Before we jump into this conversation, a quick word from the guys over at Swim Nerd. Are you looking for a pace clock that won't break the bank? How about one that every swimmer can see? The Swim Nerd pace clock is the most innovative and affordable digital pace clock that the world has ever seen. Their nine inch tall green LEDs are specifically made for outdoor viewing and are visible from a hundred meters away. Bluetooth enabled, it connects to your swim practice mobile app, allowing you to program any set your heart desires. Take a minute, go to swimpractice.com and check out their amazing new pace clock. It truly is the world's best uh swimming pool pace clock. That's swimpractice.com. One more time. Because I really want you to take a look at this. The pace clock is the most quintessential piece of training equipment for any swim team. Go to swimpractice.com and get yourself the best pace clock in the world. Your swimming. Today on the swim brief, a nice follow-up from my time at the Isca conference this past month in Clearwater Beach, Florida. The day before I spoke, an old uh acquaintance of mine, Matt Sprang, was there, and I think he was talking about a really important topic, and it's a topic that I see coming more and more um into these sort of coaches' forums, and and there's there is more discussion happening around it. Is there enough discussion? Absolutely not. Um and so I wanted to take the opportunity to amplify what Matt was talking about a little bit because I think it resonates definitely with my own life, um, but with with the lives of a lot of coaches that I know and what they're just experiencing uh going through the sport. So I hope you hear uh I hope you enjoy what Matt has to say and um enjoy. A guy I've known for, I guess since really since the beginning of my own coaching career, it's maybe been, I don't know, twelve years. Matt Sprang. Matt, how are you? I'm doing well, Chris. How are you? I'm doing, you know what, I'm doing alright today. Uh uh and I'm answering in the theme of some of what we're gonna talk about later, right? Um one one uh thing I've learned to do uh over the last few years is not default uh to say, tell people I'm doing well when I'm not necessarily doing well. Um, you know, just to sort of fire off automatic response to that question. You're I I I I wanted to bring you on here because uh you and I were both at the ISCA Hall of Fame Coaches Clinic a couple weeks ago, and um you gave a presentation on a really important topic, really pertinent topic. Um I wanted to do what I could to amplify that message because I think it's a really, really important one, and I think you have some thoughtful things to say about it, and that was uh coaching coaching wellness. Um but before we get into that, uh just for people listening, I always sort of like to set the table a little bit and and uh get uh people introduced to who it is they're they're hearing from. So give give people an idea um of your own sort of history in the sport of swimming. Um what were you like as a swimmer? How did you uh decide to become a coach? What what did that look like in the beginning and and sort of how did you get to where you are now?
SPEAKER_00Uh first, I really appreciate you bringing me on to talk about this. This is a topic personally that's really important to me, and uh, like you said, I I appreciate the opportunity to amplify and uh keep this message going. Um as a swimmer, I was I I would define myself as really mediocre.
SPEAKER_01Um you know, I may have some objections to that, so hold on, but tell me more.
SPEAKER_00So I, you know, it's kind of like I I told my swimmers the last couple of years, I always used to tell them, we gotta redefine the the term fast because what they saw as fast and what I saw as fast were completely different. Uh I guess I may be comparing myself to uh the top-tier swimmers, I was mediocre, but I held my own. I uh swam growing up for the Jersey Wahoos in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. I went to the University of Connecticut, swam there for two years, transferred to Rowan University for my final two years uh where at Rowan I uh got the opportunity to swim at D3 Nationals with a time that qualified me for D3 Nationals that um I wouldn't get me in the door with a ticket uh with how fast D three nationals is now. Um but you know that was 1999. Um and uh, you know, I I I graduated from Rowan. Um and even before I started uh even before I graduated from Rowan, I started coaching for what was then known as uh GCIT swimming, Boster County Institute of Technology Swimming uh in Sewell, New Jersey. Um for me coaching was uh a means. Uh it wasn't something I was thinking of as a profession when I was a junior in college. Uh it was something I was doing because I enjoyed it. Uh I had some success with it in terms of being able to communicate with athletes and help them. Um but it was not my stated career goal at that point. Um it wasn't until I uh did not get into the grad schools that I felt I wanted to get into for uh my my career goal was to be a history professor. Uh and I didn't get into the grad schools that I wanted to get into, started coaching a little bit more, and I decided instead of going to grad school after a year for history, I went to Temple University to uh uh in uh to obtain a uh a master's degree in sports administration. Okay. Um by that point I uh became a full-time coach at GCIT, head age group coach and working at the school full-time uh in the pool. Um and after two years of that, I took the assistant coach's position at Binghamton University. Uh, did that for a year, and then in 2004 I returned to GCIT as the head coach. Um I was the head coach at GCIT essentially until 2000 through the summer of 2008, um, when I convinced the school that they should no longer be in the swim team business. And uh I started Greater Philadelphia Aquatic Club as a coach-owned program in 2008. I was the head coach and owner of the program through the summer of 2017 where I decided to step back from coaching and just focus on the administrative end of the sport or of the team, and that's where I'm at now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and uh I I'm so a couple things there. I will uh say one of the things I uh I'm working on myself is uh yeah, I had a tendency also to say I was a mediocre swimmer. Now I was a Division III swimmer that didn't even make it to the NCAA meet. Um so I don't know how I'm supposed to feel as you describe yourself as mediocre. Um uh and I I I don't say that to to shame you. I think, you know, I I I think you should be really proud of what you've accomplished. I think, you know, uh there's a way of looking at it that says, you know, very, very few people actually um on the on the scale of humanity have ever swumped as fast as as you did, even if uh the Division III meat's gotten a little bit more competitive. Oh, just a bit. So um I I I I think you should take some pride in that. Um but also, you know, um there's um there's some humility in that bio, and I'm I'm gonna try to say this without sounding like uh tooting I'm tooting both of our horns, but um, I mean sort of how we met was um uh uh at I was coaching at the University of Pennsylvania. We recruited a young man from your team. Uh his name was Brendan McHugh. He ended up becoming uh Penn's first NCAA qualifier in I think twenty years or so. Yeah um and uh became a Division I all-American, won a US uh USA swimming long course national championship, um so had just had a really, really tremendous uh career, and um uh he came up uh swimming on on that club.
SPEAKER_00I started coaching Brendan when he was eight years old for a summer club in Washington Township, New Jersey. Um and we kind of grew up as swimmer and coach at the same time because you know I was coaching, I was an assistant coach on a summer league team, and then I moved to uh an assistant coach, an assistant age group coach at GCIT, and Brendan was a 10-year-old on that team. And then I became the head age group coach, and Brendan was a 12-year-old on that team. And then I became the head coach a few years later, and Brendan won his first of three New Jersey State titles as a sophomore uh in his first year swimming for me. Um so it was uh it was a it's fun to look back at the evolution of Brendan McHugh as a swimmer and kind of see my own evolution as a coach. Um, there were definitely plenty of times where Brendan and I did not see eye to eye and butted heads a bit. Um, but more than anything, I'm really proud to say that to this day Brendan and I are friends. And the relationship, now that he is a uh past his, well, for the time being, past his swimming career.
SPEAKER_01Right. Um we're waiting for that master's comeback, right? I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, Brendan, you know Brendan. Yeah, and he's got thoughts. Let's just say that. He's got thoughts. Um, but you know, Brendan is an extremely successful professional. Uh, he's a lawyer in Philadelphia. He's married. Um, he's just a fantastic person, and more so than, you know, I will say without any hesitation that my proudest moment as a coach was the day that Brendan won the 50 breaststroke at the 2014 short course or long course nationals and qualified for the world championship team representing Greater Philadelphia Aquatic Club. I'm the first person to say that there are many people that had a hand in helping him get to that point, most importantly, Brendan. Yes. Um, but that was the proudest moment as my proudest moment as a coach, and I'm, you know, I'm happy to say that, but more so, just like all the swimmers that I've had that have gone on to do great things beyond the pool, that to me is a coaching legacy. It's not the times, it's not the medals, it's the people that they become.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, there's I I know it was purported on at the time, but it's worth repeating that he won that national championship while attending law school. Correct. Which um for as many people know is pretty ridic r ridiculous, rigorous uh academic program ridiculous and rigorous academic program. Um and I just think it uh you know, I I want to say this not sounding patronizing, shows so much maturity. I mean it's just really like he he he turned into a real adult swimmer, somebody who was just like, look, I'm doing this um because I really want to do it, you know, and I'm gonna find a way to make it work. Um and I I I that part of it to me is really incredible and I think worth repeating as you know, to anybody out there who sort of is um uh on the fence, you know, in their uh adult life. Do I have time for this? Do I I really want to do this, but I don't know if I can. Um y you can. And there there's something out there and this is a great example of that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
unknownAbsolutely.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_01So, um now that we've tooted our horns, um, let's let's let's talk about uh coaching wellness. Because you know, this is I mean, this is personal to me. And I I think we we can get into that. It's personal to you, um and and it's personal to me. Um and and it's worth having a conversation around that. Um but you know, g give people listening an idea of um how you sort of came uh to the point where this is a big big priority uh issue for you.
SPEAKER_00Well there's I I think there's definitely two parts to this. There's the fact that I was the head coach and the owner of the program. So I'm handling all the administrative end of things, registration, things like that. I'm handling all the financials, doing payroll. I'm the HR specialist. Um while it's easy to say, you know, you could just hire somebody to do that. Well, I went the opposite direction. I hired a coach and I handled the administrative end of things. And when you're a small business, you don't have the income coming in to hire an HR specialist. To hire, I was lucky that I was able to have a very, very good accountant to help me navigate through the first couple of years, and and he's still my accountant to this day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so you know, it it's I'm at the point where I'm I'm the head coach and coaching the you know, the top high school age swimmers. And you go back and you do the math, and if you're on deck for every practice in every dry land, you're looking at during the school year anywhere from 20 to 25 hours a week, just standing on a pool deck. That's whether or not you're actively engaged and you know working with the swimmers, or if you're just standing there as a glorified lifeguard.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00You have to be there for practice. That doesn't include writing the workouts, writing the season plan, talking to them about colleges, um, you know, thinking up talks about psychology and race prep and nutrition and all that stuff just for the senior swimmers. And then on top of that, you're leading uh a team or a coaching staff of 13, uh part-time and some other full-time coaches. You know, you have you can't just focus on your senior swimmers. And I I whether you're the head coach and owner or just the head coach, I hope you have a you know a concern, not a concern, but you know, an interest in the development of those younger swimmers because you need the pipeline coming through so that you can keep coaching those uh top-level high school swimmers. Um, so you know, I look back and I was working on average 60, 70 hours a week. And then if there's a swim meet on the weekend, now I'm over 80 hours a week, especially if it's a swim meet that our team is hosting.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, because as the owner of the program, even to this day when we host meets, I'm there, I'm the first person in the door, and I'm usually the last person to leave when we host a swim meet. Because I think it's you know, that my my job to set that example, uh, even though I hire people to do important aspects of the meet running jobs, I'm there all the time.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So I'm burning the candle at, you know, chopping that candle up and burning it at multiple ends.
SPEAKER_01You're burning multiple candles at multiple ends, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. Um, so you know, I was not taking care of myself. And not only that, I was not present enough from my family. I have a wife and I have two young children.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um my children are eight and six now. Um so you know, I there there I don't know what kind of statistics there are, but you hear all the time of coaches who are on their second, third marriage. Right. Um, and and that that marriage is now strained. Yeah. Um and it's because as my wife used to say, she used to tell me all the time, you you you can't keep this pace up. You can't keep working like this. You you have to spend some time on yourself. I wasn't exercising, I wasn't eating right. Um, and and my my stock answer to her, I think, is the stock answer that many coaches have. You don't get it. This is the job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we'll get into it in a second, I'm sure, but that's that's what's gotta change. On top of that, the second part to all this is I have to be careful because you know, we're there are some confidentiality rules that I have to follow here. Okay. Um, but the the long story, the short story of a very long story that just ended, is uh I my goal from the second I created Greater Philadelphia Aquatics was to open a swim school. I started it after the first year of the program, I started a very small swim lesson program in one or two lanes at GCIT, but we're limited by the amount of time and days that we can teach swim lessons. It's also a pool that's five feet deep at its shallowest, and it's a competition pool, so it's kept at 80, 81 degrees at best, right? Which is not good for teaching young children how to swim. Um, so I spent a lot of time researching, looking into the possibilities of building a uh standalone swim school facility. Um you know, a lot of time researching, eventually found a place, found a location, um had one built, it didn't go as planned. And I think both sides would say it didn't go as planned.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Uh and uh unfortunately we had to enter into litigation um as a result of that. Thankfully, it is settled. Um, and yesterday uh we we settled with the landlords of the building because the lease had to be broken, and um you know all sides are now finished and we've moved on. I mean, that's a really, really um glossed over version of what was happening. But this is a a uh a process that that took over three years to get to this point from when we started construction to to being done with with it. And during that time, I was in debt almost a million dollars. Um I had multiple life insurance policies that I had to take out to cover the loans on behalf of the uh the the bank. And um I was also my house was um used as collateral on the loan. So if I default on a loan, there's the very real possibility that my wife, my children, and our dogs, and myself are out of our house. Um, you know, it it and this is not something that more than two people know besides my wife and the uh psychologist that I talk things through with. In early 2017, my lawyer, who eventually you know saw things through, um was presenting the worst case scenario to me. And the worst case scenario is we don't have a case. And like I said, I'm almost a million dollars in debt.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00Hammered spending ten thousand dollars a month on rent on the facility and interest-only payments on the loan combined, five thousand each. Um and like I said, I had multiple life insurance policies. I was the proverbial worth more dead than a lot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not gonna sit here and say that I I contemplating uh harming myself in any way, but the thought crossed my mind that it was an option very quickly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It scared the daylights out of me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's when I realized I had to seek um seek help from a psychologist and and sitting down with that person and and talking through my issues.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, would you say, I mean, I was gonna ask you, would you s I mean is that sort of your rock bottom moment? I mean, I know what mine is. Um how I ended up at a at a pretty similar place. I mean I um as you were doing those math on that that math on working hours, I remember towards the end of my time in Denmark sitting down with uh my club chairman, and he just said, like, well just g give me an idea actually how much you do work. So I sat down and I made a little spreadsheet, and it was just as you described. I think I had 26 and a half hours of coaching. And then I tried to estimate uh how much time did I spend preparing material for that 26 hours of coaching. And I think I think I was pretty conservative, right? About half as much time. So I attacked on another 13 hours. Now a full-time job in Denmark is 37 hours. So right there, before I did anything but coach, I was working overtime. Um and then yeah, I I was constantly performing triage on other parts of the job that were yes, they were really part of my job, you know, but there was absolutely no way for a human being. To do all of them in a given week. And I can remember well, I mean, I really had two moments. I had one where we went to a a swim meet and I remember it didn't go well and I'd spent the whole weekend away. My daughter was, I don't know, maybe a year and and three months old or something. I had been away for two months out of the first year of her life. I got home and um my wife was stressed and I I burst into tears. And because I just thought, I can't I'm not doing well at anything. I'm not a good father, I'm not a good coach, I'm not a good boss at the job I'm doing. Like I I'm not I'm I'm firing off in all these directions, but I'm not doing anything well. Um and um but m more acutely for me, um, because I, you know, I ended up leaving that job. Um I had a moment where uh uh actually just after I started this business, so we're coming up, like actually we're on the a little bit past the three-year anniversary, um uh I was uh in in uh my parents' house um with my dad. Uh my mom at the time was uh I mean we didn't know it, but she's she was gonna die four months later. Uh so we were sort of we we knew we were in the end game. And um I uh I had been, I would say, still, even though I'd I'd had those moments before, you know, the like leaving my job had given me temporary relief, but I hadn't done any of the work. And so stuff came, you know, stuff came back to me really, really hard. And uh I'm very grateful for my dad, who is a psychiatrist, um, because that's ironic in this conversation. I know. Well he he took me to a psychiatric emergency room because I was I was having a full-blown panic attack. You know, I thought my chest was gonna cave in on itself. I was, you know, uh uh driving across train tracks imagining that the train was just gonna come and and destroy my car and um was just terrified. Uh and I didn't know what to do. Um and and thankfully uh I was able to I mean thankfully my my dad was there and knew what to do um because I let it go way too far before trying to get some help and sort of get on a path um to to something better. Um and uh I think there's a lot of people out there, as you say, who uh it I think if they t I I know there's a lot of coaches that listen to this, that take anything out of this, like don't let it get as far as as uh Matt and I have just described. Like listen to this story and and hopefully think about what's going on and and just start engaging um in some help as soon as you possibly can. And and I know it's hard because when you're feeling the worst, that's the hardest time to engage um with some help.
SPEAKER_03Um but but but it yeah. I I don't know what else to say.
SPEAKER_00Without a doubt, it's it can get it can get to be overbearing. And I say that this our our conversation is ironic because my wife is a doctor of psychology.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And she she pushed me to, you know, I suffered from uh several panic attacks, lack of sleep, all because of the the situation, you know, legally. Um but you know, I I have a friend in in the sport who right before it got the worst for me, we were just having a conversation, and he said, Yeah, I I see a psychologist every two weeks. And I I made this comment at the ISCA clinic, it's like the head and shoulders commercial, but you don't have dangerous. Why do you see a psychologist? Everything's fine. He said, Because sometimes I just need to talk things through with somebody outside of my family, friends, and outside of the sport.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And he's doing the right thing by being proactive, by seeing how you know the avalanche could be coming. And he's skiing well ahead of it to safety.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, no, I mean, uh I I like that example too when you used it, that that um that feeling of of being proactive. And I think, you know, this this issue of coaching wellness, it it actually, I mean it I don't we're not gonna talk too much about this, but it is so interconnected with so many other things that I end up um speaking passionately about in the sport of swimming. I think that you can trace, I mean, you everybody knows the kind of stuff I write about. I'm not gonna make the ex ek uh the connection explicit here because I think it's gonna kind of be a distraction from what we're talking about, but it's this is all connected.
SPEAKER_00Um I'll say it and then we can move on. Okay. There are certain code of conduct violations that have been committed that have could have been avoided without i if if wellness was uh more of a priority for that individual.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'll and I'll and I'll go further to say is the the violations that were committed deserve the punishment that they that it was. I'm not making an excuse for it. No. Um but I I b I believe that very firmly. Not all of them. Yeah. Some of them are are egregious and wellness wasn't going to help that person or or their victims.
SPEAKER_01I I yeah, I I I think that you can both yeah, I think that you can both hold in your mind that um some of these violations are egregious, they deserve consequences, and at the same time that um uh just general better well-being among coaches would have prevented a lot. Um and so uh that's just to say we have another for me, it's like we have another i i if you if you're uh passionate about this issue, it's another angle um for you to attack on. Not just increasing consequences, but let's have a conversation about how to make uh being a a coach better so that people lead better lives and uh it's gonna have a trickle-down effect to everybody involved in the sport.
SPEAKER_00It's it's one of the things that I always um scoff about in in our world is that when a violation is committed, we treat the the violation directly, we don't treat the root issue as much. Best example is one horrible person loads his shoes with C4 and tries to blow up a plane using his shoes. So now for years, everybody has to take their most people unless you have TSA pre-check. Um I got pre-checked so I can be treated like a human being again. So you gotta take your shoes off. Right. You go to Europe, I'm sure you experienced it a lot. Probably your first time going through, you start to take your shoes off and get laughed at.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, it because we're we're not, you know, we're we're just taking care of the the the most superficial part of the issue.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Uh coach wellness isn't the root issue, but it's one of them. And I think we could protect a lot better um by addressing the issue. Yes, and you know, to get off that it that topic and and to go to back to the broad topic, I I think coach wellness has, you know, is a river that has tributaries into so many different things. We can be talking about nutrition, we can be talking about exercise, you know, just in doing the research for the talk I gave at ISCA, learning about uh neurotransmitters and um, you know, how some of these things start in the gut. And um, you know, I I'm not as well versed on it, so I don't want to act like I know what I'm talking about at all after reading a couple of scientific articles. But you know, diet definitely, in my opinion, can affect your mood in a good way or a bad way.
SPEAKER_01So actually I think more like uh one of the things I liked about your presentation is show up on something disgusting, you're not helping your your mood, you're not helping your stress level. Right. Well, I mean to to even take it aside from some of the science part of it, one of the things I really liked about your presentation was that um you're taking your own medicine. So, you know, like the stuff that you had a bunch of suggestions for everybody. And the stuff that you were suggesting, you were like, okay, I've tried this. This has worked for me. Like this is here you walked us through your own process of of changing. So maybe it's worth having a conversation. Like, what are some of those things for you? You reached rock bottom, you got into therapy, and you started to um uh change some tangible things in your life.
SPEAKER_00I think first and foremost, the most important thing is that I and I I can't stress this enough, I think swim coaches in a positive way, the the the swim coaches are doing it right, doing right by the athletes all the time. They put the others first far too much.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're putting the athlete the needs of the athletes first, they're putting communication with parents before communication with their own families. And it's to the detriment of their own well-being. And I'm not saying that a coach should put themselves first all the time, but professional coaches need to start putting themselves first more often. I don't think that's selfish at all. Because you could very easily go down the path that you and I were down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you know, you're so stressed out that you're unable to because I I I'm in the same boat as you, I was not pulling my weight as first and foremost, as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, and as a swim coach. Um if I had put myself first more often and took some time away and not answering emails at 11 o'clock at night or first thing in the morning on Sunday and ate healthy and made time to exercise, putting myself first instead of sitting in front of the computer in those instances, I would have been healthier. I would have been stronger mentally, sharper mentally. And I think I definitely would have been, at the very least, a better coach for my athletes. So putting yourself first as a coach is going to be for the betterment of your athletes and your program. Because you're going to have more energy, you're going to have you're going to be sharper mentally, like I said. It's it's something that more coaches need to do daily, not even on a regular basis. Regular basis is once a month or once every two weeks. Daily. Coach needs to set time aside for themselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that and uh it's one of the uh fault lines. Um I I'll say, you know, on on sort of that topic that uh that I've drawn here in my own business and I had the the real benefit of starting everything from scratch myself and making up my own rules. And I I don't respond unless I'm working, like I'm I'm being paid to be somewhere on a Saturday. I I do not respond from like Friday at 5 p.m. until Monday at 9 in the morning. I'm almost unreachable. Um That's that's great.
SPEAKER_00I'm still working on it. Yeah, I'm still working on it. Um but it kind of leads to a the last point I made um in the in the in the speech was you know, coaches need we gotta change the the thought process for our patrons, swimmers, and parents that coaches should be able to shut down the email and shut down the phone after practice on Saturday. Let's say you, you know, it's a it's a team that doesn't practice on Sunday. This is what our team does. Yeah we have practice Saturday morning, and if there's no meet, we don't have practice again until Monday. That coach needs to be able to shut it down after practice on Saturday. Absolutely. Pick it back up on Monday, or if they're gonna, you know, write a workout for Monday morning, or you know, some coaches write their workouts well in advance on on Sunday night, that's fine. But it's a consequence of the instant information, instant communication age that we live in. Now people expect to be responded to immediately. Right. And we got by just fine before text messaging and all these other instant ways of communicating came about in the early 2000s.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There were plenty of good swimmers that that came about when they didn't talk to their coach over the weekend. The parents didn't have a question answered.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_00And there were there were emergencies back then that were as important as the emergencies that emerge right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And everything got on just fine. The sport survived. You know, we we have to be able to disconnect.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm at I I thought about this just two nights ago. Um my my my daughter is starting kindergarten this um this fall. So she had her first few days, um, and we had to communicate with her kindergarten teacher about something, and of course we've got an app and everything's connected, and um my wife and I sent her a message, you know, and it was like 8 45 at night. She replied at 9. And I sent her another message, I said, Thank you so much for the quick reply. I said, But don't ever feel like you need to respond to to us at at 9 at night. Like be off from teaching my kid, you know, like respond to this when you get when you get a chance tomorrow. You know, like and I I was searching for a way to say uh what what we've just talked about, like I respect your time and space, and you you know, I just don't want you to feel like you have to do this. Um respond in this way. But yeah, uh it's uh it's tough. It's tough.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's also connected to our general addiction to technology. Sure. We are as a whole addicted to our phones. They're always in our hands. The the second that there is a lull in action in our lives, we're pulling out the phone.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Checking Facebook, checking Twitter, checking Instagram, checking email. And it's just, you know, I I for someone who is like me, I have to put my phone upstairs and leave it there. Um, you know, and I I deleted Twitter off my phone because it stinks. It's just crap. You know, it's it's half the people unhappy with the politics, and the other half of people who are happy attacking the other half of people, and you don't know which way it's going. And all the Philadelphia sports teams, with the exception of the Eagles, are disappointing right now. So all the Philadelphia sports people I follow are all bitter and annoyed. And I follow a team in the English Premier League that is scraping by to stay in the Premier League. So, you know, it's just delete Twitter, delete Facebook, shut it down, and pick up a book and read that.
SPEAKER_01I know. I know. Well, okay, so so back to some of your suggestions. So that's a little that's a little bit of like availability, um, time management. Um, where did you get to on nutrition?
SPEAKER_00Uh we could talk for, you know, there could there there should be a whole portion of every coach's clinic out there, be it ISCA, Asca or something run by USA Swimming or the World Swimming Coach, whatever it may be, that should be just a day on nutrition for coaches.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, I I saw, and I really apologize to the individual, I'm not going to use their name because I don't know their name, but I saw early in June a retweet by one of the swimming outlet, uh, not swim outlet, but one of the swimming news aggregates uh of a coach who took a picture of a hamburger restaurant. And it wasn't McDonald's, it was one of the you know higher-end sit-down hamburger restaurants. And the message that was with the picture was something, this is not an exact quote, um, but it was something to the effect of, you know, I tell my swimmers they can't go here, but I get to go here, it's really nice, you know, and that's just bullying in a respect. Um, but like to me, and I started to realize this myself, if you're out there preaching to your athletes what they should be eating, how they should be eating, proper nutrition, proper fueling, not allowing them to go to McDonald's when you're on a you know a travel trip because it's not good fuel. And then, you know, for whatever reason, and I was in this group too, because I was stressed and I ran out of time and I wasn't properly preparing things, and you're skipping multiple meals a day, eating junk, stopping at fast food restaurants or convenience stores to get a sandwich or worse on the way home. I I hate to say it, but you're being hypocritical.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's a big issue of where you need to practice what you preach. And I'm sorry, you you see the pictures online. There's a lot of coaches and frankly a lot of officials who are not in very good shape. And I go back to the open letter that Dave Gibson, Coach Dave Gibson, posted on Swim Swam, I believe it was 2014 or 15, the open letter to coaches. Um, and I realize my fault in it too, because I said we host meets. And I'm being, I up until last year, I was being far too cheap with how much money we were spending on hospitality. And into the budget this year, I'm increasing the amount of money that we're spending on hospitality at each of our meets to provide for healthier options for coaches.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And if I go in there and I see a uh a can of hot dogs, I'm not gonna be happy. For our hospitality people, we we're having a meeting and we're gonna talk about how that's it's not it's not what coaches need.
SPEAKER_01Right. Oh man, you should have you should have come to Denmark where if you mentioned hospitality, they were like, that's outrageous. The whole idea of feeding people. And we had sessions that were like 10 hours long. They were like, no, no, no, you'll get coffee.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, eating properly, I I'm not a nutritionist. No. Um, but you know, I've done my research. And to me, let's make let's keep it simple. You gotta eliminate processed foods. You gotta eat as fresh as possible. Um I do personally believe in eating more organic foods than than non-organic foods, but it's an expensive way to go about things. Um and uh according to my doctor, I should be eating a a largely vegan um uh uh diet, but that's not how I go. Um but the other thing is I I think cutting out alcohol is should be the first on everybody's list, and including myself. I still indulge from time to time in a beer or you know, a glass of wine. Um my wife and I, since the lawsuit got settled yesterday, celebrated with a couple glasses of champagne.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um and we deserve that. But, you know, if you're I think the b the the the thing, you know, that I was doing that I needed to change is I was having, you know, one, two drinks every couple of nights during the week. Um and that's gonna contribute to your authargy, that's going to contribute to belly fat. Um that's gonna, especially if you're doing it after you get home from practice at eight, eight, nine o'clock at night, and then you're having any kind of alcohol, it's gonna hurt your sleep patterns. Might help you fall asleep, but you're not getting restful sleep, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I mean, I I I think you're hitting on something that's really big, even beyond what you described. I just um you know, another intentional decision I've made with uh with Krista Santa's coaching is is when I travel, I don't drink alcohol. Because I I have had too many times, frankly, in my own life traveling as a swim coach where, especially away from home, I just drank way too much. I mean, basically medicating with alcohol, like just like you know, I'm and I'm and I'm at a swim meet. And it was just looking back, it's totally inappropriate. Um and and really counterproductive to anything I was trying to accomplish. Um and I notice it at swim coaching gatherings, there's like an aggressive amount of drinking often.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's the time you know, swim meets, especially uh away meets where you're staying overnight, that's the time that most coaches are the the largest gathering of coaches are regularly. And and to me, the thing that I miss most about coaching, I'll say it first and foremost, is the camaraderie of coaches. On deck, the people that I met over the last 20 years coaching, some of the greatest people that I've ever been around. And I miss that. Um but you know, that's also the time when coaches will get together. And i i air their grievances of how things are not going well with athletes or with parents or with board members or whatever it may be. And where's that taking place? That's taking place at the end of the session at night, at a bar, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, beer, beer, beer.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00They're not sitting around, we're not we, we, because I was doing it too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Not sitting around drinking water. Right. And that's you're right. I was indulging way too much on numerous occasions, and it's not healthy at all.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So what about exercise? Because actually I have um I do have a bone to pick with now that I've get had some more time to think about it on some of your stances on exercise. So I'm going to push you a little bit, but I'm interested in in in what you have to say first.
SPEAKER_00So I believe exercise, from what I again learned, exercise is going to help you lose weight, and it's going to help you with muscle tone and bone structure and cardiovascularly. But exercise is not how you're going to remain healthy. To me, diet is the first thing that you go after. And and um a diet needs to be a lifestyle change, not just dieting. These fad diets that are out there, they're they're going to get you to a place, but it's not going to keep you there. You have to change your diet, completely turn it around and eat healthy all the time, not just to lose weight. For me, exercise was a mental release as much as it was being physical, staying in shape, taking care of my body. As I mentioned, I have young children. I'm 42 years, 42 in a couple of days.
SPEAKER_03Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00Um and I was started to get concerned after realizing the the path that I had traveled down that when my kids got older, I was not going to be healthy enough to do the really cool, fun things like go that they can't do now. My kids aren't old enough to go scuba diving or go ziplining or you know, go on strenuous hikes through the Grand Canyon. And these are all things my wife and I really want to do with our kids. Um, and if I didn't start taking care of myself when they got to the age where it was able they were able to do it, I wasn't going to be able to. Um now, um, you know, I I I think I I was a CrossFit person and CrossFit was more mental release than it was physically helping me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh I've since stopped doing CrossFit um because I've I just focused more on being able to run and being able to uh swim and uh occasionally get on the bike. So I don't need uh the the CrossFit membership to to complete those things. Um but most importantly to me is the ability to be outside and exercise outdoors, uh whether it be walking, walking dogs, going for a hike, riding a bike, running. Um I think being outdoors is uh as important as, you know, not just with exercise, just uh for mental clarity. Um I believe that you know a connection to nature is going to help every person um reset and be a little bit stress-free, more stress-free.
SPEAKER_01Right. Okay, I don't disagree with any of that. Okay. You know what you you it's it's you made a point when you talked to Isca um saying to somebody uh like, hey, if you're not exercising, try and find a way to get out for four one-hour walks or whatever. And the only the only thing I sort of wanted to amend on that is I feel like if you're not doing anything, just start with something. It doesn't even need to be four hour walks. I understand that like four twenty-minute walks is not is not a significant amount of exercise, but it's more than nothing. And I think sometimes people like if the time commitment is too big on the outset, they just don't start.
SPEAKER_00Um We absolutely agree on the overall point. Okay. I guess my my example was maybe a little bit too much for some people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, who, you know, maybe have been sedentary for 20 years. And you're absolutely right. Four one hour walks a week is not gonna cut the mustard. Or well, no, it's it's it's gonna more than cut the mustard. Yeah, it's it's it's gonna be way too much. Um I guess my my point in stating that was don't go out and get a CrossFit membership, right? And spend $150 a month and start going crazy lifting weights, uh, or or get any kind of gym membership. And and you know, I think the tendency is just like dieting. Oh, I gotta, you know, crash and cut all this stuff out and diet to lose weight. The tendency is I gotta get in shape, I gotta, you know, go really hardcore, I'm gonna go out and spend money on a bike and a gym membership and all that stuff. You're you're absolutely right with your point. Start small and build from there. So whether that is a couple of 20-minute walks every week and build from there, and then starting to do some body weight exercises that you can very easily uh learn about on the internet that most coaches probably have in their dry land wheelhouse themselves. Yes, yeah, we completely agree on start small and build up, don't start too big. So maybe my example was a little bit too big. Um, and I will amend that for future talks.
SPEAKER_01You do whatever, you do whatever you want. Uh I'm just nitpicking. Um I got you. Um anything else uh on this topic that you think is really important for people to know, or and especially from your own experience.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I I think, you know, I we I I talked about all these things where I I feel are culture changes that are needed in our sport. Excuse me. And um another culture change that I think is one that most people will scoff at is let's do let's do it.
SPEAKER_01I love I love doing stuff that people will scoff at. That's one of my top uh top things on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00And I it's a simple thing that I think most people will scoff at. And that's we we there's plenty of research out there that shows you shouldn't be eat past 8 p.m. shouldn't eat a meal after 8 p.m. And then most coaches are on deck past 8 p.m. Then they have to wait for the pool to clear out and the kids to get picked up, get in a car, drive home. You know, what time is it, nine, ten o'clock by the time they get home and they're thinking about what they're gonna have for dinner?
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00If they're really, really disciplined, they've prepared a meal in advance that's healthy and they can eat. But even eating a healthy meal in many ways that late is not good for you. It's again, it's gonna screw with your sleep patterns and it's not going to be uh ideal for you. So the thing that I think needs to change is it needs to be a little bit more acceptable for a coach who is daily working past 8 p.m. to either step off of deck and allow the assistant coaches to take care of practice for that time, or have a meal prepared and eat while practice is going on. Now I know that's something that would look really bad, but again, this is an instance where a coach needs to put themselves first. Yeah, and I think you know, find time during warm-up. And I don't want to say eat quickly because that's just as bad as eating late. Um take the time to chew your food.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, but but you know, that's that's something that I think uh a parent might might have a problem with, that an athlete might have a problem with. But at the same time, I'm sure most athletes, you know, uh if you're running a three-hour workout, you want that consumer to to get some nutrition during that workout.
SPEAKER_03It's the same thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um I I think that would go to helping overall wellness for for coaches, especially the ones that are in that situation. Now, if you get off deck at six o'clock and you're home by seven and your meals prepared, great. Right. But I think most coaches, eighty percent at least, fall into the I don't get home until well after eight o'clock category on a nightly basis.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, and I think, you know, so I I'm sure you you say people scoff at it. I I also think there's probably people listening that are that go like, oh man, these are some really idealist solutions, you know, like ha we can't do that where I am or whatever. Um people who are listening to this podcast will they'll be listening to it about a week after um a podcast um uh I recorded that's that's going up on uh that went up on Friday, September 13th. Um and a guest on there who was a volunteer coach at NC State. And I had always heard about NC State that there was a really nice atmosphere there in terms of they were doing something elite and they were working really, really hard. Um, but they had uh intentionally designed some of it uh to be family friendly, and I'd never really heard about how that worked. And uh so my conversation with him was the first time I'd heard that you know, when morning practice finished at NC State, it's like everybody's kids were were milling around, and um uh coaches were immediately able to sort of transition to a parent role. They left for a period of time and you know, got kids to school, got kids breakfast, like did something else. Um and ultimately I I think there is there's a risk there, but there's also a huge reward. I think um one of the things that's gone really well for them is they've been able to hire and retain really, really good people. Um and I think you know, if you're running a club, you should look at this as an advantage. Maybe um maybe you can't pay the highest salary in your area or in the country, but you can tell you know potential people that you're hiring, hey, you're gonna be treated really well here. I really care about your well-being. And I've intentionally set up your job in a way that um that uh should uh should help you do that.
SPEAKER_03Um so I I think there's something in there.
SPEAKER_00There's a great quote from Richard Branson, uh uh creator of the Virgin Empire. Yeah and I'm paraphrasing him because I don't have the quote in front of me, but he basically said, Would you rather train really good people and have them leave or not have well-trained people and have them stay?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, and then on top of that, I you know, some of the best coaches in the country follow that. I remember reading a a uh a transcript of a talk that Eddie Reese gave, and we're talking probably late 90s, where he gave this talk, and and he talked about going to his kids' school um and having lunch with them at school because of how much time he was away from other aspects of their life. He found a way in his schedule to connect with his children. And hey, kudos to that school for allowing that to happen as well. Um, I know that Greg Mahan at uh Stanford regularly takes a day off. Um, and I know there's plenty of other coaches that do that. Now, that's we I talked about this in my there's a big difference between what's going on at a top-level Division I school, Texas, Stanford, NC State, and what happens at a mid-major school where the coach might have a part-time assistant coach making $27,000 just out of college, as I was at Bighamton.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, and then there's a big difference between a large club team like I have with over 300 swimmers and 14 coaches on staff, most of them are part-time but still have a lot of coaches, and a smaller club that doesn't that where a head coach isn't just coaching the high school swimmers, they're coaching other groups as well, because they don't have the bodies to do that. But you know, there you you've gotta work with your staff and you've gotta work with whoever is controlling the program, be it the head coach as the coach owner, or a board, or as it's known institutionally owned, be it owned by a university or someone's running that program, and everybody needs to sit down and and put health and wellness for coaches at the top of their priority list so that and then and and everyone understands that we have got to pick each other up. Instead of rolling your eyes when a coach says, Hey, you know, my son's uh karate belt ceremonies on Saturday, I gotta leave practice early. Someone should be ready to pick it up and say, Don't worry about it, I've got it. Do you need to come in at all? Or want me to cancel or not cancel, uh, handle practice for you that time. Knowing full well that when you need time away, right, someone's gonna pick you up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That culture needs to be established in every program in the United States.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and furthermore, you know, this and I said this and I mean no disrespect to the people that the great people that were doing it. And it was some of the best people in our sport. At I saw it at Short Course Nationals this past December, where you know, they're talking about coach wellness, hashtag coach wellness. And there were people coach a handful. When I say a handful, I mean not nearly a significant percentage of the coaches that were at the meet that were getting together before warm-up uh at the hotel and going for a walk or going for a run. And that's great that those guys were organizing that. But where have you seen anything about coach wellness since then? Yeah, and it's too much of a buzzword. And buzzwords are things that people like to talk about because they rile people up and they get people interested. Yeah, but buzzwords don't necessarily result in action. And we've got to take coach wellness from a from buzzword status to action status. And that's why I really, really want hope that the people are that are listening to this and the people that were at Isca are going back at the very least to the coach chair in their LSC, uh in their LSCs on their on their boards and talking to them about what we can do within our LSC to promote coach wellness. And it starts with with the education. Not not necessarily go following through with all these recommendations because I don't know that they're right. And they're not going to work in every part of the country. Right. Um, but we need to start acting on this because we you can look at swimming world online or swim swam, and far too often we're seeing stories of a coach who is sick or passes away before their time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whether it be a high school coach who isn't involved in USA swimming or a USA swimming coach in their 60s. I I I I said before, I'm uh a few days away from my 42nd birthday, and I don't want to think that I that I only have you know less than 30 years left. That's not that's not my intention at all.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00But if we're gonna keep cutting that candle up and burning it all over the place and not eating right and not exercising and not taking care of our mental well-being the right way, that's where a lot of coaches are gonna go.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So call upon USA swimming and the LSCs and Isca and Ask to act on this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Do something. Um anything, like I said, even if it's the uh 420-minute walk version uh of whatever they do, it's better than nothing. You know, you've got to start somewhere. Um thank you, uh, Matt, uh, for this conversation and for um your honesty, your vulnerability. Um I think it brings a lot to this topic.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for for allowing me to have a place to talk about it. It's something that I'm very passionate about and I'm ready to wave this banner because it's it's too important to us and it's too important to the sport.
SPEAKER_01All right, great. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. And that's it for this week on the swim brief. I have taken a little bit of a break from writing. I've been traveling a lot. Actually, I'm in Houston right now, and I got stuck overnight by the uh tropical storm in Melda. Um, but I'm hoping to get back home today to my wonderful family and take a little time off the road. In the meantime, uh I want to urge actually people to go over this really important uh stuff going on right now at Irv uh Muchnik's blog. Uh you can find it at concussioninc.net. Uh you can read a series about some stuff that's going on down in Tampa, Florida. I won't s uh tell you too much more. I think you should sort of go for yourself. Um, but I I want to send people there. Uh for other great uh swimming conversations, go to Chris Dcoach.com. That's C H R I S D asindesantiscoach.com. Um plenty of archived stuff there for you to look at. And um I'm gonna keep rolling here with the swim brief. Uh I've got some really good stuff coming up in the next few weeks, so uh sit tight for that and uh see you then.