part of my question. Maybe you're just trying to be so positive.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't I don't miss the politics behind at least the collegiate side. Now, club is club is a little different, they have their different set of issues that they have to deal with every day. But with with with college swimming, nine times out of ten, you're dealing with an administration that doesn't fully understand the sport. And they are making decisions that impact your team's success, but don't understand the implication of the decision that they're making.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and I don't I don't miss that at all. Um, you know, I I think there are a lot, and which may be one reason why I truly, I really love coaching the high school kids, because they're there that's not involved. Like you get to get to the most pure form of coaching. Um, where you know, I've got a kid uh in this lane right here who has a junior national cut, and then over on three lanes over, I've got a young lady that didn't know there was any other strokes other than freestyle. You know what I mean? Like they're all in that same, they're on the same team, and you get to you get to really stretch your coaching capabilities and and how do I how do I make this young lady love the sport over here, and how do I get this young lady to Olympic trials uh over here? And and so I that that to me is a very cool part of it. And uh, but what do I not miss? I I don't I don't miss the politics behind it. And you know, you you were talking a few minutes ago, and you were talking about the how like the things that we loved about coaching and what I missed. I think a big thing with that, Chris, is if you remember back when you started coaching um and and why you got into the sport to begin with, I it was never it was never to me, it was never about a job. It was never about having a job. My first contract, um, Rick Covey at East Carolina, the head coach at East Carolina for 40 years, I think. Yeah, he gave me my first contract. My first contract was in 1992, no, sorry, 1996 would have been my first contract, my first coaching contract. And that was for $1,500. That was for the year. So, no, I didn't get into coaching for the money. I got into coaching because I loved it. Um, and it was it was a sport that I loved. And I think what you see is you see your best coaches, they can't even tell you what their paycheck is. Honestly, most times it it doesn't matter to them. If there's a number change here or there, great. If it goes up, awesome. But I'm doing what I do because I love it and because it's impactful and it's important. I think that's a lot of um a lot of jobs can't say that.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Coaching is important. You are you you have that in at its root, you're you're able to shape without sounding too dramatic or theatrical, you're able to shape a young person um and help them see things about themselves they didn't know existed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So one of the things, one of the things I come back to in regards to what you're just saying, um, I mean, my first contract, I think, was two grand. I I was I tell people I basically was a volunteer, you know, more or less. I guess technically no, but because I I did have these, you know, hundred dollar paychecks that I was cashing, but it was at University of Pennsylvania. And my wife was going to grad school at the same time. She was in the architecture school, and I remember those architecture kids, they were just putting in like 16, 20 hour days. Um, and I remember I got pretty frustrated once. I attended one of these critiques because you go to these critiques and you know, like, you know, the person you love, you've seen them slaving away on stuff, and then you have some like you know, professor twirling his mustache, and he's like, I don't really like the composition of this uh building. And I'm like, shut, shut up, man. I was ready to go to war. But I was talking to one of her classmates, and out of frustration, I just said, like, I don't know why you guys spend so much time on this. Like, you're not curing cancer, like you're drawing made-up buildings. Like, and he was like, You're not curing cancer either. And and I that stuck with me. I was like, a fair point, you know, like I'm I'm going to the pool and I'm coaching, but I I thought about it a little longer. I go, yeah, you know what, in coaching, we don't cure cancer, but we might be the person that inspires the person that will cure cancer. Like that that's how big our influence can be. We might be the person who teaches that person the value of like committing something to something long term, to working hard on it, to not giving up. And so it it there is a lot in this, and I guess this is a perfect segue into the next thing I want to talk to you about because you've you've had success outside of coaching. And one of the things I see with coaches, and and uh like you, I love my fellow coaches dearly. Sometimes, though, I think that uh I see a lot of my colleagues lacking confidence in what they can do just broadly and generally. They think of themselves as just a coach, right? And that they can sort of only exist in this uh swimming context. In your experience, your career as a coach, what kind of skills from that has carried on to your work outside of coaching?
SPEAKER_00I mean exactly, right? I I think the biggest thing, and and you don't see this from the inside out. When you're coaching, the biggest thing I hear from coaches is I I don't I don't know what else I would do. I've only ever been a coach. And I look at that statement now and I'm like, golly, man, if you only knew, like, don't ever sit there and put yourself in this box of I've only ever been a coach. Because to me, being a coach is one of the most um just absolute most satisfying jobs you can have. Like, and so I say that, but you look at the skills, look at what coaches do. There is not a single thing that on a daily basis that coaches do that are not that any five Fortune 500 company would not scratch and claw at to get people in the door to do this. Coaches are 100% your one, you're working with people, you're leading teams, you're managing teams, you're managing your coaching staff, you're a master of logistics, you're a master of budgeting, you're a master of strategy, you're a master of problem solving. You tell me what company doesn't want that guy sitting there making decisions. And and I'll tell you how I came to the place where I am sitting right now, and I'm gonna bring, I'm gonna bring my current boss and who's also a really good friend of mine. Well, he's been one of my best friends since 2007, but um Ken Calcutta is the owner of Cornerstone Financial Management, which is where I work. And he and I used to joke, he he knew my schedule, he knew me as a coach, and he knew how much I worked. And the punchline used to be oh, if you you'd come to work with me, then you wouldn't be getting up at 4 45 in the morning, or you wouldn't be calling recruits over in the you know in Egypt in the middle of the night just so you could talk to them on the phone. You wouldn't have to take two-week trips, you know, off and and so it was kind of a punchline to us. So I asked him one day, I said, Look, how why do you are you serious about this? Like, what how do you see, how do you why do you think this would be? And he goes, think about what you do. He said, You train athletes and you recruit. He said, Those are the two main things you do as a college coach. You train athletes and you recruit. He said, There's a business aspect to it, which is beneficial. He said, but if you have an athlete sit down across the table from you and they say, I want to become an Olympian, your job is to create that path for them. Tell them the things about their life they're going to have to change. Tell them the things that they do well in their life. You're gonna have to motivate them along the steps to go do that. He goes, now take that Olympian and replace them with someone who wants to retire at age 55. He said, now the wording is different. He said, but the strategy and the problem solving is the same. Your job is to create a path for these people to achieve their goal of retiring at age 55. Or tell them one, no, it's not gonna happen. Two, These are the things you have to change. Or, hey, you're right on track. Get after it. And I was like, huh.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00And he goes, well, now think of it this way. He said, you've got a recruit in their parents sitting across the desk from you. And you're telling that recruit, hey, my program is going to help you reach whatever goal you want to get to. My program is going to be better for you than anyone else's. And you look at their parents and you say, you know, I can take better care of your kids than any other university in this nation can. And I promise you this, I will treat them like my own. He said, if you can convince a parent to turn their child over you, he said, you can convince a client to allow you to manage their money. To which I replied, I've I've met a lot of parents that would part with their children before they part with their money. But all that to say, I went back and I looked, I was talking to my wife about it, and I'm like, he's really thought this through. Like, this is not just a shot from the hip. And what I started to find out more and more is anyone that had any knowledge of college athletics outside of our coaching industry, they give anything to have that person working in their company because they know everything that a coach does. They know that inner office workings, a coach is going to be a master of psychology when it comes to going in there and working with these other with your co-workers to accomplish a goal. So things that when I was coaching, if you'd have told me I was going to be a financial advisor 10 years ago, I would have laughed at you, man. There's no way. But all of a sudden, it really is not that different. What I do now is not really a whole lot different than what I used to do. Um and so I thought that was very interesting. So when I hear coach coaches go, oh, I mean, I've only ever coached. I don't think they understand the magnitude of what they're saying and how they're they're short-selling themselves so much by saying, I've only ever been a coach. Um so yeah, I I think how that carried over to the field I'm in now honestly was wasn't brought to light until my current boss talked to me about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's there's a disconnect there, right? Between what they're actually capable of and then how they sort of manifest it with confidence. I remember when I started working for myself, one of the things, you know, I've struggled with a lot of things working by myself, but one of the things I found instant success was in sales. And I realized that like recruiting is sales. I mean, like I had a ton of reps. I mean, I was a recruiting coordinator for a power conference division one school. That meant that, you know, 16 to 20 kids a year, I was closing these, you know, if you just take it on a yearly basis, we're talking like $40,000 deals essentially for people to come. Like I was doing a big I was doing a big volume of sales for Georgia Tech. And so it was not hard when I started this to get on the phone and ask people to commit to stuff. If I could the hard part was sometimes coming up with a product that I was gonna ask them to commit to, but in terms of getting down to the final stage, and I think even on the other end of it, I heard this at a swim clinic, and I've mentioned it on this podcast before. Even the aspect of like swim coaches have so much confidence if somebody comes to you and they go, Yeah, like I want to make nationals, or they they give you some ambitious goal, you will instantly, like pretty much any coach will be like, Okay, here's the plan. I'll see you Monday morning, 5 a.m. We're gonna get to work. Like, we don't blink on that at all. We don't hem and ha and go, like, well, I don't know, maybe this, maybe that. Like, we we we have this confidence, we know what it takes for people to get better, and we just insist on it. And I think if a lot of coaches could transfer that to something else, you would realize that that's not common in the world, that there's not a lot of people out there that that just can sort of plow ahead with that level of assertiveness towards something that they want to do.
SPEAKER_00I I agree. And and you said you said that, and there's a there's a famous there's a famous quote by uh by Nick Saban. There's a little video that went around the internet for a while. Um, and he he said, you know, there's not a lot of compromise in greatness. It takes what it takes. Like when they talk about the standard of Alabama football, it takes what it takes. There, you if you compromise on it, I I can tell you what it's going to take to win a national championship. You compromise on that, we're not winning. It takes what it takes. And and that does carry over um that mindset that coaches have. Like you said, that that unfazed mindset, that's a pretty, when you when you describe it that way, that's a that's a pretty big ask when an athlete sits down and and puts that sort of trust in you. And yet a coach leans right into it and it and what they see is an athlete that's ready to lay it on the line as well, and then that partnership begins and off we go. And there there's there's no there's no time to waste, right? We gotta get we gotta get going, we gotta get to work, we gotta get started. Um and it's it's the passion on both sides that I think uh that that creates those greatest performances and the greatest athletes that we see.
SPEAKER_01Let me take this in a slightly different direction, some of the stuff that we're talking about, because I see some parallels uh in our lives too, and I'd be curious. You know, I've been observing you from afar, and now I want to figure out what's really going on. Um be careful.
SPEAKER_00You don't may not want to dig into that too deep.
SPEAKER_01I think one of the things that I've observed is since you stopped coaching at South Carolina, um, you've just had more time for to pursue a couple things that probably were always like in the back of your mind, like, oh man, I really want to do that. But you know, I just can't because I'm I'm married, I have four kids, I'm head coaching in SEC program. Um talk about I guess personal development a little bit. Um I know you're you're you're doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, yeah, right? Yeah, um and you've got some time to volunteer and some stuff outside. So, you know, was that was that like what was the process like, I guess, of just allowing yourself to get into some of these things?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I think a big part of it, and I think we'll talk about this in a little bit, was um, you have this identity when you're a coach. You're a coach, and then all of a sudden when I when I made the decision, the decision to stop coaching, um it was a lot about my family. You know, we we went through the pandemic and that was hard on everybody. I mean, you you were that was brutal, brutal on swim coaches. The stuff we were asked to do, um, some some teams were allowed to shut down. I wasn't allowed to shut down. I was told that I could host a practice with four people, and and I have a 10-lane, 50-meter, four people at a time. That's what we could have. I have a 10-lane, 50-meter pool. And so if my team was gonna practice, do the math. There's not enough hours in the day. Um, and and so I I we came out of that and I was exhausted. I was I and it affected my coaching. It did. Like, yeah, I I was not I was not as good a coach. Uh, not because I didn't want to be. I it was just it was it had drained me. Um, and so I when I made the decision to step away, it it uh it was a it was a lot about my family. Um I I remember at one point thinking my daughter, my oldest daughter was turning 21 years old. I had been home for two of her birthdays. Um her birthday's in February. You remember what February is like in the college swimming world. You're gone all the time. All the time. Um I remember back in 2013 uh when I uh I was on Team USA coaching staff at World University Games over in Kazan, Russia. And just a that was a highlight of my coaching career, the opportunity to represent my country. I remember going to Kazan and we were over there, I believe we were there for 17 days. And then I, the the rest of the team USA flew back, and I flew down to Johannesburg, South Africa for nationals down there because two of our swimmers were racing there, and I was there for another 10 days, and then I flew back home. And I remember walking through the Charlotte Airport, and I was like, I haven't seen my children's face in person in a month. Yeah, I'm never gonna get that back. And and it constantly started to wear on me, and I was like, you know what? Uh, and and Dino talked about it on your podcast not too long ago, about you know, if he had it to do over again, he'd take more time for his family. And so I sat down with my like and I just said, you know what, this is it. I said, my my my my wife deserves better, my children deserve better. I've got to be a better, I've got to be a better father for them. And and they never once even remotely hinted that dad, you're you're you're not doing your job, you're not you're not being a great dad, blah, blah, blah. They never, I just I felt like they deserved more of me. And and so stepping away opened, did it did open up this time. But but to the the point, all of a sudden, I'm not coaching anymore. The Monday after I stopped coaching, I was standing in my living room in the morning, and my wife walks out and she's like, Are you okay? And I said, I don't know what to do. Yeah, I was dead serious, I had no idea what to do. And she said, and she she looked at me and she goes, Go make a cup of coffee, you'll figure it out. That's all she said. And and I did, I went and made a pot of coffee, and to this day, that's still the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. Make a pot of coffee and I figure it out. Like that's what I do. But all that to say, you you have this time, and so now you're looking to fill this time with a little bit of purpose. And so for me, this purpose was my family. This person I wanted to find something that challenged me athletically, physically, in the same way that coaching and swimming had always challenged me in the past. Um, and and I wanted to um, you know, I wanted to find a job that challenged me mentally uh as well. And and and so I kind of knew before I stepped away from coaching, I had this, this was already lined up, it was already in place. Um, but those three things, that was kind of where I went with this. So what were the things I was gonna fill you know fill my time with? I was gonna pour into my family. I I didn't I didn't know that you could make a pot of coffee and sit down in your chair in the morning and you know go through, you know, go through the market and check on stocks and you know look at the news. And I thought you had to be going 100 miles an hour. I never knew this. And so yeah, kind of retraining my mind and refining my purpose, that was a difficult thing. Um, very similar to what athletes face when when they step away from the sport. And so um I I think stepping into finding Brazilian jujitsu uh it's something that I love. I have it's the only thing, and I know this sounds crazy because it is a very rough, very violent type of thing. I'm way too old to be doing it. Uh, but the the the interesting thing is it's the only thing that challenges me physically in the same way that a a two and a half hour college swimming practice made me feel uh every day in college. Just completely wrung out, exhausted, and accomplished. Um, they're very different. In swimming, you don't really calculate off of other people's mistakes. You can't you can't capitalize when they screw up, right? You you're inside your lane and you're swimming your strategy. In jujitsu, that's what you live for. You're waiting on that guy to screw up. So, you know, you can lock down on an arm or you can sink in a choke or something like that and and make them pay for that mistake that they made, or vice versa, get paying suffer for the mistake that I made. Um and so there's a competition aspect to it, and and I love that. I I'm I'm always in competition either with myself or or in this in you know jujitsu's case, someone else. And so I was I was looking all these different directions to to I don't want to say fill a void that coaching left, but to um kind of reinvent myself from a purpose standpoint. Does that make sense? That was a lot of talking there.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean I totally I I I I relate to it. I mean, I think, you know, as I listened to it, I just I've seen this as a pattern. I've seen people sort of leave coaching full-time, and it's like you watch them age in reverse. You know, like I mean, I I think the other guy I thought about like when Dave Salo was essentially retired, like the the second, the year after he retired, if you looked at him, yeah, he looked like 10 years younger. Yeah. And I think there's there's just side of kind of you you unconsciously as a coach get into this bad pattern. I mean, most coaches, they get in, they're selfless people, and they actually they find a lot of meaning in helping other people, but sometimes I think too they they lose themselves in that, in that they they keep on sort of taking out these long-term loans on their own well-being.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then before, you know, it all kind of comes crashing down at some point. I'm I'm I've seen it in my own life um come crashing down on me. And so now, you know, when I'm not coaching full-time, I don't have that same, although I miss having people every day, yeah. Um, I I don't have that same pressure, I guess. And it makes me think a lot about, you know, is there a way to find that and still coach people every day?
SPEAKER_00Here's the thing, Chris. I I think some of the younger coaches, um they're much better at balance than I ever was. Um and I think if you talk to some of the coaches that I was that were some of my mentors, um, you know, we talked about Mark Bernardino. He you just did an outstanding podcast with him uh within the last couple of weeks. Mark is one of my closest friends on this planet. Um he's more like family than anything else to me. But I look at him and and you know, we knew one way to do it, and that was you're coaching all the time. Look at Greg Troy. Greg Troy, coaching all the time. The the we didn't we didn't know how to turn it off. And and college college athletics has created this dynamic. Brainwashing is a strong word, but inside inside that athletic department, there is this understanding that if you're awake, you're working. Um if you're not working, you're falling behind. If you're falling behind, you're losing, and if you're losing, you're no good to anyone there. And and so you you want to know what wears at a coach. It is that constant grind of, you know, I was even I was talking to a college coach, and I I I won't I won't tell you who it is. I was talking to her a couple of days ago, and she told me the other day that she had all intentions of taking an afternoon practice off. Just one. She said I couldn't do it. She said, I I had the anxiety was too much. If if I wasn't there, was something going to go wrong? And that's that's damaging over time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, and and so I but I look at these younger coaches, I look at Bobby Gontoro and I look at Braden, and I look at how some of these younger coaches are starting to find that balance. And you know what? Braden Holloway does have it figured out. He does know that if he's not at a Saturday morning practice, he's got very capable assistant coaches that can make everything run just fine for him. And no, they're not going to lose out on a national championship because he decides to go take his daughter to dinner somewhere. And five years ago, that was not the case for me. I couldn't miss a practice. I had to be at the meets. And, you know, I I look back now and I'm like, you know, how much different, how much different would my career look or Mark Bernardino's or Greg Troy's if our if our if our family had had more of our time, you know? How much longer could we have stayed in the sport? I mean, you got Dino and you got Greg, they were they were lifers, they were in it. Um, but I I think I know they would agree with me that it took a toll on them uh physically, and it's it is exhausting. But I think the younger coaches, and if if there's any challenge I can make to any younger coach out there, it is, you know what, it is okay. It's all right. Take a day, you know, take an afternoon practice, take a weekend. It's gonna be okay. And and and you you won't, your team will not lose out because you're not there. Matter of fact, I would almost venture to say your athletes are probably gonna have more respect for you taking care of yourself and coming back a better person the following, you know, the following Monday than trying to push through something that makes you miserable and taking it out on them.
SPEAKER_01You know, that that's what I lean into more, and I truly do believe this. I think that um taking time to work, like do work, do something hard outside of my job for myself, yeah, I think makes me better at what I do. I think spending time with my kids makes me a better coach. Like it's not, it's not it's not zero sum. It's not like, oh no, now I'm not coaching. I'm I'm I'm getting worse as a coach or I'm less competitive. Um, I've learned so much about coaching by having a couple of kids and problem solving my way through um, and it's and it's given me a lot of empathy that I didn't have, you know. Like I I I coached always older kids, and so like you you realize, like, you know, like my daughter's 11 now. Um I'm realizing like I was recruiting kids like four or five years older than this. That's not a lot of time. Like the the window from where she is right now to somebody being a collegiate recruit, um, which kind of brings me to my last topic. Um, you let me know you're working on a book, and I'm gonna let you introduce a little bit what you're working on, and then I I'd like to know, like, maybe in the process of that, what inspired you to uh get to work on this?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think honestly, the the inspiration came from my transition from coaching. Like I like there's a search for purpose, and I started to identify this that that Monday morning that I was standing in my living room and I didn't know what to do. For 25 years, I had been a coach, and my life was very, very structured, and all of a sudden I wasn't, and I started thinking about back, and I was like, this is the second time in my life I feel this. And the last time before that I felt it, I was anchoring a 400 freestyle relay. I came in, I touched the ball, and within that split second, I was no longer a swimmer, and I had no idea who I was. None. I didn't have the I didn't have practice on Monday, I didn't have to go to lift, I didn't have all these things. And my Rick Kobe, my my head coach, I in my mind, my career can't be over if I don't get out, right? So guess what I did? I stayed in in my lane. I stayed in the water for almost 20 minutes because it can't be over if I don't get out. Yeah, and and so Coach Kobe walks over and he goes, You good? I said, I don't know. And he goes, You you don't want to be done yet, do you? And I said, No, I don't think so. He said, Why don't you come to the office on Monday and let's talk about what's next? And I was like, the the next, you know, the following Monday, I go into his office and that that set me on track for a 25-year, 25-plus year coaching career that took me to you know the United States Naval Academy and the College of William and Mary and the University of South Carolina and took me all over the world. And but there was this moment where I was completely lost. And I thought about how difficult that was not having that identity, and how swimming and sports in general, for that matter, they wrap up so much of our identity. And and so the the idea behind this book is how do we help young athletes understand their value beyond sports? How do we how do we help them transition from being that athlete to to you know not having that that um athletic structure anymore? And then that kind of ballooned into, you know, I had a buddy of mine who that I that I coached um at the Naval Academy. He was a Navy SEAL, and when he got out, he said, I didn't even know who I was. He's like, imagine that same feeling, but being in the military and having to move to the civilian world. He's like, You really don't know who you are. And and so I I start I just kind of started writing all this down. I started writing all this down, and I have a good friend of mine. Um she she um I told her that story, and she said, the name of your book is going to be stuck in the water. And I was like, Well, that's pretty good. And so I I just kind of started writing, and there's times where that writing comes relatively easy, and there's times where it's very difficult. Um, not not in a Not in a a an a way of just forming my thoughts, but um time and things like that, because uh that that's something that I guard very closely now is my time. I I don't I don't want to lose control of that like I had lost control of it before. Uh but as this as it develops, I'm telling my story and I start talking to some other athletes, and um, you know, one of the stories that came to mind was there's a running back at South Carolina that while I was there named Marcus Lattimore. My opinion, he he he is the greatest running back in the history of college football that you never heard of. Um everybody in the universe in South Carolina knows exactly who he is. Um, but he ended up he blew out a knee, he came back, he blew out his other knee.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Came back, got drafted by the 49ers, um, and played for uh uh you know a half a season before his body couldn't take it anymore. And I was like, man, that opens up a whole nother door. You know, how many of these athletes have the sport taken away from them and lose that identity? And so I'm kind of still trying to put all this together into one uh into one um recognizable thought start to finish. Uh, but it's a work in progress. So see how it goes. I think it's something that's needed, maybe.
SPEAKER_01I I think for sure there's a huge need for it, and I think it's still very underserved. Um and you know, I think we go back to some of the we both shared a few concerns around the way things are going, particularly in college athletics. I think one of the negative offshoots of what you described earlier, where it was sort of like, well, if you're awake, you're working, and you know, all that sort of down to like it's um this very sort of doggy dog world, competitive world is we forget that really the point of what we're doing is we have an educational environment, yeah, and we have this great opportunity for teaching people. I always thought, you know, when I was coaching, I mean, I get very into the psychological side of the sport, that's where my graduate degree is. And uh you find yourself in these situations where, yeah, like like you did, like you you don't know, you don't know what to do. Um you feel stuck, you you can't get through to the next. And I think, you know, I we've both had athletes who have gotten to a point where they get stuck and they stop. And I always think, like, look, whatever, you you can this is voluntary, you can stop whenever you want. But the fact of the matter is the situation that you're in, you're gonna be back in that situation sooner or later, probably sooner. And so part of the point of persisting is learning that lesson. You have a you have it actually a pretty low stakes environment to continue to learn stuff. And I I don't know that just like some of the stuff we talked about with coaching, that that always transfers, right? That it that it that the athletes, it's always explicit to them what they've actually learned through the process because they may get so laser focused on like, oh my gosh, I I gotta drop half a second in my hundred breaststroke, and they don't always have it sort of reinforce like what they learned in the process of getting that improvement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I I would agree with that a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you know, that it's amazing. One of the things that I I really that's very interesting to me is the number of things that stick out in throughout my coaching career that maybe involve a specific athlete that they may not even remember it, and vice versa. Things that I may say in a random coach swimmer meeting that sticks with them for the rest of their life that I may not even remember saying it. Um it's that's why I say when when we coach, I I love the word you just used. You said it's an opportunity because the number of opportunities that present themselves to coaches every day, um, every day is is massive. You you know, it it's I I've got four daughters. I have opportunities to pour into those four daughters. As a coach, if you're on a you know, you may run, you may be a c a club coach, you may have 30 kids in your group, there may be 1,200 kids on that team. Look at the opportunities, look at the impact you can have in the lives that you can shape just by uh just by your passion and your intensity and your coaching and uh and helping them develop and answering their questions. And uh there's so much there. But I I love, I feel like sometimes we as coaches, um, well, I won't say we, because I'll just say me, because I can't speak for everybody else. I didn't value value the job that way. I didn't value the job as looking at it as repeated opportunities. Um and and that's something that I I I should have done better. I should have done better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I think uh I I feel the same way, and I've I've spent a lot of time on the flip side of the athlete piece of it. I think um, you know, motivationally, when you get into these higher and higher pressure environments, the athletes they perceive that they need to do stuff, and they lose track of the fact that they're opting in. And and what that does is they they end up cutting themselves off from feeling good about what they're doing. I mean, like you and I both worked with power conference athletes. These are people who train year-round, 20 plus hours a week, and a lot of them are walking around with zero pride in themselves, as like somebody who's a uh hard worker, dedicated, like, and they're and they're more dedicated than 99.9% of their peers, but because the the pressure has allowed them to convince themselves, well, I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do, I'm just doing what I need to do to do this, and I'm not saying that's entirely inaccurate, it's just it's a subtle shift to like, no, actually, I'm doing this because I want to, because I believe in myself, because I have something that I want to accomplish, and I think that this is going to give me a chance to do that. The psychology of that is so different. Um, and I think you know, it transfers that that piece when we get into the professional side of it. I mean, when you start working a job, it's very easy to think, I'm just doing this because I need the paycheck, you know, I need the money at the end of the month, I need to support my family, I need to, you know, buy a house, etc., this, that, or the other, instead of like, no, no, no, I mean, I could not. Life would be a lot worse probably if I didn't. But at the end of the day, it is a choice that I've made. And and that allows you to maybe get a little bit of a better positive attitude, a little bit better engagement with what you're doing, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you know, when you're talking, when you're talking about the athletes, and you're uh you're right. I think, and it I it can almost be said for coaches as well, where you talk about everything that they pour into it, but there's almost that feeling of I'm not doing enough. You know what I mean? Like uh, and some of the highest level, and and that's not a bad attribute to have, that that constant drive that to want to get better is a great attitude to have the desire to get better is is good, but I I I think a lot of times it it comes at how you know the value that they place on themselves. I used to challenge, I used to challenge our athletes all the time, um, you know, especially, especially when I when I I don't want to say lower level athletes, but you know, our walk-ons, our different are things like that. I always used to challenge them uh and and say, you know, let me let me let me put it to you this way. I want you to see yourself the way I see you. That that was that would be my goal for them because I from the outside I would see so much more than they would see from themselves. And so that used to be the challenge to me because I I know when the grind starts and you get into December and January, it's it's hard to see outside the darkness. You know what I mean? Like every day you're getting beat down, and every day is a challenge, and most days you feel terri feel terrible, and you're you're you it's hard to see outside of that. And so as a coach, you have to lean into them and you have to go, hey, um, what I see in you right now you can't see. My goal by the end of this year is to s for you to see yourself the way I see you. And and just that, you know, a little bit of motivation, that little bit of elevation could could change a kid's day, could change their week, could change the trajectory of their season. So there's there's a lot to that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I I totally agree on that. My my last full-time coaching job, I was coaching with Jersey Wahoos up here, and I was coaching uh the secondary senior group, so not the kids in the national group, the kids who the second best kids on the team, as I like to say. We were the second best group in, you know, one of the top teams in America. That's one of the things I would say to those kids because I had so many of them that walked around that were just like, oh, I'm not good, I'm on the second team. And I go, You're you're on the second team of one of the top, we were gold medal swimming club, top 20 clubs in America. Like, pick your chin up. Yeah. And um, you know, it it it was my first time not coaching sort of the fastest kids on any given team I was working with. And I realized like the biggest differentiator, yeah, okay, there was maybe some talent difference between that and a group that would normally coach. Not as big as you think. Nope. Not as big as you think. The lot of it had to do with how they perceived themselves. Yeah. And and if you could get somebody to start thinking of themselves as someone who is capable of really incredible things, they would go and do them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and that was the coolest part about I think having that experience. Um, I think I think I hear it too, uh, to bring it full circle and some of the other stuff you've done coaching-wise, like just getting out of college coaching where you're you're you're trying to operate on this bleeding edge of competitiveness, um, you realize how rewarding any any level of coaching is. Well, you could hear that in Dino as well, talking about coaching eight and unders. Like you got a lot out of that. Um well, this has been a great conversation. Any any last words you want to drop before we sign off?
SPEAKER_00No, this has been good. And when we, you know, when you kind of laid out some of the stuff that we could talk about today, I I was sitting there thinking, man, there's so much to unpack with all of this, and there's so much we could talk about. I I think um, you know, I I I look at the speaking specifically to college coaches right now, I look at, well, you know what, not I'm speaking to college and club coaches right now. The college landscape is changing. That affects clubs too. Um and and so my my challenge and my encouragement to those coaches are um it's in a time like this that your athletes need you the most. They need your stability, they need you to be that anchor rock of the of that team that they're on. And this includes this includes club. You got look, recruit college recruiters or uh high school seniors, juniors, they don't know what's going on right now. Their world is as chaotic as anyone. They don't know if they're gonna have college.
SPEAKER_01You're a parent to one, so you can speak to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my daughter's being recruited right now. And just my my my challenge to to the college coaches and the club coaches is to be that anchor for for your athletes. Be the one that they know they can go to to talk about when they seem freaked out about all this, um, be that one that one um concrete um kind of that concrete spot they can lock into and know, all right, coach is gonna shoot me straight here. I I know I'm gonna get what I need, but they they need something uh with everything around them that's just kind of loose and blowing in the wind, they need something locked into place, and and that needs to be their coach. So um understand that, understand the value behind that, and then don't don't take that lightly because um these kids need they they need that right now, they need that solid direction. And to be honest, I know our coaches kind of need that direction too. Um there's not a lot of there's not a lot of concrete information that they're being fed either.
SPEAKER_01So absolutely. Um thank you so much for coming, McGee, and thank you. Thanks for thanks for putting yourself forward um and uh giving me the inspiration to do this. Thank you to everybody for listening. If you guys want to reach out to me, if you want to see somebody on the podcast, if you have a topic you really want to be discussed on the podcast, um I've been doing some of these podcasts, I haven't branded it yet with Dave Rollins, but we've been having a little coach talk here and there. Um either way, Instagram, Chris D underscore coach, um, or you can go to my website, Chris Dcoach.com, fill out a contact form, send it there. McGee, do you have any social stuff you want to direct people to?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just go to Facebook. I'm an old guy. I only got I got Instagram. I don't think I've put a picture on Instagram in four years. Uh, you know, I'll I'll scroll through. I just go to Facebook, search my name, McGee Moody, you can find it. I'm I'll accept your friend requests. There's there's not a lot of other McGee Moody's out there. No, it's pretty easy to find. I think I think my uh I think my Instagram um account is uh at USC coaching dad. I think that's it. Yep, yep. Um I don't even know what it is. So yeah, no, I I'm I'm pretty active on Facebook. That's where most of the old people hang out. So if you want to if you want to come on there and and I I just kind of use that as it's as much about my life as it is anything else.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of how I document my my my life with my family, and and that's that's where I go for all my Brazilian jujitsu updates on the career.
SPEAKER_00Well there that's that's a big part of it, and you can keep up with all the surgeries and the injuries and the and the times my wife has told me I don't need to be doing this anymore. Maybe maybe stop the sport where you try to choke other men.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00It gets killed a half from time to time.
SPEAKER_01Uh thank you once again, everybody, for listening, and I'll be back again with you guys in a week.