This week's edition of this one brief is brought to you by Chris and as coaching. Do you want to use positive psychology to unlock your potential? Go to Chris Dcoach.com. That's E-H-R-I-S-D as in downtowncoach.com and write me via the contact form. Positive psychology is the study of human flourishing. And I have an education and the research of that technique that you can use to bring it to your daily practice. This week I'm joined by Jay Chambers, a longtime club swimming coach who has taken on a new role in USA swimming. Jay has a very different coaching philosophy from me, and we talk a bit about that. We also talk about interacting with people online and the role that consultants play for swim teams and coaches. Finally, uh we we narrowed out on some fun stuff, talk about some national records from the 90s, and a little bit about it. Tell me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01Well, um I'm a sports performance consultant now with USA Swimming. So basically we have uh certain duties we carry out. Um in fact, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Memphis. We'll be doing a regional coaches clinic in Memphis, Tennessee on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then come back home for a day, and then I'm out to uh World Juniors, where we'll be doing video review for the athletes and the coaches. Uh, and then ASCA. We'll be going to ASCA, the American Swimming Coach Association uh convention clinic after that. Um then uh you know we do video reviews for national meets and uh we do them for wine nationals and then carry on clinics and we do club visits, and that's uh probably the most important aspect of what we do is uh clubs will request visits and they can qualify with that for having you know even as little as one sectional speedo-sectional qualifier. And uh, you know, when we can do it, we will schedule visits there. And uh, for instance, in Indianapolis, I'm gonna be going to visit a club and uh offer a request, and and what I do then is I'll visit a couple of other clubs. I'll just schedule it just so that we can get the most bang for our buck, you know. If if we're gonna it costs a lot to fly now. So when I go to one club visit, I canvas out there or and uh try to find some other clubs that we can help out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I and I'll I'll I want to talk a little bit more about the the club visits in a second. Um but you mentioned another thing there. You were you were just at the US Open, uh right? We we we met up there and you were on deck doing some video review. Tell me a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_01Well, um we have uh nine monitors set up um for video review. And uh so the three sports performance consultants sit there and and um as you know uh USA swimming has a live feed for uh for its meets. So off of that live feed that's sent back to the truck, and then the truck will cut the heats out and they will send it to us and we store them on our hard drives. And so when a coach comes up, coach, swimmer, or just a swimmer, or just a coach comes up, we can find their uh heat and event and we can show them their race. Now that's the simplest part of it, uh, but we can also, if requested, we will chime in with what we see. So it sounds like a review so that they can see themselves and there might not be any information that passes back and forth between uh the sport performance consultant and the athlete coach, or you know, we will tell them exactly what we see if if requested to.
SPEAKER_00And and if you could estimate, like over the course of a five-day meet at US Open, how many races do you think you ended up showing?
SPEAKER_01Oh wow, and I and I have that information, but not just with me. We set a record at juniors this last year uh or this last week um with a ratio of 2.0, which means we take the number of athletes and then the number of views or downloads for the athletes. And I think there were at juniors uh I think there were 785 athletes, that means we would have had um a little over 1,500 views or downloads of the events because we can also download the events for the coaches if they bring us a thumb drive or the athletes, we will download that race for them and send it home with them.
SPEAKER_00And it are there other ways for coaches to get their hands on that kind of footage afterwards rather than locking on them. Okay.
SPEAKER_01No, um it's it the email is too difficult. Uh the the files are too large for us to email. Um and so yeah, that's that's the only way is we've had had it set up. For a while we were actually selling uh and when I say for a while, we it it was told to me that for a while we brought thumb drives and sold them, but that became a real burden. Um so you know, as easy it is as it is to get thumb drives, you can get them at you know any drugstore now. Um, you know, if a coach is really interested or if an athlete is really interested in having their stuff, you know, they can they can get one of those and and we'll take care of them that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I I want to back up a little bit and because I'm really curious. Uh I'm curious, you told me a little bit about what a a sports performance consultant is at USA swimming, but um you know, one of the things I really like to talk about on this podcast is sort of just uh uh people's people's swimming stories and and where they came from and how they got from one place to another and what thing led to what other thing. So um I wonder if you could uh you know, we don't we don't have hours and hours, but talk a little bit about how you uh how you got started in swimming and and how you came all this way.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, um yeah, I'll try to keep it really brief. I I think it was really interesting. I've never really planned my coaching career. So you know I know a lot of coaches they go someplace and then they look for their next job. I I never really did that. Um doors have opened and closed for me. In fact, I wasn't really planning on being a coach at all. I swam at Ohio University, and after my senior year, I decided to, I was uh I got my degree in physical education, I decided to go ahead and get my master's, so I applied for a graduate assistantship in intramurals. Well, I got approved for that, and during that summer, Ohio University laid off all the assistant coaches in all the minor sports, um, you know, the assistant wrestling coach, the assistant um, you know, lacrosse coach or whatever. Well, the assistant coach in on the swimming team was actually the swim coach. The head coach was the diving coach who was Fletcher Gilders. And um Fletch um gave me a call and he asked me if I'd like to coach. And I really never had um it's not that I didn't have an interest in coaching, it just hadn't really occurred to me because I was a very lazy athlete. And um so um I said, Well, you know, I've already gotten this assistantship. Well, he arranged that my coaching with him would be part of the graduate assistantship in intramurals, and and so that year I coached, and um I coached the middle distance and distance freestylers and uh 400 IMers, and um when I found out that was my and I was a sprinter, I mean what what kind of as fast as I was, I was known as a sprinter. So I just went to the library and I read everything that Doc Councilman had written at that time and went off and and coached that season and had a pretty successful season. But that year I got married and I was really interested in starting to uh you know teach. So I was looking for teaching jobs, and uh at the end of that spring I got a call from Ken Brown at the Indianapolis Athletic Club, and they were looking for an aquatics director and a swim coach, and I hadn't really thought about doing that as a life lesson. I said, Oh, you know, well, uh you know, I'll come in for an interview. And I took my wife and we went to Indianapolis from Athens, Ohio, and I got that job, and that was kind of the start of my coaching career. Um and just as most coaches move around, you know, just due to either facilities or opportunities, um, I went from there to tip canoe swim team to uh Carmel Swim Club. I coached Zionsville High School for a few years, and that was because my stepdaughters were there and their coach left, and so I helped them out at the same time I was with Carmel. Um, and then ended up at uh Fishers Area Swimming Tigers and Fishers High School. So it was just kind of one thing after another.
SPEAKER_00And and what motivated you then to make this transition from uh a career as a as a swim coach to get on the inside of USA swimming? Because part of this for me, too, is I I'm trying to learn more about the people on side on the inside of USA swimming. I've been very critical of USA swimming over the years, and one of the things we discussed offline was that you didn't necessarily have to represent USA swimming um here, but uh but more sort of find out uh uh what kind of motivations or what kind of things you saw in getting involved in USA swimming that drew you to that.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, um actually I didn't that was another situation where I hadn't really looked, uh I wasn't searching to get involved with USA swimming. Um I uh had an athletic director at uh Fisher's High School who uh uh uh uh it was his opinion that uh my method of training was not the most expedient for high school athletes. And um we had had about a year of uh conflict, and um so I resigned that year. And I I resigned and then actually went to winter juniors at Ohio State looking for another job very quietly because um I was still coaching, I had resigned and it was going to pick up at the end of the season. So, you know, my team didn't know I'd resigned, so I was starting to look for other jobs, and um I asked uh Tom Oficius because it was only the east east side was at these juniors. I was asking him if he knew of any clubs on the west coast that might be looking for someone you know with my credentials and if he knew of a good fit for me. And he said, No, not right off the top of my head, but would you like to go to dinner tonight? So that's how I was introduced to this position. I didn't even know it was open.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just like uh just like anything else, maybe uh any job anywhere, it's who you know more than uh more than anything else, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, yeah, and and you know it's it's uh when you say that it's not like I knew Tom had a job for me. No, no, no. I was actually looking for something else, and he thought that I would be a good fit uh for this position.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, more like I mean, he was somebody that you had a relationship with and that you had known for some time and um and was the type of person that you would talk to when you were maybe looking for work or looking to change where you were. So that that's that's all I meant by it. Not nothing uh Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Um No, I understand it I was just trying to make that clear too. Yeah, yeah it was it was really just like the rest of my career. In fact, uh it was really uh the funny part is the only time I'd really planned my career was before I resigned because I had decided that I was gonna stay at at Fisher's through um 2024. So I was gonna go through two more quads. And that's the first time I'd really ever planned on you know staying someplace for a certain amount of time or when I was gonna leave. But some you know, somebody had said, Hey, what's your exit strategy at Fisher's? And I hadn't really thought about it. So I started thinking about it and planning, and then you know, like all man's plans, it it just kind of everything from there just went it it went south. So that that's kind of funny that that even as I think back on it, how kind of funny it is that as soon as I planned for something, that's when it went south.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh and and one of the things you bring up there that I think is worth uh worth putting in our discussion, and and here I have to replicate some of the conversations that you and I have had offline. Um, you know, I I've written very passionately about uh a race-pace training approach. Um you when you say that your athletic director wasn't wasn't uh a fan of your training methods, uh you believe in some some fairly different let's say we we disagree a lot on what a swim practice should look like. Would that be fair to say?
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, I I think I think you know that that you you come from one school and I and I come from another school. And um yeah, so I I'm not even sure that we so much disagree is it's our philosophies are a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00And and talk about just because I uh this is a thing I'm always curious about is why people believe in the things that they believe in. Because I think you know, for me, I I'm I I it it's easy to get wedded to a philosophy, right? But I'm always looking for somebody to um I'm always looking to disprove what I think. So what I mean, why is it that um talk a little bit about what your philosophy for coaching is on practice is and why you coach that way.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, and I'm not sure that there's an easy answer to that, but um I am a uh kind I I would say you know, you you can talk USRPT, you can you can talk sprint training, you can talk um uh specialization, you can talk race pace. Um I at a he at an age group coaches conference here in um Colorado Springs in the 90s, I met uh one of the presenters was from Russia, and she was an age group coach in Russia, and she was talking about things that um affect that can affect age group swimmers. And um I was uh the head age group coach at Carmel at the time, and we had a pretty successful age group program, and I pretty much sprinted I was pretty much focused on sprinting the age group kids because their events were sprint events. Um we usually waited to do more yardage until the kids got into high school. Now she kind of flipped my world on that, saying that really pre-pubescent kids should probably be doing a lot more aerobic work than sprint work. And that actually as the kids get older they should do more sprint work. And um the b the interesting thing about that was, you know, what's older. And um through those years then I developed the philosophy that really even high school kids are still age groupers. You know, we we we say that they're senior swimmers, but especially on the boys' side, uh the boys don't, you know, many of the best swimmers in the world don't start maturing until they're, you know, sophomores or juniors in college. Yeah, at least their physical maturity. So really on the boys' side we're doing that all the time. And then on the girls' side in their years we it was I discovered that they really need to do more of the aerobic work just to keep um you know uh good biometrics, to say it kindly, I guess. So um we even though in high school the events are geared more towards the sprints, you know, I mean 500 really isn't even a distance event, we started working more uh our focus on the training was more 500 freestyle, 400 IM. Now in our area that became that made us known as a distance team, which still you know, I think that's a misnomer that we're not a distance team. So that's I think where the philosophy um changed between my athletic director and me is he said, Well, this is sprint program. He was even uh a cross-country coach. So he was understood over you know, uh working longer distances and things like that. But, you know, he said, But you're dealing with sprint events, and I said, Well, you know, I I believe that this will also lead to fast swimming. Said, you know, this is not just and and that's what I found out when I was head age group coach at Carnell, because when I changed everything, when I changed from my sprint to my putting a lot more aerobic stuff in it, you know, it was the first time I'd ever done T30s and stuff like that, so I was really measuring the kids' aerobic capacities, and then they would get their tests on how fast they were in the pool. But in practice, we were really focused on you know uh on their aerobic capacities. And um, you know, we set a few national age group records over the next few years, and they were only in the sprints. I I was doing this aerobic work with a 11 and 12-year-old boy who went 48-9 in the hunter freestyle. So um, yeah, and this was back in 98, I think it was. So um it kind of it kind of turned everything around for me on on what I felt needed to be done, and you know, you know, I was pretty vocal about it. So now that doesn't that is not to say that we do do we do a lot of race pace work. Um, I would say, you know, uh uh philosophically, um probably 25% of everything is race pace. Um but then it's separated by long aerobic bouts. And a lot of my aerobic bouts were done with fins and paddles so that we would really concentrate on holding lines and working the legs and things like that. So it was not aerobic at for this at the sake of technique, but we would do aerobic work through technique or technique through aerobic work, however you want to look at it. So, you know, and then the last year I was there, our girls 200 freestyle relay went at seated first at state in high school with you know two freshmen that had come up through our program um swimming pretty fast. And Indiana High School Girls is pretty fast state, so to be seated first in the 2003 relay. We were pretty we were pretty pleased with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um I uh I I a couple things that I that come up as I listen to that and and threads that um that I absolutely uh I'm I'm always looking for also in this the commonality. And and one thing I really agree with you on is the fact that even with what are what are our senior swimmers in in club swimming, we should be concerned with long term development. And it's something I really saw uh Uh when I left the United States and went to a country with no college swimming and uh immediately I saw that there was so much focus on making people fast when they were in age group in order to get them to continue swimming at an older age. Uh because there was no because it it got so much harder, so much faster for them, and I thought, wow, uh it made me really appreciate the system that we have here where there is a lot to keep swimming for for a lot of people at a lot of different levels in the United States. And our our athletes in comparison to most of the world get a nice long time to develop. Um, although you know we're we're facing this new challenge that the development cycle goes beyond uh well beyond college now. And then uh the other thing, because I'm a national age group record nerd, so that 12-year-old, that w was that Grant White Weissoric? How do you say that name? Yeah, was Zoric, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Grant Zoric, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I remember that one.
SPEAKER_01Um you know what was funny is he was growing up, um, you know, I mean he was the same age as Michael Phelps.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um and and so at that clinic was um not Bob Bowman, but um oh and but uh the age group coach at um at North Baltimore at the time, um Tom Hines. Uh my sometimers got to me there, but Tom was there and we used to discuss um long periods of time about training, and he he was he he was equally amazed with what the Russians were. Now he didn't transform because North Baltimore was already working their kids pretty hard. Um and so he and I wouldn't change emails or exchange emails and we challenge ourselves to sets and stuff like that. So, yeah, the things that we did with Grant was very similar to the things that um they were doing with Michael Phelps and and and stuff like that as 11 and 12s and 13s and 14s.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and he went on to a pretty good uh older swimmer career. I think he swam at the University of Florida.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think he was okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh, uh Grant?
SPEAKER_01Grant Grant went to Florida and and his his swimming career didn't end up as as he had hoped, but um that was for other reasons and you know, um, but yeah, he he was uh he got a full right scholarship to Florida and uh swam a couple of years there.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so let me let me switch gears now uh now that we've been through that and talk a little bit about because one of the things that and I'm talking with a lot of podcast guests about this um is that there seems to be uh a lot of sort of new online engagement. In fact, that's how you and I uh started talking to each other. Um maybe in fact, I don't remember what our first online interaction was. It probably was us disagreeing about one thing or another. Um but you are somebody who uh stays pretty engaged on on swimming topics and swim coaching topics online. Um have you have you always been that way? Is that something that you're making a more conscious effort to do? Or just tell me a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, well in 2000 I got on Facebook in 2008. It was uh after someone suggested it and and um uh my my daughter had just gone to um New York City. She's uh she was in Broadway. Uh she still is on Broadway, I shouldn't say was, but um so I I did I started really using it for family, um, keeping up with my girls and and their kids. And so, you know, I was a grandfather of four at the time, now six, but um I was able to keep uh in touch with family, and and the thing that I found about it was that then all of a sudden all my old caramel swimmers started contacting me, you know, from the 80s and and some of my tip canoe swimmers from the 70s and 80s. I started you know communicating with them, and then um when when I took the uh head coaching job at Fisher's in 2010, we set a presence on Facebook. I mean, we had a Facebook page for the high school team and for the club team, and um even though we didn't use it as formal, but you know, it's where we posted pictures and we put some stuff out. We still communicated formally through email and phone and stuff like that. So we never used it as our formal mode. But it w it it became a lot of fun, and um so I've I basically just keep kept doing that. That's where it really grew was you know at Fisher's.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and uh I mean now you talk about I I'm gonna come all the way back to the beginning. You talk about you in your role as sports performance consultant, you know, you're gonna the most important thing you do is go out and visit clubs. But when you're not out on the road visiting clubs, I mean uh for instance, uh as I've discussed on other podcasts, this huge, huge swim coaches Facebook group. Um do you do you see a role for yourself there and and and some of your colleagues? Because I know they're they're pretty active there as well. Um is is that also sort of an important thing to do?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it it it's important and uh you know obviously I had to transition on on that coaches exchange because uh for the first part of it I was a head coach of a club and I could and I could represent you know what we did as a club and things like that. When I came to USA swimming, I I did have to temper I I do have to temper that down because you know we at USA swimming, you know, uh USA swimming is not a corporation that says, and we believe that volume is the way to go. In fact, um uh you know uh they don't even have physiologists, exercise physiologists anymore at USA swimming because they didn't want just like other countries, they didn't want to um limit uh the ideas of other USA coaches. Uh and and I remember Tom Avicious back in the 80s, he was the first one at at a lot of the clinics to really bring Dave Salo in. And at that time, Dave Salo's, you know, Sprint Salo was was really in the face of what a lot of us believed at that time. And USA swimming brought him right up to the front and said, listen, this is a valid idea that everybody needs to consider. So USA swimming is more about um providing opportunities for people to uh share ideas and and things like that, um as opposed to espousing a um a physiological way that everybody must do, like most countries do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I think I said that to you once back in a comment is that uh at one point when when I was abroad in Denmark, they had come out with a document that was um you know from on high, and it was it was named Age Related Training Concepts, and it told you, you know, uh for every year, I think from like nine years old to 18 years old, exactly how many times you should be having practice and how long your practices should be, and what you know, what percentage of what should be contained within your practice. Uh and it was a total disaster. I mean, people just ignored it. But but except I mean, coaches ignored it, um, I think for the large part because they knew that um it didn't make any sense. Uh but you know, once you put something at like that out there, uh there's there was also the danger, and it was that parents uh who were, you know, those were all parent run run clubs, they latched onto the document as being like, hey, this is how you're supposed to be doing it. Um and uh you know and so I think for sure that sort of it's it's a really tough question, actually, because you know, the you can think of, and um the next question I'm gonna have for you is what kinds of uh information do you feel like um USA swimming can and and you as a sports performance consultant can weigh in on, right? Because you want to disseminate uh some stuff from the top that's like, hey, we're we're pretty sure of this stuff, we think this stuff works, um, and you want to get that stuff out there to help um other coaches, but we've just identified something that's not helpful. So what is what is helpful and what kind of stuff do you feel comfortable either online or or when you go visit a club uh talking to them about? Right.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh I think first of all, it's how how you disseminate the information. Like like you said, I I think we try to say that this is not information from the top of the mountain that everybody needs to worship and do. Um for instance, Russell Mark basically what he does is he he uh uh films the best swimmers, the top swimmers in the national teams in the United States, and we have a national team on club development. So uh we are associated with the national team, but they do their own thing. So at national meets, there's a national team uh video review also. So we'll have a club development, but people who are on the national team get their videos done by the and they get underwater included underwater shots. And part of that is not just as a service to the national team, but it's a service to everybody because with those videos, uh Russell does a lot of analysis and we're finding out you know um things that that we're pretty sure. And what we do is we're when we present it, we don't say this is what you must do. We say this is what the top swimmers in the United States are doing. Um, in other words, I'll give you an example. When I was at Fisher's, obviously being a um a devotee of dot councilman, I was all about, you know, in the butterfly, the Y catch and the keyhole and the power diamond and all that kind of stuff. Well, I went to a presentation at um, I think it was I can't even remember what what it was. I've been to the Olympic Training Center Center several times, but um he started talking about the butterfly instead of you know pressing out like it's a breaststroke, is you just put the fingertips down and pull straight through. Well, I mean I was offended by that almost. And um I remember a week later we were at a high school meet where uh they were odd distances, so instead of the 100 fly, they swam the 50 fly and the 200 fly. Well, I put a number of my kids in the 200 fly that aren't the best swimmers on our on our team at the time, because of the way we trained, those kids would usually have their best success in 200s, and we were they would be pretty competitive. Well, right before they got up, I said, now listen, I want you to try something. This was in the preliminaries, I want you to try something. You know, I just was at the Olympic Training Center. Whenever you say Olympic training center, everybody's ears like perk up, right? Yeah, they said, Oh, and then they said, and we see that the best swimmer, best butterfliers in the United States now, instead of pressing out and then catching, what they're doing is fingertips down and straight through. I said, you know, let's try that. Set that up nice and long on the first time. Well, these two girls dropped, one dropped eight seconds, the other dropped six seconds doing that. And I went, wow, maybe I should be open to some of these ideas more often, you know. So um that was in and that was me trying to do something that someone, and I didn't know Russell Mark at the time, you know, he suggested, but because he was um you know on the national team division at USA swimming, I decided to try to do it and with great success. So um I guess that story just delineates how uh what we're trying to do is disseminate information for coaches to try and to see if they want to add it to their repertoire instead of saying this is the way it must be done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And it's probably an opportunity too. I mean, when you get around all these places, you must find stuff that you had no idea anybody was doing. Um and and you learn something as you're going.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's in our introduction letter to them that we say, listen, you know, not only are we here to share, you know, when we come visit your club, not only are we here to share things that we're finding out, we're also here to find out what you're doing. Uh, because something that you might be doing might be, you know, a lot more cutting edge than you might think. And um so that is the the reason. I mean, we found out a lot of great stuff that they're doing at Northern Kentucky Clippers and just some of their ideas on goal setting and stuff like that that we're writing in and using some of that now.
SPEAKER_00So all right. I uh I it's you you brought up Doc Councilman again, and so then I want to just finish up with a fun topic because it's uh it's a it's swimming history, it's you know, great swimmers, greatest swimmers of all time. Um I I've seen you make a couple posts on Facebook about Mark Spitz. Uh and well, I I I won't I don't even want to spoil it. So you just tell me uh what what you've been putting up and and what your take on Mark Spitz is uh Well, I I was I was sharing um uh some clips and and um obviously um I was I swam in Ohio, Mark Spitz, even though he was a California guy, swam at IU, Ford.councilman.
SPEAKER_01So and and I even trained with Mark Spitz. When I say trained with him, uh we were at the uh Hall of Fame pool in Fort Lauderdale uh the summer or the the uh Christmas training of of '71, and uh Indiana was swimming right next to us in the Hall of Fame pool. So I got to swim with Mark, and actually in in the in the competitions afterwards, I swam in the heat with him and stuff like that. So he wouldn't know me from Adam, but uh you know, Mark's uh and I will never forget watching uh the Munich Olympics, and you know, because of all the drama that was included and and just you know, that had an indelible effect on me anyway. So to I would never tell anybody that I'm not jaded on that, but I was basically comparing Spitz's 72 Olympics with uh Michael Phelps' extraordinary 2008 Olympics, and I was just saying that I thought Spitz's was better. And you know, people will say, well, you know, Spitz won seven, Phelps won eight, Phelps had to swim semifinals, Spitz didn't, and all you know, the all the heats that he had to do, he did a lot more swimming and things like that, and I understand that. There were some comments saying that you know, world swimming wasn't as good as it was in 72 as it is now. And then my argument on that is that, well, you know, number one, Spitz dominated seven events.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He set world records in seven events. He beat an an Olympic or a world record holder in the Hunter Freestyle to win that gold medal. Um, and he was the dominant swimmer on all the relays that he swam on. Yeah. Um Phelps wasn't. That's all I'm saying. Is that you know, you and again, not trying to say that Phelps is a slacker or anything like that. I was just comparing the two, and you know, not comparing the Olympic careers because you really can't do that because back then there was you know, Spitz didn't have the opportunity to be a professional swimmer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So there's a lot of differences. I was just saying it's my opinion. Yeah. And and I love to argue. I mean, I I love to banter, I love to you know, one of the one of my coaching, when uh when I was a uh an assistant coach at Carmel, um uh uh uh Tony Young and I were the best of friends. Yeah, and we agreed on almost everything philosophically. But I saw a a talk with Business Talk once, I was selling real estate at the time, and they said, you know, when you're running a corporation, if you surround people that agree with you, they're not necessary. What you want to do is have people with ideas that will challenge you. So that's what I started doing with Tony. I started challenging him, even if he said something I totally agreed with, I would think 180 degrees. And I'd challenge him with that. And and I thought we grew because of that. So I I do enjoy that kind of I enjoy being challenged, I enjoy challenging. And I'm not I don't back down from the encounter. And and I enjoy the encounters, I enjoy the competition. So that's why I responded to a lot of your your things. I said, um, you know, there's two sides to it, and I think a lot of people try to stay out of stay out of it, but I just like to bring up the other side.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Not even saying that you're wrong, it's just that this is what I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I and now this would be a perfect time for me to launch a a counter-argument. But I I actually do I actually do think that modern you know, modern followers of swimming have now Mark Spitz is really underrated. You know, I think that um uh people should watch that video. They should watch, I mean, like watch his hundred fly, how much he's weighing by in a race like that or the 200 fly. Um, you know, I he kind of he kind of even like for somebody my age, the only time I ever saw Mark Spitz actually swim was when he made that sort of pseudo comeback in 1992 and he got his butt whooped in a in a in a 50 fly, although he swam a pretty good 50 fly for a man in his uh for a 40 year old. Yeah. But but but you know, when I got a little bit older, the thing that I realized what what motivated him towards that comeback was, you know, his 54-2 from 72 was still pretty competitive under Butterfly in 1992. So um, you know, uh th that's a good argument for how good he was was that a lot of his performances held up for for quite a while in the swimming world. They were they were still uh relevant times. I mean, I think that's you know an argument for Janet Evans that her distance times were were around for so long, as fast as the sport moves forward and and records are are um broken, you know. It's um um so uh yeah, I mean I think the it actually part of what it reveals is that it's so hard to compare across eras. As you say, there's there's no professional swimming for for Mark Spitz. So we don't know. I mean, could he have swum another four years and um maybe been even faster? He approved a lot from 68 to 72. You know, where would he have been uh in 76 and and what would he have done there? I mean, he was he he you know, we're we're mocking uh it's easy to to to look back at his technique and think like, oh man, he should have done all this stuff better and his head's too high, and what is that start and all these things. Um but we're doing that with Modern.
SPEAKER_01Imagine that we we were teaching that stuff then. That's what's hard for me to believe. I said we you know, man, Wendy, you know, I I remember when Tracy Copkins was was really really the first swimmer that really was streamlining.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you know, and and now that's you know, swimming 101 if you don't know how to streamline. It's just funny.
SPEAKER_00I had I had an experience, I wrote a blog post earlier this year com comparing Caleb Dressel and Matt Beyondi. And it was this was before Dressel had those amazing swims this summer. So he was only still, you know, just just a bit faster than Beyondi, and it's just pointing out like it's worth looking at Beyondi because Dressel is so much better than him at the start and the breakout. Um so there must be a lot of things that even Beyondi did way back in in the 1980s that were actually better than what Dressel does, right? Because otherwise otherwise they they wouldn't be close. But man, I watched those videos and I wanted to get a time machine and go back and suggest a different breakout for Matt Beyondi.
SPEAKER_01Oh well, watch the sometimes watch the 761500 or yeah, at at the Olympics. And you know, every one of those guys um pushes straight off the wall and comes up for a breath, you know, maybe a yard before the five-meter mark. Yeah. I mean it's amazing. So yeah, things have come a long way, and uh, you know, some of the times have gotten a lot faster. Well, all the times have gotten a lot faster right now, although some of the depth, you know, it still amazes me that Mary T would probably meddle in every Olympics that she would have swum in with that time she swam in 1981. Incredible. Yep. Absolutely incredible.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, it's been good, it's been good nerding out uh on some swimming with you, Jay. And uh thanks for coming on and and telling us all about all sorts of different things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, uh my opinion is free.
SPEAKER_00Thank thank goodness, because I don't have any I don't have much money to pay for it. So uh it's all right. All right. All right, thanks.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you, Chris.
SPEAKER_02Goodbye. Take care.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much to Jay for, as he puts it, for coming on and engaging on stuff, even if we don't agree. For more great swimming conversations, go to Christycoach.com. That's C-H-R-I-S-D. That's in the disagreementcoach.com. You can also find me at Chris Disney's coaching on Facebook. Write me a message. Give me some feedback.
SPEAKER_02Tell me a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Tell me, tell me, okay, we're gonna be able to do that.