Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I am Chris DeSantis, and I am very pleased to be joined this week by the head coach of swimming and diving at Ohio State, or sorry, the Ohio State University, Bill Dorencott. Bill, how are you? I'm great.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Chris, for the opportunity to share.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you're you're coming right off an invite. We were communicating back and forth uh about when to do this. And I I think I sent you a text last week. It was like, hey, how about midday today? And you said, actually, I'm a little bit busy. So you're you're coming off your own invite. And I guess that's where I want to start the conversation. Um, as you look at your own team, and you know, mid-season is always a chance to evaluate where you are, right? Take stock of what's been happening so far. What what are what kinds of things are are you thinking about and talking about with athletes, with coaches on your staff, etc.?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I think that you know, I I think the intent in terms of of scheduling a midseason in in vital vary from team to team, and and it it's ironic you asked this because we actually we work with a performance consultant, so I do personally, our staff does, and then our teams do as well. And and so she had posed the question to me about four weeks ago of what are your intentions? What's the what's the need? And so because she's doing her job well, exactly. Right, right. And and so, like, I I guess you know, I mean, when you do something for a long time, you don't a lot of times you just do it because it's automatic. And right and and so because what you forget is that you have to explain that to the the kids that you're tasked with leading, because sometimes you know they can compare their results or their process to people who are in different programs. And so for us to honor our process means that every now and then we need to remind ourselves of of what we do, why we do it, how we do it. And and so I'm of the belief that a season should read like a good book, it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It can't be the same chapter ten times. And and for that reason, we're very purposeful the first six weeks of our season. You know, we gradually work into things, we use it to uh really um you know build a team identity to really uh lean into our culture. Um, you know, we average about five swims and four lifts per week for the first six weeks of the season. That in and of itself isn't going to lead to elite or peak performance. And so we have another period, an eight-week period right afterwards that starts uh October 1st, and the midseason meet is the culmination of that eight-week period. And so, really, it's just to kind of assess gains. And the gains aren't always made in the fall, sometimes they're gains that were made the previous summer. And it's also to validate the training. So we're gonna put some elements into the training that we ultimately want to lead to performance, and so then we'll we'll look at performance, we'll we'll step back, say, all right, what are we doing well? Where where do we need to improve? And that's ultimately what this next piece or this next block of training is. And so that being said, um, we're pretty pleased about where we are right now and and ultimately where we're heading.
SPEAKER_01Is that Samantha Arsenal? Um Livingstone is still working with you. Yeah, I mean, I I I uh I guess I played a minor role in that uh getting set up in the beginning. Um and uh I've had Sam here on the podcast before. Um, so I'm not surprised that there's good work uh being done on the back end of some of that stuff. Um if I could dive in on that, I'm actually really surprised to hear about that first six weeks that may be the first time I'm I'm learning, because you know, I guess uh to default, it feels like, oh my gosh, that's that can't be enough swimming in the beginning. What how does it work with everything else you're doing, right? Because as you say, it's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and you don't want to just be doing the same thing. So why why is that the beginning?
SPEAKER_00Well, if you think about just physiology, and in that period of time, it really doesn't matter if you're you're swimming, running, weightlifting, you have to prepare the body for something. So most of us are coming off of a three or four week break, and you know, technically it'd be called anatomical adaptation. And and so ultimately what you're doing is setting a foundation to do hard work. So you can't just default and go into hard work. And and so, really, it's in there's a certain way that we want things done. So this year in particular, we have a really big group of first-year kids. We have about 25 kids who are first year, whether they're freshmen or transfers in the program. And and so that's first piece. Second is you know, with the NC2A rules and and the number of days we have to give off and all the other stuff, I can give all day off Wednesday, all day off Sunday for that first six weeks, and I can check some boxes in terms of actually doing what it is that we're supposed to be doing. I think it also lets people get their feet under them in in terms of of you know just academically and adjusting to college and figuring things out. And then I think there's a psychological component, which is this I want our kids the hungriest at the end of the year, February and March. I don't want them tired. I don't want them tired physically, mentally, emotionally. And so I want them always looking forward to something. And so if it's just the same old, same old, well, that gets pretty old pretty quick. And I think it gets a little bit stale body-wise. That being said, sometimes we don't see the results in October. You know, I I look nationally, I look at results, I see how fast people are swimming. Sometimes we miss out on some of those those performances. But you know, for me, we we make our choices, and for me, the choice is always that we want to be our best in February and March.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I you bring up an interesting point there about uh what I think I've observed about a lot of college programs is I feel that many of them are feeling pressure to like put up exciting results in October. And it it seems to be almost based on recruiting, right? It's like, you know, we've got to generate that hype on swim-swam or something. Um, and so it's interesting to hear you say, like very intentionally, I'm I don't want to put words in your mouth, but a little bit of like, that's a trap, right? That that's a trap you can fall into and it can take your eye off of what are we actually trying to do, which is to be at our fastest at the end of the year.
SPEAKER_00Chris, our my staff challenges me all the time. You know, we we meet as a staff um Monday, Wednesday, Friday for for a minimum of 90 minutes each day. And and they just told me last week, they said said we're not sexy enough. And and in turn, that means I'm not sexy enough. And I just I said, yeah, I'm not. Like I'm a pretty boring dude, right? Like and so um, but but you're you're right. And I think I think a lot of people are doing it, you know, to get recruiting buzz and social media buzz and everything else. You know, I don't know. Are we gonna have to pivot? Maybe we will, but but I'm not there yet.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know. I mean, I I I may maybe I'm giving you ammo against your assistance, but I I am of the opinion, and and again, maybe also I'm more of a conservative uh coach than I than I think I am. Um but I I do look at this stuff and think, okay, what is really going to drive things forward in the long term, and that's doing well. Um so you can't you can't divert from an overall plan that's based on doing well, doing well at the end of the year, um, to chase something that's very immediate, very short term. I mean, if we could get into a broader conversation about social media, it does seem like there's it can it can prejudice you, right, to like get that hit of something that that goes big or gets a lot of attention uh versus the sort of slow work of developing something. And if I could pay you a compliment, um which I'm sure you you you don't mind uh receiving compliments, um most people don't. When I look at your program, it's it's an elite Division I program, but to me it's one of the few elite Division I programs that does an excellent job developing athletes. That is, you don't just make your team better through recruiting. When you look at athletes that come into the program, a lot of them get significantly better over four years swimming there. So so there could be something to it. Don't let them uh don't don't let them uh take you off track.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and I appreciate the compliment, and and and we're very purposeful with that. And and so you know, you you talk about recruiting and developing. So from a recruiting standpoint, I think we find kids who are good fit, right? We don't get caught up in rankings and and stars and everything else. The second is is because we try to get kids who are good fit, we're purposeful in the development. And and because I've been coaching a long time, the first half of my career, I I had um I was pretty good at getting freshmen fast, and then they wouldn't improve a whole lot over four years. And I used to think it was the kids, it wasn't the kids, it was the program. And so we we pivoted because we wanted to be more relevant at the national and international level, and ultimately wanted kids going lifetime best as they walked out as seniors, which is really hard to do, especially on the women's side. And and so, you know, sometimes it takes six, twelve, eighteen months to adapt to our programming. Um, but but again, we've we've we've had a degree of success in terms of and and you know, I I had a peer, and I won't I won't say who it was, but he had left the Big Ten and he took, you know, he took a premier job somewhere else in the country. And at his introductory press conference, he said, you know, I'm so relieved I'm not gonna have to develop kids anymore. And I just thought, man, that's that's the kiss of death because we're as coaches by nature, we're always developing. I don't care if it's at the age group, the high school, the club, or the Olympic level. And so that's one of my favorite parts of the job.
SPEAKER_01The swim brief podcast is brought to you by Chris DeSantis Coaching. Being a coach is isolating. You know that saying that it's lonely at the top? Well, for many coaches, that's reality. Being a coach means everyone has an opinion on what you're doing. It takes work to filter out the noise and make the best decisions. You need to be able to think through plans, ideas, and problems proactively. At Chris DeSantis Coaching, I fill that gap for coaches. I'll help you turn every rocky moment into a slingshot and provide the support you need to be at your best. You deserve to have someone in your corner, and everyone on your team will benefit. If you want an expert to have your back in your coaching career, go to Chris Gcoach.com right now and fill out a contact form. You'll get an hour of my time at no cost to you. You don't have to go it alone any longer. Back to the podcast. Can I ask you a question about something you said there? Uh, because I I'm always curious about this. I never know where these conversations are gonna go, but you're giving me so many interesting little avenues to walk down. Um so you you point out that it's just generally harder to get collegiate women to be swimming their best at the end of four years. And I would agree. I mean, the results just bear it out. If you look across the country, um, that is less frequent than on the men's side. I haven't crunched the exact numbers, but it's anecdotally so obvious that I don't think anybody would deny that. Um and I'm just curious, like, why do you think that is? Because I look at it, I can see it's there. Um, and part of me just attributes it generally to I I I tend to think a lot about like institutional knowledge and almost like group knowledge. And I think as swim coaches, there's a lot of things um that we have a really high IQ with. And sometimes I look at like coaching collegiate women and I go, just collectively as a group, we're just not there yet. Like we haven't we haven't cracked the code. But when you look at it, what do you what do you think is going on?
SPEAKER_00So I'm not sponsored by this group, but but I'll put a plug in. So there's there's a uh website called Swim Intel. And I I signed up for a subscription just for my own edification because I wanted to see the actual data, so less anecdotal and actual data. And the data does back up that that you know we're we're one of, if not the top team in the country for developing kids over four years, in particular on the women's side. And so it's it's it's really kind of easy, right? When when you think about young men, now my wife and I, we have we have four children, we have three sons and a daughter, and young men lag their female counterparts to the to the tune of about 20% on uh physical, mental, and emotional maturity, right? And so I'll say to our freshman girls, right? They're 18 years old and they're dating a freshman guy, and they're expecting him to operate at the same level of emotional maturity, when in truth he lags her by about 3.6 years. So she's really she's really you know dating a 14 and a half year old, right? And and and so I I see that tongue in cheek, but but but the the truth is that that look at recruiting as an example. It's okay to recruit uh juniors in high school young women. It's not okay to recruit juniors in high school as young men. And anybody that tells you they have the formula and guys who are juniors in high school knowing what they're gonna do in college is lying to you. There's some outliers, right? There's some kids that mature a little bit younger. Um, and because of that, you you have to adjust your training to meet the needs of the individuals that you're working with, right? And so, whether it's by gender, whether it's by event, and and you know, and then there's another piece, which is the cultural piece, right? And and so just you have to have a culture that supports the kids and meets them where they are. And so I think it's a little bit different for the girls and it's a little bit different for the guys. And so, you know, as is as it relates to say a performance consultant, we don't meet as a team. We have a women's team meeting, we have a men's team meeting. Um when we when we have team meetings, we typically don't meet as a team, we have a women's meeting, a men's meeting, and uh and and we try to again meet kids where they are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's interesting you bring up that perspective because you came from coaching a single gender, right? And you came into a combined uh situation. And I don't know, I I I think probably I'm um I'm an amateur historian. Um I I studied history in college. One of the things that I I attribute this to this this discrepancy, right? Besides, of course, like the physical emotional maturity part, I think uh I totally agree with you there. But another thing that I look at is I think there was something we maybe never will uh fully sort out is you know that as far as collegiate sports, first we had men's sports, right? And Title IX really brought women's sports into the four, but I think there was not a lot of thought put into uh a lot of it at the beginning, and it was almost like, let's just take men's sports, copy paste, that'll be good for women, right? And there wasn't any thought to like, and I I I I don't even want to get into too many specifics of it, but there wasn't that much thought given to like, okay, if we were starting from scratch in women's sports or or a women's team, or culturally, like the culture around sports, how would we do it differently? Sure. Right. And um, I think it's worth being thoughtful about that stuff now, and uh I'm interested to hear that you you have some organization around that.
SPEAKER_00I think the universe conspired against me because I I went to an all-guys high school and and consider myself kind of a guy's guy, and and so you know, I feel so bad for some of the women I've coached over the years because a lot of what we've done has been born out of uh mistakes that I've made, right? And so and I continue to make mistakes, which our women's team will readily tell you. But but I'm a work in progress and I'm I'm open to change and I'm open to grow. And you know, it's interesting we're having this conversation because just this week um uh Sue Pitt Anderson passed away. Sue was a a famous club coach on the East Coast, Scarlet Aquatic, two-time Olympian. And as I read her her bio, you know, she she swam at a time when you had to retire after high school as a young woman, and she was fortunate enough to go to go to Rutgers and swim for the men's team for Frank Elm and uh make another, you know, and so just to talk about a trailblazer, we're at practice this morning, and uh a woman came out on deck. I said, Hey, you know, can I help you out? And she said, Oh no, my my daughter's a resident at the vet school here. I swim every day. Um, I swam in college, I swam at Sweetbrier College, and she goes, My my college coach just got inducted to the Hall of Fame. She swam at Yale, they had no women's team, so she swam for I I go, she swam for Bob Kippeth, then she said, Yes, she did. And so, like to your to your point, right? One, the the history of the sport, but two, like just coaching women for a long time was an afterthought. And and you know, it it shouldn't have been, and it doesn't have to be. And and so uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Maybe given that history, there's there's hope we can catch up at some point uh collectively as a group. Um let me let me switch bases. We've been talking about college swimming, and I I told you I recorded a podcast a couple weeks ago um just trying to take stock of where college swimming was. And if I could, you know, it was 30 minutes long, but if I could sum it up, the the answer at the end would just be like nobody knows what's gonna happen. And maybe from uh your position, you have more, I hope you have more insight than I do into it. But it just strikes me as I was thinking about having this conversation that you must be buffeted with people looking to you for leadership because there's so much instability, right? And they're they're like, gosh, all these outcomes are being discussed, and what are we gonna do if this happens? What are we gonna do if that happens? You know, roster caps, there was even some um some stuff which you don't have to get into specifically at Ohio State around you know certain sports becoming club sports, and then then that was tabled. But through all of that, what has been your approach as a leader? Um, knowing that you also can't predict the future, right? You can't say, hey, everything's gonna be all right. This is exactly what's gonna happen, just just relax and and carry on. Um, what has been your approach to responding to people it through all this instability?
SPEAKER_00I I think I think I'm I'm well suited to go through this experience because I'm not proud of this, but my favorite class growing up was recess, right? And so when you'd go out, we we used to go out every day at recess and you get to play, right? And and depending on what the season was, what dictated what you played on the playground. And the rules always changed, right? Like, all right, this much for a first down, this much for a touchdown, um, you know, what whatever it looked like. And and so I certainly am not apathetic, but I was always less concerned with the rules than just tell me how we're gonna play the game and I'm gonna figure out how to try to do it well. Well, it's moving at a pretty rapid pace now, and and so there's no value in talking the way about the way things used to be. There's no value in talking about spilt milk. The question is this, what do we need to do? What do we need to do right now? And and I'm not talking about what do we need to do to win, I'm talking about what do we need to do to ensure that some version of our sport is around in a hundred years so that young people have the same experience that we've had for the past hundred years. And and so I I just I I think that that if we look at it through that lens, that the the one thing I know about American swimming and American swimming coaches is they're some of the most industrious, creative people I've ever met, because they had to be. And so this is just another challenge. And so the question is how are we gonna adapt and adjust to this challenge and come out better, right? Right. And so it just it it's it's it's where we're at, and and you know, I I I take a lot of inspiration from our former athletic director, Gene Smith, and Gene's two greatest qualities were transparency and authenticity, and so. So we try to be very open about what we're doing, what we're thinking, and then we try to be genuine in terms of just you know treating people well. The thing that hurts my heart a little bit is that I think most people get into athletics to create opportunities for others. And so it hurts me to see opportunities taken away. And so we'll continue to, you know, as a leader in the state and a leader in the nation, try to create opportunities now and into the future.
SPEAKER_01And so I I I'm in listening to that answer, I think you're addressing some of the concerns that I hear from people, right? Because they go, they they think that essentially people are apathetic. And when I hear people say that, I I say, well, like how you may not see very much action happening, but how can you plan for something when you don't know what's going to happen, right? Like that you you you sort of have to balance um being being well enough sort of on your front foot to respond to anything as it happens, but you also, I mean, you can't come up with a hundred different contingency plans for everything. So I guess on the general level, as you look at you look at this, like what do you think you can plan for?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The some of the best advice I ever got was from Eddie Reese. And Eddie said, if you're gonna be a good coach, you've got to be a good guesser. And so a lot of what we're doing is simply guessing. And I think at some level, swimming at the collegiate level, which is important to American swimming when you you look at somewhere between 65 and 80 percent of the U.S. Olympic team, not just in swimming, but across the sports, came through the collegiate model. So I think it's important that that model continues to exist. I don't think obviously it's not going to exist in a form or fashion that we've we've seen it over the past 25 years. If I had a vision, the vision would be this that programming on a college campus should really be broad based. It should be similar to the model that we have with USA swimming. So, you know, a broad base at the bottom and elite performance at the top, and it probably goes all the way from club swimming to collegiate club swimming to varsity swimming to a pro-post grad element. And I think when you have that broad base, you create opportunities. And and at the end of the day, that's that's what I value is opportunity. Not everybody can be an Olympian, but everybody can have a great experience in our sport.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I was thinking about when you when you said opportunity, and you're talking about the ingenuity of uh American coaches. I mean, I had the opportunity to coach abroad, and uh I'm somebody who has occasionally found himself critical of USA swimming, but when I hear people go, well, USA swimming should be sort of handing down, you know, they should be coming down from the mountain with you know more stone tablets to tell us all what to do, I I recoil a little bit at that because I've been in a system where a lot was dictated from the top, and it it does take away some of that ingenuity. Like it would, you know, I think if everybody's waiting for a top-down solution, well, we're probably going to miss out on uh somebody from the ground up who actually really knows what to do in this situation. Um and the other thing that I think you're you're highlighting is with regards to uh American swimming and and why we've been so successful is if you think about it like again, I'm gonna speak to it from a Danish perspective because I think it's important, like compare us to another country. Uh Denmark, when I was there, the national training center, and they were quite successful, right, was four lanes in a long course pool in Copenhagen. Right? When you think about the scale of that, really in the collegiate system in America, what we have is the equivalent of 50 to 100 national training centers. We have like places that in a European country would be like a center for elite performance, potentially. Um and that creates so much more opportunity than than you would get even in a small country where maybe like per person they're putting more resources into it. We've we just have like we've got diversified stock. So, you know, and if you look at, like you say, so many people coming out of the collegiate system, yeah, they they they tend to cluster in certain areas, but you'll have somebody like a Chris Giuliano, right? The fact that something, you know, that there was potential for that to happen at Notre Dame is really important, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, absolutely it is. And and, you know, I mean, arguably one of the greatest coaches in in American, if not NC2A history, is Steve Boltman, right? Like you go down to Texas AM, who who historically on the women's side hadn't been a strong program, and and to see what he's done, and then you just look at his track record of putting people on on Olympic teams since 1984, right? Out of Pensacola, and it goes to Georgia, he's at A. I mean, like, and and so to your point, like that is the beauty of American swimming, is that you know, and I look at the club club level or the club ranks, and you look at what Dave Salo did at Irvine, you look at what Mike Kolabar has built out in Austin, you look at Dave Ferris out in Long Island, I mean, they didn't wait for somebody to hand them the keys, they made it. And so that is the beauty of you know being in this country, is is you can do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the opportunity is is there. It's a very competitive environment, which is probably another great piece of it. Um, and speaking to the competitive piece of it, I wanted to ask you about, as I said, I was uh in the lead up, I uh I was looking at some other interviews that you've done, and uh, you know, you used you used a code word to trigger me in a positive way. Um, was watching an interview with you from the fall. You're talking about having high standards on a team. Um, without without making you rehash too much of that answer, give me an idea of in general, right? Because I think any program would say, like, oh yeah, yeah, well, we we try to have a high standard, or like that's something we're working towards, or that's something we value. Um but even listening to your answers today, I think you probably think about what you're doing a little bit more than average. So when you talk, when you think and and define high standards within your team, what are you thinking about?
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't think it's any one thing, I think it's everything. And, you know, as a point of reference, we don't have a team handbook, we don't have a team rule book. I think that that what that does is ends up boxing you in, right? It forces you to act a certain way under a certain circumstance. And so it's really kind of it's a way of thinking or way of operating where it gives coaches and and team members the latitude to to navigate situations as they come up and also gives us the opportunity to do that as well and take things as as you know one-off instances. Um it's a little bit a little bit cliche to say, but everybody likes to talk about culture, but then that begs the question, what is culture, right? Well, I know what it's not, it's not um, it's not a slogan on the back of a t-shirt, it's not a poster on a wall. If if I did define it, I would say it's it's a belief on the heart. And so when you have a shared belief on your heart, that's called alignment. When you have alignment in an organization, you can move mountains. And so when we talk about standards, some of it is things that I'll decide my role within the program, some of it is things that we'll decide as a staff, and then some of it comes from the bottom up from the team in terms of of you know what they believe, what they value, who they are. Now, ultimately, I think during the recruiting process, we're fortunate in terms of we can vet those things. But but I think that there's you know, there's a law of attraction which likes attract. And so my hope is that when people see things within our program that they like, it's because they have some of those same beliefs themselves. And and so, but because we work with 18 to 22 year olds, we know that they're going to miss make mistakes, right? In fact, sometimes it's encouraged. Just don't make the same mistake time after time and try to avoid the big mistakes, right? Right. But but there's some truth that uh the hot stove does teach best.
SPEAKER_01The swim brief podcast is brought to you by Chris DeSantis Coaching. Are you tired of not competing at your best? I've worked with countless athletes who felt that their mind was limiting them on race day. As a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, I have a unique approach. Instead of fixing what's wrong, I help athletes build an entirely new framework from the ground up. And I do it in as little as 12 weeks. I teach them how to make their active mind something that helps them. The work that I do stays with athletes long after we finish. Those that work with me get permanent results that go beyond their sports career. They not only bust through their current plateau, but learn what to do when the next one comes. If you know an athlete that could benefit from a complete rebuild of their approach, fill out a contact form at Christdcoach.com. Let's find out what they're truly capable of. Back to the podcast. Yeah, I I you know, one of the reasons why I find myself thinking about this a lot is, and I'll I'll let you in on where I was sort of going with this, is when I'm working one-on-one with athletes, what I've observed, um, particularly the the higher level of performance that they get to, um, many athletes default to motivating themselves to a high standard through some form of self-punishment. So essentially they're trying to create their own hot stove. You know what I mean? Like I I I need to do this or else, right? Yeah. Um, to create some urgency for themselves. And um well, I think it's admirable in any person to have a high standard, chronically sort of engaging that, right, can can be counterproductive for athletes over time in motivation because what you end up is is scared and more or less miserable because you're always running away from something versus I think some of the stuff that you're talking about, for instance, the standards coming up from the team, that's an opt-in, right? That's like a that's that's more of a we have a high standard, but it's something we're moving towards instead of like we're trying to avoid being below the standard. Um is that an intentional piece of how you have it set up?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Like, like it's in and I'll use Samantha's language here. It's not calling people out, it's calling people in, right? And so um I just I'm not sure that we always find this sport. I think sometimes the for the sport finds us, and I think the sport attracts a certain kind of um person. And and I think it's almost a monastic type existence to be good in this sport, right? I mean, it's just it's not normal. It's not normal to have your head underwater chasing a black line for hours on end. I I have a great appreciation for wrestling because I think there's a lot of parallels between being an elite swimmer and being an elite wrestler. Um, I what I've found is that, and I don't want to paint everybody with the same brush, but but I know like swimming for me, and and you know, my coach has accused me of oversharing, and I'll overshare here a little bit. You know, I I grew up You love oversharing on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Please overshare as much as you want.
SPEAKER_00I I grew up in a family. My dad was an alcoholic, my sister was schizophrenic, my mom died of cancer. And swimming arguably saved my life. And I can tell you this I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I wouldn't have gone to college without swimming. And so swimming to me is way more than wins and losses and chasing a black line. It's ultimately it's a vehicle, right? And it's a vehicle to build skill. And those skills are transferable, they're transferable to life, career, relationships, and and that is the value value that I think that I can bring, and we can bring at this special time at 18 to 22 years of age. And so I got a little bit off track there in terms of just just standards, and but I see this as way more than just um you know putting up fast times and and numbers and points and championships. It's uh, you know, I think it's it's I think it's a noble profession.
SPEAKER_01I I I absolutely agree with you. Uh, it's funny you bring up the comment about the monastic existence. I think coaches in in many respects also are their own special brand of uh monkhood uh when it comes to swimming. And I mean that in the most positive way possible. I mean, if you just look at um the lifestyles of a lot of coaches, right, we can focus on, we can go like, oh, you you you you sacrifice so much. And you know, I don't I don't find a lot of really successful coaches necessarily focused or even looking at it as a as what they're giving up. They're there, as you say, they're looking at it and go, wow, I get the opportunity to be in this sport. I think this sport is a little bit more than you know who does the fastest 50 freestyle at the end of the year. I know for me, um, I'm uh I'm gonna be speaking at a conference in January, and part of what I intro with is how I decided to become a swim coach in the first place. And um, more or less, I was 14 years old. Uh, I was not having a good time in life. I'm gonna yada yada over a lot of pieces of the story. Swimming completely changed my life. And having a swim coach that I felt like cared about me, that was happy to see me every day, that um wanted me to be my best, made such a massive difference in the course of my life. I thought, like, how amazing would it be to do that for other people? Right. Um, and I think that is probably the origin story for a lot of coaches. Um, that that the sport had such a big impact on them that they find themselves going, Well, this is something magical. Uh, and I I would like to uh uh devote my life to this.
SPEAKER_00It's you you you said something. So we just got a new AD here this year. I've coached collegiately for for 34 years. I've only had three ADs. And the the the new AD his name's Ross Bjork, and he's made a really favorable impression on me and on the people that work here at the university. But one of his first ever meetings, he said, he said, folks, we we don't have half-to jobs, we have get-to jobs. And and and and right, I mean, to to your your point and just what it requires to be really good in this, we don't have to do it, we get to. And that is a really cool thing. And and just like you and your experience as a 14-year-old kid, my guess is most people are in coaching because somebody made a difference.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um, all right, uh to wrap up our conversation, you were you're newly elected president of Asuka. Um, and you know, as I said to you, the majority, I would guess, of this podcast audience is swim coaches. So, so my audience is your audience in that respect. As you look at the organization, right? I I always sort of coming out of the background of of positive psychology, I always think it's important to take an appreciative look at that. And and that's what I mean. Instead of doing like a post-mortem, right? Like, let's find out where all the problems are. I think for any organization, you always have to know what's going well. What are you doing well? Because change is going to happen, right? There's no there's you can never look back. But if you don't know what's going well and you start, you know, making all sorts of changes, you can inadvertently lose something that was really vital to what was going on in organization. So I guess this is all leading up to me asking you the question as you look at this organization that that you're at the top of the volunteer leadership for, what do you think Asuka is doing really well or has historically done well?
SPEAKER_00So I'll I'll uh I'll go backwards to go forwards. Um, I I I historically haven't served, right? And again, it's not it's not apathy. Quite honestly, it was really just maybe the feeling I didn't have the skill set, right? Or maybe I didn't have something to offer of of value. Um and so I didn't not have thoughts, I just didn't know that my thoughts would carry value and or potentially weight. There's there's uh there's a paradox called the Peter principle, right? And essentially it says we we rise to the level of our ineptitude. And so I I I guess I'm just trying to find that glass ceiling that where would you know like and so I I a lot of what I do, I do it out of fear, right? Like I I I accepted this opportunity. One, it's it's incredibly humbling, but two, part of my motivation is fear because I don't want to let people down, or I don't want to come up short because there's too many people or they're counting on this organization. And so we've had some some turnover in the past few years, and we've got a leader in Jennifer Lamont who is uh passionate, she is she is all in, she is a great collaborator, she's able to express a vision, she does a great job of managing a board, and then I'm on this board with these just wicked smart individuals, and and I'll go into a meeting thinking a certain way and thinking I have the answer, and after a discussion, I'll be like, man, I never thought about it in those terms. And it's it's not in a way that's that's where we're we're battling or it's offensive or or anything else, it's just a really and and and it's it's you know, Ian Murray coined this, and I think you borrowed it, but but athlete-centered, coach-driven. And so what Ask is doing really well is advocating for American coaches, trying to meet them where they are. And and our modern challenges today for coaches are are the are the you know the top of the list in terms of what we're trying to do or what we're trying to achieve, right? And so whether it's it's making sure that we have more women in coaching, whether whether it's making sure that we're creating opportunities for education or personal growth, whether it's protecting coaches sometimes from themselves, because this this job can be all-consuming. And it's an easy job, you know, it'll it'll you know chew you up and spit you out if you let it. And and so it's just um I've really, really enjoyed just being a part of the organization. Uh, this board, uh, again, just good people, and I love the perspective and I love the growth. And you know, hopefully I can make a small bit of difference.
SPEAKER_01Let me ask you about a few of those things you mentioned, because that they are some of them are leading to the next question, which is more or less, you know, what next? Um, I know I'm I'm smiling because I'm about to ask you like a giant question, um, and you have just a few minutes to answer it, but like I've found myself returning again and again um to the question of getting more women into coaching. What do you think like AskA as an organization specifically can do?
SPEAKER_00I you know, I don't know. I'll I'm gonna go back to our collegiate athletes, and I'll probably get in a little bit of trouble with this. You know, on the on the men's side, it's hard to carry a smaller roster. I mean, the the guys, if you give them uh, you know, a free pair of Nikes or you buy them a pizza every now and then, they'll never leave. Whereas our young ladies, you know, they get to a certain point in their collegiate career, and if they're not getting value from the experience, they're going to spend their time, effort, and energy somewhere else. I I think in in general that that, and I'll use our our women on the collegiate team, they're just way smarter emotionally in terms of knowing what they need, what they want, how it works. The question is, can can we make coaching? I I think when you go back to that idea of a monastic lifestyle, this feeling like we we have to suffer, or we have to be all in, or we have to give up family and weekends and evenings. And and I don't believe in the word balance, I just don't believe. I I heard somebody say it and it r resonated with me a blend. So can you blend things without Ian was on this podcast, he said harmony.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not balance, harmony.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because I I I think balance to me sounds like compromise and nobody wants to compromise. And so I think that's what ultimately drives people out of the sport, men and women, is they so value being honest and giving an honest effort and doing what's right. And if they can't do that at the level required, they say, well, then I'm going to pass the, you know, pass the flame on to somebody else. And so the question is, can you blend, you know, career, passions, family, all of those things into something that that meets people's needs?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh, you just gave me a new perspective in your answer. I'm thinking about the conversation that we've had here. And again, I think so often we look at this from a top-down, like what gets the most attention is is there a woman on the Olympic coaching staff? And what people aren't thinking about is there's there's a pipeline up to becoming an Olympic coach, like and and actually identifying where does that start? And one thing that I've never considered in doing it is like we we started some of this conversation being discussing some of the aspects of sort of cracking the code generally, culturally, getting better at uh coaching collegiate women. I mean, part of that too is creating a more, if you do that, you create a more positive experience in the sport of swimming, and you're probably gonna have more people that come out, as we said, um, because having that positive experience is what gets a lot of people into coaching. The other thing I hear in your answer, and I think it weaves into another one of the things you said, um, that Asuka could do is you know, swim coaches do have a tendency sometimes to work against themselves. What I often refer to it is sort of like we we race to the bottom. We see like how much can we devalue our own work um just out of sheer competitiveness, right? Because we we think like, well, I can, you know, I can um find a way to give even more and take even less, right? And that's how I create more opportunity in the sport. Um and so you know, this doesn't have to be, and it can often mistakenly get framed on, it doesn't have to be like a a women versus men issue, right? Like if we make cop coaching better for women, somehow men lose in that process. I think we could make the the profession of coaching better for everybody, and that would probably result in more women coaching. Um, and that's where I sort of look at it.
SPEAKER_00Again, I'll I you know I I the the beauty of of uh being on that ask a board is we have some brilliant women on the board. Yes, so to to to be able to hear you know perspectives and thoughts and opportunities, and and we've got a women's advocacy um committee within the board. And so just I know that that that's Jennifer is championing that effort.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, amazing. Bill, you've been incredible on this podcast. I think people are really going to enjoy uh listening to this one. This is the portion of the podcast where I allow people to uh plug anything. I mean, if you want to send people to a social media page, you're smiling already. Uh maybe you have something unique in mind.
SPEAKER_00No, no. I uh, you know, I I I I get to do a lot of things and I've been very blessed, and and so just I, you know, opportunity to pay it forward, and so I'm always trying to. And so um, you know, if somebody would so choose, they can feel free to follow us, you know, on on the web or you know, uh, you know, I'm not that adept at TikTok or the other stuff, but you know, I try.
SPEAKER_01So you're you're smiling like me because you're you feel an obligation to to mention that stuff. But like I'm about to tell people, uh you can reach out to me via email, uh, swimbriefpodcast at gmail.com. You can go to my website, Christycoach.com, or if you really, really have to, if you really must, you can message me on Instagram because I un unfortunately am on Instagram. And that's no offense to any of my Instagram followers. It's just not happens to not be the part of this that I genuinely enjoy the most. I didn't I didn't get into coaching to be an Instagram star.
SPEAKER_00Well, Chris, I'm on as well, and it's because my coach told me I'm not sexy, and so uh there you go, right? Like yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so so follow Bill on Instagram and watch his evolution into a more sexy coach.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. We got it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna we're gonna follow your progress. We're gonna speak it into existence. That's right. Uh thank you so much for coming on. Thank you everybody for listening. And uh this, I guess I would wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving because we're recording this before Thanksgiving, but everybody's gonna listen to it after Thanksgiving. So I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and now you're back to uh listening to your favorite podcast. And I'll see you again next week.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Thank you.