This week's New York area swim coach edition of the swim brief is brought to you by Christy Sands Coaching. I spent the last eight years thinking about how to apply the science of positive psychology to the real lives of coaches, swimmers, and parents. Ever since I became the first athletic coach in the US to get an advanced degree in the field, if you want to know more about how you can help your team, go to Christycoach.com. Christycoach.com and write me via the contact form. On the brief this week, we're talking to the guy who is relentless about two things that hashtag workworks and just an overall positivity about swimming, Mike Murray. Mike talks all about his swimming roots, including some harsh reflections on himself as an athlete. We talk about sharing what you learn online, and I even ask Mike to coach me a little bit. Enjoy. It's been a long time coming or a short time coming after last week. But in other ways, I feel like we've been on a collision course for months. Mike, how are you? Good Chris, how you doing? I am doing great. I am enjoying another we're we're we're kind of like uh you're on Long Island, so as a bird flies, I mean we're we're just maybe like 40, 50 miles from each other, although uh somehow, you know, it would take me hours to drive that distance uh out to see you. But yeah so so we're probably getting the same weather right now. It's a beautiful winter day in the northeast. Gorgeous. I I am so thankful for this because I talked to my cousin uh in Denmark. I used to live in Denmark for I don't know, I was there for three and a half years. And we had like there the the when winter descends on Denmark, you have whole months where the sun comes out for a few hours. Um and that's just not that's just not nice. And it's appropriate, that's uh to to appropriately segue, and and and um I'm gonna let you introduce yourself. You are sort of a relentlessly sunny person. I said that to you um as we were getting ready here. Tell me a little bit uh about yourself, um, you know, uh starting with you know your experience growing up in the sport of swimming and then how you got to uh where you are now uh coaching swimming.
SPEAKER_04Sure. It's uh it's actually well, it's always interesting to me. Um, but it's kind of interesting how I got into the sport. I got into it pretty late. Okay. And um my parents, when I was about 12 years old, signed my brothers and I up for country club swim team in the summertime.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So for about three years until I was about 13, um, 13, 14, 15, I that was my only experience in swimming. And it was all 25s and 50s, um, and it was great, and I loved it. A lot of the kids in the team had been on a local club. And so eventually, as I started to get a little bit faster in the 25-free and the 25 back, um, one of the coaches approached me and said, Hey, you should try out for our club team. And a few of the guys who would later be on my high school team encouraged me to do it. And it kind of flourished from there. And I started swimming pretty much full-time club at about 14, 15 years old. So I was a late bloomer. Yeah. And um, from there, um, I went on, I had a very nice high school career, tremendous high school coach, Scott Young, tons of energy. He says more energy now, I think, when I visit him than he did even when I was in high school. Um, and so it that was always a really big positive part of my development as an athlete. I went to Rutgers. I was uh very immature, uh arrogant, um uh bad teammate, uh, my first two years in college, swimming for Chuck Warner, and I gave him a really hard time. Um, and it it just didn't work out. And I ended up transferring Division I Rutgers to a small liberal arts school in upstate New York called St. Lawrence University. Um and there is where I really developed my love and passion for the sport, and a big reason for that was my college coach there, uh Bob Clemmer, who had come from the University of Virginia, and his family was looking for a small college town. He had two young daughters at the time. And really, Chris, I was a fair student in college. But for about two hours every single day before practice, I went to Bob's office and I just listened to swim stories. Yeah. Um, and my education from St. Lawrence was really about club swimming, athlete development, and everything that Bob said, I hung on to, and I parlayed that into a uh volunteer graduate assistantship. And so when I graduated, uh St. Lawrence, um, I had to finish a few credits actually to get my diploma. I was a fair student. And so they, I'll never forget this, and I saved the contract. They paid me $2,500 to be an assistant coach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04They paid for me to finish my undergrad, and then from there I went to Vassar College, another small school. Um, really interesting and unique campus, really laid a big foundation for me in in terms of working with athletes whose swimming wasn't their number one goal. And I spent a year there.
SPEAKER_00Wait a second. What year were what year was this at Vassar? Because you're you're I'm guessing you're like a similar age to me, but I don't really know.
SPEAKER_04So it was Yeah, so I'm 36.
SPEAKER_00You're 36. I I was 34, and we swam in college, we swam a dual meet against Vassar at Vassar. I was swam to Colby College. I mean, like, is this ringing any bells?
SPEAKER_04I we were probably on the same pool deck, Chris. Oh my god. So uh after Vassar in 2006 in Poughkeepsie, New York, there's a small Division I school called Maris College. Yeah. And they had a really wonderful club team there, a historic team called the Maris Swim Club that has always done very, very well. And they right out of the gate, they hired me um as a full-time college assistant. And I was now the head senior coach of Maris Swim Club at 24 or 5 years old. And I remember the first practice, Larry Van Wagner, who was the head coach of Maris College and owned the club team, he said to me, uh, okay, that's the end of the college workout. Club workout starts in 15 minutes. Good luck. And so I had 28 athletes on my own, my first time ever coaching by myself. And um I spent a very wonderful five years there as the head senior coach and the college coach. Uh, and it was a wonderful experience. From there, I moved out to Western New York uh in a very small club team called Mercury Swimming. Um and there was, I think, 40 athletes on a team when I started. Um, and I hired this young, enthusiastic kid named Brett Leader, who's a phenomenal coach. He was my head age group coach and associate head coach for the last five years at Victor. He and I developed that program. Um and it turned into an opportunity at Victor Swim Club, which was building a new facility. And when we started at Victor Swim Club, there were six athletes in the senior group. Um, and when we left this past year, we had uh 16 kids at juniors. We finished second at Futures. Um incredibly fun journey. Um, and it's been a fun journey since that uh that first day at St. Lawrence with that $2,500 contract. Um I've been very, very lucky to have a lot of good people that that helped make it happen along the way.
SPEAKER_00So you're and you're coaching at Islander Aquatics now. Yeah. Um let me see if I can't you can avoid bungling your title. You're you're the head senior coach there? Is that or you're the senior coach, or what what's the title?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I'm the co-head coach along with Mark Dannon, who started the team. Um, and we share all of the responsibilities that go with um running the team. He does a lot more of the administrative business end of things. Um, and then he and I co-coach our uh upper level age group and what people would consider the senior group.
unknownOkay. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I want to go back in your story because I I I thought of a cute few questions and I'll probably forget some of them. Um but um this there's there's a lot of interesting rocks to uncover besides the fact that we might have been at a at a dual meet together um 15 or 15 or 10 or 11 or however many years ago that was. I don't want to count how many years it was. Um you know, you got your start uh swimming in this basically like a like a summer league format, recreational format. Um what now you're you know, coaching club swimming, you have a lot of uh swimmers that um you know that's sort of their their main thing, or maybe you don't, um you can tell me i if I'm wrong. But what kind of role do you see like other swimming formats like high school swimming or that summer league rec stuff playing uh in the lives of swimmers that you coach in a club setting?
SPEAKER_04Right. So this is kind of the million-dollar question that I'm always faced with no matter where I go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And um, I'll be the first to tell you that that I have been a Darth Vader of sorts um for some of the areas that I've been to in terms of relations with high school swimming and some other entities. Um, however, that being said, um, my argument has always been on the basis of what's in the best interest of the athlete's goals. Um these peripheral swimming leagues um and even high school swimming in New York State, it it's in very interesting dynamic because you, as the head club coach, need to evaluate what is most emotionally important to your athlete. Yeah. And I can tell within the first five minutes of a conversation with one of our athletes what's emotionally important to them, usually, not all the time, but usually. And if I think that swimming very fast at the New York State High School Championships is very important to one of our girls or one of our boys, then that's what I make happen for them. And that becomes our focus collaboratively.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think if you try too hard, like I did when I was 21, two, three, to go with the all or nothing, you're not gonna get anywhere in terms of development or progression.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it uh I I like I like that response. I mean, just sort of leaning into the relationship and and uh what's important to the athletes. You know, I had this experience uh on my high school swim team, um, a similar story to yours in some ways. Um when I was a senior in high school, we had a guy come out from the town team, you know, that they practiced once a week. This is Massachusetts, which is like um it uh uh now I'm gonna piss off a bunch of people from my home area, but you know, like um without Chuck Bachelor, it's like the absolute um uh worst um area of of America for club swimming. So um uh we had this kid he and then we're gonna come back to Chuck Bachelor, who c who's swimming once a week for the town team. He comes out for the high school team. We've got some year-round swimmers on the high school team. Um and uh, you know, this guy's not very good at the beginning of the year. I think he does like 106 and 100 backstroke. Um but he's getting faster and faster and faster. And like your story, you know, myself, um uh uh I had stopped actually year-round swimming at that point. Uh but we had some other kids on the team that were still year-round swimming. We sort of said to him, we said, like, hey, maybe you should do this, you know, like the rest of the year and not just practice once a week with the town teacher. And he ended up um doing so. Uh he ended up swimming for Chuck Bachelor at um Cattleborough Bluefish. His name was David Russell. Um he went on to swim for Cal. He won an NCA title with Cal. Sure. Um did like a 45 in the hunter backstroke. And um but the you know, eventually um he moved away from high school swimming, and I I felt like in some ways it was a mistake because if David Russell's not on the high school swim team, the future David Russell doesn't have anyone to tell him to come out um and swim the rest of the year. And that's kind of the paradox of this stuff, isn't it? I mean, you you do have to have some kind of contact. These high school teams and recreational teams and stuff, they do feed into club programs. Um and how to manage that and keep that as a positive relationship seems to be uh a pretty important issue.
SPEAKER_04It it is, and you're absolutely right. And I don't want to be thought of somebody who has this all or nothing mentality and is not contributing to the future of the sport because I don't necessarily agree with high school swimming. So it is a very important part of the process, and I should mention that I swam all five years four years on my high school team and had a wonderful experience. Yeah. Um, I also had uh two coaches, my club coach and my high school coach, who were very much on the same page. Yeah. Um and so you were lucky. I was I was very lucky. I was very lucky. Yeah. Um, and at the same time, you know, I I think that as club coaches, we have to ensure a certain level of stability for high school swimming, also. I think USA coaches as a whole, we need to find a way to create a better dynamic. And we always say that, but it's hard to actually see that come to fruition. And my associate head coach the last couple of years, Brett Leader, who is also the Victor high school coach, he made a great point to me about three or four years ago that I had never really thought about. And he said, Mike, they're two different sports. And if we look at them as two different sports, we have to figure out ways on how to combine those coaching staffs to have a collaborative collaborative mindset that's going to work for the athlete. So, how do we do that? And I think he does a very good job of it with the season that he just had at Victor uh and the season that he will have as a club coach. So I'm always interested in trying to figure out how to better play that dynamic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So I have another question for you um based on on your you know your origin story there. Um when did you decide you wanted to be a coach?
SPEAKER_04Uh it's pretty interesting. I I I was sitting in a class, um, and I told you I was a fair student. I was sitting in a class. I can relate to that, by the way. And uh you know, St. Lawrence, you know, I I got into St. Lawrence because I, you know, I had a I know I interviewed well, and that's an important aspect of admission to that school. Um, and I had some great recommendations, but I was also bringing some good Division III times to the program, and I think that helped. Sure. Uh so I was in a pretty rigorous academic schedule, and I was in uh I was in class, and my notebook was filled with main sets instead of taking lines on scansion in Dante's Inferno. And so I'm looking at my notebook, and I have, you know, these pretty elaborate sets written down that looking back on them now, I don't know who would ever have been able to swim these sets that I was putting together. Uh but that was kind of the light bulb that went off in my head and said, you know, I I think I could be very passionate about this. Um and so that that really gave me the urge to look more deeply into it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And he mentioned, of course, that uh, you know, when you reflect back on your time at Rutgers before that, you don't you didn't give yourself a very positive review as a swimmer um during those years. I wonder if you could talk about um what at what point, like, because I can picture uh maybe like young uh angry Mike Murray going like that stupid old man, you know, Chuck Warner, like he doesn't he's he's dumb and he he ruined swimming for me. I mean, like, was there a point at which you sort of shifted? Were you ever angry like that? And was there a point at which you shifted to sort of being like, man, I was good, I was a jerk when I swam.
SPEAKER_04Oh, oh, absolutely. Um, so and and looking back on it now, it's funny because uh I value so much of what I learned swimming for Chuck. And looking back on it, I think to myself, you were 18, 19, 20 years old, and you didn't want to listen to this legend in American swim coaching. And um, you know, and I was a very arrogant, um uh I had a very poor attitude. Um, and you know, those are the things that pushed me out of Ruckers. I pushed myself out of Ruckers, nobody else did.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I'm wondering like when did you realize that? I mean, was it immediately or was it whether whether was it when you started coaching? Like when did you figure out when did you sort of decide, like, oh man, that that you know, uh uh I didn't do a great job there.
SPEAKER_04My first year coaching club. Yeah. First year coaching club, and I'll never forget it. This is a really I mean it's ironic that you bring this up, it's a really interesting story. Um, I was fortunate enough to have one of the athletes, and this is year one. Uh um, I I I think it was either US Open or Junior Nationals that year. We went to both. I mean, I dropped my pen on the pool deck taking splits, and I went down to get my pen, and when I came back up, Chuck happened to be standing right here. Oh boy. So we're face to face, and this is probably five years after uh you know not having spoken to him at all, and probably harboring some ill will on my end. Um, and he couldn't have been nicer to me. He asked me how I was doing, uh, how I liked coaching, and that probably started me on the self-reflection thinking back. I was a really spoiled prep school kid uh at a big public university, and I didn't know anything about anything. Um so that that was a really big self-reflection moment for me. And it's it's so uh, I mean, it's so Hollywood scripted that when I reach down, I come back up and he's standing right there. Um so that was it was a good moment uh for me to kind of uh be more honest with myself and it I think it helps me be a better coach too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the it sounds like almost there was kind of an unspoken forgiveness in that moment. You know what I mean? I I um one of the things I I think about all the all the time, um and that has been really helpful for me in in my coaching career is is practicing forgiveness because it really helps you to let go of being angry. You know? Um because if you stay in the moment of, man, that happened and that wasn't fair, and you know, uh this person should have done that or whatever, the la longer you stick with that, uh the more you're just gonna sort of spin uh spin in anger. Yeah. And um give giving forgiveness yourself can be really powerful, but also feeling it from other people, you can just go like, Man, why was I why was I angry at that person and they weren't holding on to anything um against me. So you finish um you start coaching clubs, you've been on that journey um for over a decade now. Um as I said earlier, uh at least from what I see online, and you know social media has its own limits, but um you you project like a a lot of positivity just about swimming in general and about whatever team it is um that you're coaching. What what has you think on that journey like to where you are now as a coach? Like what um God, what makes you that way? Because I'm a little bit jealous. I I uh sometimes I feel like a a little bit more of like the turd in the punch bowl when it comes to um swim coaching. So so what what do you think makes you that way?
SPEAKER_04Well, I I think um if I really look inwardly um just at my life in general, um there, you know, and a lot of this is self-inflicted, but I've been in a lot of really tough situations. Um even as uh a small kid. When I was 10 years old, um I was having all this pain in my right side, and it ended up I had to have uh major surgery. I had my my right kidney taken out. Oh my god. And I was in and out of the hospital a lot uh as a 10-year-old. Um and when I was in and out of the hospital a lot, there were kids in the hospital that had far worse things that they were dealing with. Um, and they were extremely positive. And even as a young kid, I remember seeing, you know, cancer patients and things like that, that, you know, my issues were nowhere close to theirs, and these kids acted like there was nothing wrong with them. Um and I and I would see this over and over again, you know, two years being in and out of different procedures and things like that as a kid, and it stuck with me. And when I swam high school, uh, my coach Scott Young, who's who's still coaching at the Albany Academy, a small prep school in Albany, New York, um, every practice was enthusiastic. Every practice was, for lack of a better term, it was fun. And we were doing some hard things, but it was fun. Um and everybody got faster. And and drops that, and I say this to Scott all the time. When I was home for Thanksgiving, I stopped by and I visited him, and he has kids who don't make the cut in the other winter sports. They come to swimming, you know, they're 105 and 100 free, and by the time they graduate, they're going 48.0. I mean, he does this year after year after year. And I mean, he does great technique work, he's not a volume guy, and these kids get faster, and it's incredible. And I think to myself, like, if he were in any other spot, like what could he do if he was at school XYZ or club team XYZ? It's I mean, it's amazing. And that really resonated with me. Um, and then going into other jobs, uh, you know, and just going through life. You know, I uh I have two young kids, I'm a divorced dad. Finding balance in this job is very hard. I just don't have time to allow all of those things to affect me in a negative way. So when I come to practice, I try to keep this phrase in mind that I mentioned it to somebody else last week. I try to create an environment every single day where having a bad practice isn't possible. So, what do I need to do? Whether I'm writing the workout or even the way that I walk through the door, because the kids are always waiting for me, even though I'm early, they like to beat me early. So we see some good cultural change happening here. Yeah, that's nice. But when they see me walk through that door, am I carrying all this other stuff? Or am I going to be the same person that I am every single day, which is really excited to see who's gonna go fast today? And I think that that thought is probably the biggest motivating factor for me, and I hope for our staff, is every single day you need to walk through that door and it's expecting excellence, but that's that's not really what it is. It's being excited about who's gonna do something spectacular. And there are various ways to evaluate that. But every day somebody's gonna do something. And if you're not looking forward to that, what are you doing? You you're expecting things to happen that are negative. I I just can't, I can't live that way. And sometimes, and my girlfriend will say to me all the time, like, I don't understand, you're driving me nuts. You never get down about and like how does this not affect you the way it's affecting me? I just I can't live that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I so this is a really interesting topic, because as I say, you know, I I I I uh even as we talk about this, like um uh I uh I've written a bunch about positive psychology, and um uh although I consider myself to be a pretty optimistic person, I don't I don't consider myself to be a naturally um very optimistic person. I'm not saying you say that you're naturally optimistic either. In fact, you just really told me a story about how you learned um to be optimistic. But I bring that up because you know, if I'm ever um, as I say, the turd in the punch bowl, like people are very quick to go, hey uh Chris, aren't you supposed to be the positive psychology guy? Like isn't this supposed to be your area? And um and so I I I I'm forced constantly forced to sort of re-evaluate um my way of of doing things. And one of the one of the one of the topics I wanted to get to you eventually, uh, because you mentioned this uh in in our preparation for this, um is you you said something to me, and I'll I'll paraphrase and you can tell me how accurate it was, but it you said you said it's about how you deliver the practice. Um and and and I I think we were having a conversation, and I I'm gonna admit something to you. I always like to admit something spontaneous to the people I'm talking to about my uh inner monologue. Is when I when I got online and I I got on the Facebook uh group, the swim coaches idea exchange group, I started seeing you were very you're very good about sharing what what's going on uh with you, including practices. You started sharing practices, and I will tell you my inner monologue was like, These practices, I hate them. I absolutely hated these practices, and I couldn't stand that there were people on there that would get on and go, Yeah, Mike, great practice, man. You waited way to get those kids. And I hated the stupid catchphrase work works and and all of that. Um but you know, as I was uh as I was looking for because I I like to look for you know, I when I have that feeling, I like to look for okay, but I have to admit that that this person is successful in what they're doing, and so um even if I don't agree with the practices, what what kind of common ground can I find? And I really uh I really found common ground when you made that statement um about sort of how you do the practices. So I wonder if you would talk about that more. Uh and also just you know, defend defend your practices. Sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh so you want me to discuss how I develop the workout or what I'm thinking about as I put it together?
SPEAKER_00Give me some insight. Why do you do what you do? Because it's not what I would do. And I'm I really want to like uh I I'm willing to uh I'm willing to admit that um I don't have all the answers either. So it's I think it'd be really useful for people uh to hear why. I mean you did this recently. You you now I'm I'm cherry picking it because you did a bunch of 25s and I was excited about that. Of course I paid attention. But but you know, in that you did a really good job of explaining here's why I'm doing these 25s. So I wonder um for some of that stuff that maybe doesn't resonate with a person like me, um why? You know, why do you do some some other stuff?
SPEAKER_04So uh it's a great question, and I think most people who know the Mike Murray program well, um, or people who have gone to USA swimming online presentation and looked at what we do, yeah, um, there's a test set progression that we do. Yeah, and I base our season around the test set progression. And so a lot of people will know this, but um there's seven-week cycles. Um, and so on every Monday we do a distance or aerobic test set, and every Wednesday we do a lactate or a sprint test set. And the distances and the set themselves change every week so they don't get too bland. And in my estimation of athlete development, what we're doing is we are giving these kids an opportunity to explore both ends of the spectrum. And in addition to doing that, find middle ground to where they can also be successful as an athlete. Furthermore, the test sets that we do are all recorded. And so when an athlete leaves our program, I could have potentially four to six years of data and progression on those test sets to be able to better equip them heading into college swimming and their coaching staffs or whatever, and I've done that. So what I have found, and I'm lucky because I've been doing it for about 10 years now, it hasn't gotten stale yet. I'm not bored with it yet, and the kids don't seem to be bored with it yet. And in fact, what I found are the kids, even when we're doing a time 3000, Chris, they seem to get excited about trying to get their time to be faster than it would. I just gotta chill up my spine, by the way. You said time 3000. Oh I I went to the biggest extreme, so that you um they get very excited about that time 3000 uh and getting faster at it. And then in addition, they get very excited on the lactate progression when it gets to 1225s off the blocks on three minutes. And I don't really think there's a big difference. They're excited about both of those sets, and they attack both of those sets. Um, and those are just two examples of the type of training that we do and the type of test sets that we do. So they're really being able to explore both ends of the swimming spectrum. I'm able to get a lot of data on those athletes. It helps me in constructing the other workouts in terms of intervals, threshold, things like that. I'm a big urban check guy, a big color system guy. And so what I found is it gives the coaching staff a great deal of information. It better equips the athletes to understand what we're trying to do as a program. I think it gives them a really good base of knowledge in one way of training. Um and we always try to educate them and help them understand that when you leave our program, you might be going into something totally different. And that's great because it's going to be fresh to you. And um we've had a lot of success with it. Uh I really enjoy it. I look forward to the test sets as much as they do, but it also allows us to look forward to the days when there's not a test set. Right. Um and it helps the kids get really excited about where we are right now, which is our a little bit of a mid-season taper phase. So where we really focus on some speed work. Um, so that's kind of you know a very informal description of how we develop our season and our seasonal plan. Um, I am a nut job analytic when it comes to going over, you know, exactly what we're doing. Um but on Saturdays, I kind of peel myself back and I let the Muse kind of strike for practice, and we do some very different things than what we normally do, and I think that keeps it fresh too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I I I I like that explanation. Um as I said, one of the other things that uh that I've noticed in in all you know you sharing all this stuff is it's just that you do share and you're you're pretty enthusiastic about sort of telling other people uh what you've learned. Um and I like to do that too. And but there's a there's some exposure that you get, right? Um online doing that kind of stuff. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about like uh both what you've learned. Uh I wanted to get very like specific and hear about some of the stuff uh you learned when you were out in Colorado Springs, but also like what you what you've learned about exposing yourself like that um online to other swim coaches.
SPEAKER_04Sure. And I think you could probably relate to this because we're so close in age, but when I first started coaching, I was always looking for the magic set or what works best, or can somebody get me the logbooks of you know Dick Jocum's back in the the late 70s, early 80s, early 90s? Can I see that stuff?
SPEAKER_00Those would be very boring log books, by the way, since he apparently only had four practices or whatever.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, same same six workouts six days in a row. Uh and and famously Tom Wilkins complained about it. Yeah and uh Jocom said, Well, put it on your tombstone. Uh but uh that's a great story. Uh but I uh I I was always looking for ideas, and the only way that I could really access them when we were young coaches was going to clinics. Yeah, um, so I I've always kind of kept that in the back of my mind. And now that we have an outlet, you know, on Facebook or whatever it is to share those things, I I'm very quick to share what we're doing. And I'm very also I'm I'm also very quick to say I'm not sure that it's always gonna work for everybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But you know, in Colorado Springs, um, I've been very fortunate to get out there a number of times. Um and I'm always so excited about working with coaches at those camps that I don't know. Um, because you you just get so much information about what's happening in other places. Um we had Tim Bauer as our head coach. He was formerly with the Woodlands and now he's with Katie. Um just does a phenomenal job. As the head coach of the national select camp, he had all the coaches meet every night to discuss what we were going to do for practice, which is great. Sometimes when you're at those camps, you might have uh, you know, it's it's written in stone, this is what we're doing, but it was really collaborative, um, and it was great. And each coach who put whether it was the warm-up, the preset, the main set, the postset, whatever it was, each coach chose one of those things, and then we explained it as a group before we put it on the paper. Um the other interesting thing about those camps, you never know what kind of background the athlete has. And the biggest mistake that I see the coaches make at those camps, and and that was my fourth national select camp, is that they see the club team name attached to the athlete and then they make an assumption. So you end up with big time problems when you do that. Yeah. So what we tried to do was put a little bit of a little spice from everybody into those workouts, um, and just let the athletes be excited about being at the Olympic Training Center and trying to race. Um, I think the set that we shared from there was some sort of uh it was kind of like an anaerobic set. Um but you're at altitude the first time.
SPEAKER_00It looked super hard. It looked so hard. My reaction reading, it was like immediately my gut reaction was just like, oh, too hard, too hard, too hard.
SPEAKER_04Right. And and I can tell there's a there's a great story. The first time I was ever out there, um, and I was working with the distance group, and there was another coach working with me who will go unnamed. And uh it was really neat. The national team happened to be out there the same time we were out there, and I think I was doing a set of 450s, um, you know, hold hold your race pace for 25 meters and then just drill the rest of the way. And then we're I was doing them on 130 because I don't know these kids' backgrounds.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And the other and the other guy was working with me, and John Urbanchek was standing in the corner and he was kind of watching us and he was watching what we were doing. And uh, you know, and we're all excited because there's her bancheck, and uh the coach I'm working with gave the athletes eight three hundreds on like four minutes. This is a long course. And her band check walks up to me and he's got his practice over his mouth like this, and he, you know, you might want to tell that guy that's a little too much. And so, you know, you see the whole gamut when you're at those camps. It's it's really interesting. Yeah. Um, but that set that we that we put up there, we just wanted the kids to race, and they were really racing, and we saw some really good repeats. I think one of the athletes on the last um hundred FAST was something like 53 or 54, um, which isn't to say that was a performance of the whole group, but they did a really nice job. Um, and those camps are really about establishing initial connections for the future national team. Yeah. And so a lot of what it is is you know, rah-rah team USA. Let's get fired up and race. Um, and it's less about the actual application of the workouts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So I I wonder, um uh, and I tried to get at this a little bit, but I'm I'm gonna come at it from a different angle. I'm wondering if you can uh you can give me some coaching. You maybe give me a little bit of advice, um, put you on the spot here. Because um one of the things I run into, as I said, as I've referenced several times, I think I've called myself uh the turd in the punch bowl, I've called myself a rock thrower. You know, part of my experience um in coaching, and I decided I was gonna be a coach at a very young age, much to the disappointment of my parents. Um they had I think there was dead silence at the dinner table for um for a good long while when I announced at age 14 that I wanted to be a swim coach. That was not that was not the career they dreamed for me. So um, but one of the things I guess that has sort of informed me in that experience was uh I had some amazing coaches. Um I'll give a shout out to my high school coach here. Her name's um Jen Dutton. I had another woman, Sue Sautier. Sue Sautier now has a doctorate in sports psychology. She's been hugely influential to me. Jen is still coaching my high school team, and uh she coaches the girls too. They just finished second in Massachusetts high school states um in the fall. She does an amazing job. So I had some really amazing coaches and that they were so impactful, and I had some absolutely terrible coaches. I mean, really, I'd not um I I I'm willing to admit that I was a pain in the ass at moments too, but I had some coaches that were very bad. They were very bad to me. They were very bad to the people I swam with, and that sort of like keyed me into like coaching is a powerful thing. You know, we have a big we have a big influence. We can be super positive influences on kids' lives, and we can be just as bad as we can be good. Oh, absolutely. Um and so I wonder though, if you have advice from me on how to talk about um how to talk about that constructively. Because I have a I have a I I that's that's one of the things that I'm trying to do um in the blog, but quite often uh, you know, I I run into pushback from from coaches who say, you know, uh being too critical, um you know, you're killing you're killing the profession a little bit, you know, like you're killing the category by you know pointing out this kind of stuff. So what kind of advice um would you give for the way that you approach?
SPEAKER_04Approach um discussing those things? Yeah. Well, I you know, it's it's interesting because there was a post I think last year um that you wrote, and I read it a couple times and I was thinking about it, and I was like, What how is Chris trying to get at this? You know, and not really knowing you at all. And I and I can't remember what the title of it was. Oh, I remember now. It was and in my mind, I'm like, that's that's total clickbait title. It's just clickbait. He just wants people to read, read it. I think it was um, how long is Eddie Reese going to continue to coach and why he's bad for swimming, or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, that one was to oh man, see, that one was total tongue tongue in cheek. I mean, I know Eddie Reese should retire now or something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's right. So that's that was my introduction to Chris DeSantis. So I I read that and I'm like, this is a satire, you know, whatever. And and um, and then I started reading your blogs pretty routine routinely, and you know, some of the things that I read in there, you know, I was surprised that somebody had said them in in that format and in that venue, um, where I knew as soon as I finished reading a sentence, it was gonna bring on attacks to to the blog. Um, but I'm gonna tell you right now, your blog is essential for discussion on that site. And we do get as the ad as the page admin, there's always people like, get rid of this guy, get rid of get rid of that guy. Right. You know, and I said, well, that that that goes against every fiber of what this was intended and created for. Yeah. Um, and so, and I think it brought your your blog brings up a lot of good discussions that people aren't necessarily comfortable discussing.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Um and you know, I think it's important, it's important for people to realize that um the administrators of that site, which myself included, I am nowhere near an authority on anything with swimming. I'm just sharing the ideas that I think work for my team and hoping that it gets to everybody else. You're sharing ideas that you think are essential for the sport, and and I think your blog uh is a philosophical discourse coming from you about where you think our sport is headed, and that's important. I think maybe um your blogs are uh and I know the I kind of can guess you're thinking behind them. Uh they're relatively short and concise. Yeah um elaborate. People are so afraid, right? Like every time I write something and I'm gonna submit it to something like Askar, they're like, Mike, this is great. You need to make it half as long. And I can't, you know, because I have so much I want to describe. It's like me talking, I've I've taken so much time already. Yeah, but elaborate, you know, let people in, the people that matter who want to read the whole thing, who want to be better informed, who take an educational approach to our sport, will go through the whole thing and realize it for what it's worth, which I think is important discourse um and commentary on the philosophical approach to coaching athletes in our sport.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank thanks for the compliments and thanks for the feedback because I I I think um I I can see what you're saying. Like maybe sometimes I'm not giving uh the people who might be reading enough credit. Like I I I really I I really do try to keep things concise because I and yes, sometimes I use clickbait titles because I know first off that will get people more likely to read it. And if if I feel confident in what if that that there's something valuable behind the clickbait, I'm not I'm not scared about using a a a title because um because because again, because I know there's something valuable behind it. It's not a trick behind it. Um but uh maybe I don't give people enough credit for wanting to read for like ten minutes instead of six minutes. Uh and I can save myself a lot of trouble by explaining ten minutes worth um versus six minutes. So I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04I think we're losing so much culturally right now because everything has to be catered towards this short attention span that we find ourselves in. Right. You know, and and we're losing out. We're losing out so much. And uh I just sent my whole team an email about trying to read a book before they go to bed at night. Because I just think that they're they're so distracted by everything else. And I know we all talk about you know, this generation, whatever else, and I'm not even getting into that, but there's a a really important educational piece, I think, in our society that's being missed by the lack of an attention span.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I'm uh I'm definitely guilty uh and I've even written about this of of um uh as I've gotten as as time has passed by, I read I still read a ton, but I read short shorter and shorter stuff. You know? Um I I I I uh and I feel guilty when I um uh go to something like I went to this group of of positive psychology people and people are throwing these nonfiction books at me. They say, Oh, have you read this? And I'm thinking, uh nope, I didn't read that, I didn't read that. Um I'm feeling feeling guilty about not reading it, and yet um there is there's like a gravitational pull away from reading longer stuff. Um culturally. You're right. Um and uh are you are is that something you practice yourself? I mean, are you are you somebody that's uh always reading a book?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, if well, if I'm not reading a book, I'm listening to an audiobook. Oh, that's smart. I I just and I really like it. I find that it calms me down in an increasingly stressful world. Um and it and it doesn't necessarily have to be about swimming, though many of them are. Um and I've found that you know I listen to a lot of podcasts too. Um I'll listen to yours, you know, I'll listen to uh Chris Ritter's, um and I just try to take some mental notes and try to approach things in a different way. I can approach uh what we do, even if it's a high volume day, if we're going 8,000, because we do that sometimes.
SPEAKER_00I'm just trying to ignore it, Mike. I like you, and I'm just trying to pretend that that part is not true.
SPEAKER_04So I can approach an 8,000-yard workout with the same energy and enthusiasm that I can approach maybe a 4,200-yard taper workout that that's really focused on sprint. Um and like I said, and and you and I have talked about this before, you know, if I'm if I'm reading and I'm listening to other people, there are so many great ideas that can be applied to your program that don't mean a philosophical compromise of what you think works. So you can take all these ideas from all these different people and package it in your own unique way into that workout that the kids are gonna do. And the other thing to keep in mind is all of these things that you're hearing, they're the very best parts of these different programs. You're not seeing the struggle or the lanes in those different programs that aren't swimming up to the standard of the workout. And you have to always keep that in your mind when you're gonna apply something. How is this gonna fit my athletes? You know, you can't give third graders Tolstoy and expect them to understand, you know, the meaning behind the words. You know, there has to be some kind of developmental and progressive strategy that you're putting into play. And that's what I think you can derive from the Ritter Podcasts or your podcasts, or you know, uh Four Champions, One Gold Medal that Chuck Warner wrote. All these kinds of things, you can take those and package them in a way that that's gonna apply to your kids.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I I think there's a really great point in there. Um and it's uh it's something I end up thinking about a lot is you know, um uh especially this role that social media plays. You're right, you know, like of course people are gonna project the things that they're most proud of or um uh the best. Sometimes I just due to my sense of humor, like I want to put up a Facebook post that's like uh my child did nothing exciting today. You know, like or something. Um but I don't. Um because I just then I reconsider that it might be mean that somebody uh it might be too mean to some people who are very naturally putting up like stuff that they're super proud that their kid did. Sure. Um you know, there's nothing wrong with that. Um but you know, uh it's so human to look at what somebody else is doing and immediately compare yourself. And if you only compare yourself to the best thing that they're doing, you can feel pretty bad about what it is you're doing. That's that's exactly right. All right. Well, we've been uh you've been awesome uh talking through this. It's been really great to get to know you a little bit better and um uh sort of get more in-depth on um your life, your story, um and and the reason behind why you do some things and um I really appreciate it. Um and uh uh I appreciate all the attention I'm going to get afterwards for getting landing such a huge, huge guest. An administrator. When did you by the way? Sorry, I'm I know I'm on the outro here, but when did you become an administrator on the because I just noticed that recently that you became an administrator on the Facebook group?
SPEAKER_04Was that yeah, that little icon shield? Yeah, like that just popped up next to my name. I I knew I was an administrator, but I didn't see that that actually that must be a new Facebook thing. Oh, okay. So you've been you've been there for a while.
SPEAKER_00We just I just didn't know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so um a friend of mine um started the group and uh he took another job, and when he took that other job, he thought it would be best if uh other people um were gonna be administrators of the group. So um myself and uh one of my former club coaches, actually, Jerry Adams from Schenectady Swim Club, uh, who's a phenomenal coach and has a phenomenal program. Um, we are uh two, I think there's three administrators. Um so that happened, I think, uh about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um so yeah, I hope more people contribute to it. It's a great site. Um and it's it's open to all questions, no matter how silly people think they might be. Um you know, we've allowed the group to be big enough now where, you know, all are welcome. And um I think we need to keep it that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I totally agree. I I've said this before on other podcasts, but I started with that group, uh, I will fully admit that a friend invited me and I got in there and I was like, wow, this is so stupid. There's people sharing stupid workouts, there's people asking stupid questions, and I was such a I was on my, you know, high on top of my mountain, looking down uh and judging everybody. And the longer I stayed there, the more I realized, wow, this is really incredible. You know, it's 2017. There are people from all around the world that I never would have found out what they're doing. Um we never would have had this discussion. And um uh we we do not it I uh whatever else you might think in the sport of swimming, we do not need an attitude like the one I had. Um we we need an attitude that brings more people um into the fold. So uh I've I'm I've been reformed on that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we're I think we're we're somewhere around 9,500 members. So that that 10,000 member mark, that will be uh a day we'll celebrate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm looking forward to that. All right, so now I'm now really I'm saying goodbye. Thank you, Mike. Um thanks for everything that you shared, and uh and I think maybe we'll we'll end up talking again. So awesome. All right, thanks, Chris. Appreciate the time. Goodbye. So great to talk to Mike Murray. If you want to follow Mike and his coaching, check out Islander Aquatics, uh, where as he mentioned, he's currently the co-head coach with uh Mark Dannon. For more great swimming conversations, go to Chrisdcoach.com that's C-H-R-I-S-A-D as indesantiscoach.com. You can also find me at Chris DeSantis Coaching on Facebook. Write me a message, give me some feedback, tell me that you love these podcasts, or suggest a guest. Say, you need to get somebody better on. Put this person on, okay? I would love to get a suggestion like that. Until next week. Bye.