The Swim Brief

Debrief: Jeana Kempe

• Chris DeSantis

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The head coach of Swimming and Diving at the University of Illinois Jeana Kempe joins to talk influences and the path of her coaching career. 

SPEAKER_02

Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I'm Chris DeSantis, and today on the Swim Brief, it is my pleasure to welcome the head coach of women's swimming and diving at the University of Illinois, Gina Kemp.

SPEAKER_01

You got it. Gina, how are you? It was perfect. I'm good. Thanks for having me. I'm really I'm excited. I'm excited to chat.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, as usual, I was like, you know, just about to hit record and I went, I better make sure I I know how to pronounce your name. I messed up your name when we met at the uh CSCAA conference, I guess a month ago. And uh, you know, I was like, oh God, nervous, nervous, nervous, and and and rehearsing that moment. But we got it. We nailed it.

SPEAKER_01

We got it. You nailed it. As I said, I think people have been saying my name wrong my entire life. I for good or bad, I've stopped correcting them just because I'm like, you know what? It's yeah, it's Gina. But you want to call me Jenna or Gianna or Genie or whatever, it's Gina. It's okay. My last name, my maiden name was always hard. So I've just come to learn that that's that's part of it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. You know what? It's all the G-I-N-A Gina's out there that's messing it up for you. You know, people have a have a predominant spelling that they want for the name, and you just you have a slightly atypical spelling, and then your mo your your mind just breaks.

SPEAKER_01

I know. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02

People get confused. Okay. Let's get into it right away.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Uh because people have been people have been on my case. I don't know if you know this. I think I told you this when we met. People have been on my case to get you here on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

You did tell me that, but I was shocked by it.

SPEAKER_02

People are always shocked when they hear that. But it is actually true that, like, you know, actually for the majority of guests, it'll usually be an accumulation of people that I meet that's like, oh, you gotta have this person on. Yeah. So the good news for you is that like you have peers that think well of you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Even the people who already maybe know some of the stuff you're gonna say today, yeah, they're interested. I'm excited to be. I'm I'm fascinated, Gina, with coach origin stories. So, you know, tell us. Tell us, uh, you know, like I just watched Batman Begins. You know, what's the Gina camp Batman Begins story? Yeah. Where's the start?

SPEAKER_01

My origin story. Origin story, I I don't even think coaching was in anything I wanted to do ever. Loved swimming, loved it from the age of nine. I've never I was a gymnast, like I dabbled with gymnastics. I was nice kind of good, and then I wasn't good. Like it was once things got scary, I wanted nothing to do with it. And so I started swimming and I loved swimming. Like there was no other sport for me. I've always was a swimmer. I think I'm always going to have that in my DNA. But I just like coaching was never a part of that, you know. When I graduated from you, I really struggled in school. Like, school was really hard for me. Maybe not high school, but college was really hard for me. And um, I had an academic advisor and an academic coach at UCLA that were amazing and really helped me get through school, guide me, teach me all these skills, which is really helpful. And I was like, man, I want to do that. That's what I want to do. I was dead set on being involved with academics in some capacity, whether it was counselor, um, academic advisor, all these things. And I got my graduate assistant position at Northern Arizona in academic advising. I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm gonna get to try it out, all these things. I think I'm I in it for like six months. I hated it, hated it so much. Um, it's a lot of work. And now I know even more, like after being in college athletics, like how hard academic advising can be with like retention and matrixes and all this stuff about like making sure everyone's on their degree progress. And like, I want nothing to do with that. So when I got to Northern Arizona, Andy Johns was like, hey, I would love for you to coach the club team. I needed to make some extra money. Flagstaff is a very expensive place to live, especially Yes. Yeah, it's really expensive. It's like where everyone has their second homes, right? And I'm this this grad student trying to make ends meet. So coach the eight and unders, which was so fun. It got me a little bit to dabble with with swimming, even though I was really trying to find my way away from swimming at that time. But then it turned out like I hated academic advising. And so Andy was like, hey, like what if swimming and diving helps pay your grad school? And you in return, I guess I was GA or volunteer, whatever, whatever it was at the time, and uh and and do that. And I was like, it sounds better. So I was coaching and helping Andy coach. I wasn't really the he had Dave Rollins was the assistant at the time.

SPEAKER_02

So it was friend of the pod, Dave Rollins, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And Dave, and then I was just kind of I did whatever I was told, whether that was just like setting up practice, I don't even remember. Um, and then I coached the club team, but then I in the athletic department, I was working the front desk, I was doing fundraising events. That's how I met my husband. And just I I had probably had my hand in everything in the athletic department. So I knew a little bit about all things. And Dave left to go to Ohio State, I'm pretty sure at the time, if I remember correctly. And Andy was like, You want to try it? I was like, sure. I want a job, I need to stay. And that's how I fell into coaching. I don't think I ever, it was ever the path that I was trying to be on.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, interesting. I mean, that's uh not necessarily what I was expecting, but I think it parallels, you know, where a lot of us come into it. I mean, you know, I can still remember telling my parents I wanted to be a swim coach as a profession and just the crushed look on their face. Because I think it's looking back, you know, and being a parent myself now, it's like it's it's a tough profession. It's a tough profession to make your way in as a career. Yeah and so I think that does impact the way that even us kind of like swimming junkies, we look at it because we think like it's not really practical. So many, many coaches, I think, just don't start necessarily with that as the goal. Perhaps, perhaps for that reason. I don't know what your reasons were. You know, you just had other interests.

SPEAKER_01

And maybe I just realized like maybe I need to be a part of it again. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's a juicy uh statement for a follow-up. I mean, did you have a were you I don't even know about it? Did you have a bad experience swimming in college?

SPEAKER_01

Like, were you No, I had the greatest experience swimming in college. I like day in and day out, I would stand by like my four years at UCLA, actually five, four and a half years at UCLA, greatest four and a half years. I loved everything about college swimming. I think I was just to the point of starting at nine, and that's really all I ever did. I think I was just like, I was ready to see if there was something else that was there that I just didn't know. I think that's more of what it was. I was just ready to spread my own wings away from the sport and away from being Gina the swimmer and like be Gina and not as a tied to it. I think it was more than anything.

SPEAKER_02

Uh you were, of course, at UCLA swimming for Cindy Gallagher. I've had a couple missed appointments with Cindy to get her on this podcast. I'm dying to get it. And I I have to admit, like emotionally, I was very touched watching her receive an award at the CSCAA uh meeting that we were at, mainly because I could it it it really brought to the front to me how influential she's been and like how many people just look up to her or you know are now in the coaching ranks and like basing up. Talk about how that experience swimming at UCLA informed who you are as a coach.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, I think well, I I think like so fondly of UCLA. I mean it's UCLA, right? Like I think unless maybe maybe unless you yeah, unless you've been there, unless you like went to school there, you don't you don't necessarily know and understand, but it's UCLA. Like it's beautiful. It's the people, like all the student athletes are at the top caliber of what they do. I think when I was there, I mean, I women's golf won a national title, basketball was at two final fours, women's gymnastics were always competing for national titles, softball won a national title. I was there. I think there was one year that we had like six national titles in a year when I was there. And it was just being surrounded by those student athletes. And then I also think about like the coaches that Cindy was surrounded by, Sue Enquist, um, Valerie Condos Fields with gymnastics, and then and then Cindy. And I'm sure that there were plenty of other ones that were, you know, even at that level. And um, it was just, it was surreal. It was like no matter where you were, you were around it. And Cindy, Cindy was like that, right? Like she just Cindy cared so much about yes, swimming, swimming fast, being successful. She's highly competitive, even though she comes across as maybe like maybe she's not. She just wanted, she wanted to kick everybody's butt. She really wanted to do that. And uh, but yet you knew like Cindy really cared about you. Like I knew Cindy cared about me graduating and having good grades and getting some of my life together, maybe because I didn't always have it together my freshman year. And but she she did she I cared tremendously and uh single mom at the time. Um, and you know, Tori would be on the pool deck, and Tori would be here and just watching her handle those things and how she went about leading a group of women, right? And just like how she did that. I mean, I think that's ultimately I can look back and be like, man, that's kind of why I want to coach. My club coach was the same way. I don't know if you know Mary Liston. She coached, yeah. So Rockwood Swim Club, everybody knows Mary. And, you know, I was really fortunate to have Mary as a club coach. And she was just like the beginning of my female coaching experience. And Mary, Mary's kind of a, I don't know if I could say this, but she's kind of a hard ass, or she was. And she's very counterculture too, right?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, like, Mary's not afraid to go against the grain.

SPEAKER_01

Not afraid and not not afraid to like call spade a spade, right? Like if you're not doing the things that you say you want to do for your goals, I mean, she's just gonna flat out tell you. And I always loved that about her. I don't know if that's necessarily my personality. I can't do it the way Mary does. And Cindy didn't do that the way that Mary does. And so it's been, you know, I've seen it modeled differently. But those two women in my life, I mean, they've been, they've been paramount in all of the good, the bad, like they've been there to see it all. And I think, you know, they're a huge reason of why I I love coaching now for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you've inspired me. I gotta get Mary on here because last time I met her, I mean, she was telling her some stories about, I mean, early in her career being a college swim coach. And I mean, like in those days, Mary stood out as a college swim coach. She really did. And I think it it's though I listening to those, I'm not gonna step on them because I think it it's they're Mary's stories to tell, but they they had a big impact on me. Coming back to you and sort of the progression of your coaching career. Like I'm I'm doing my research for this, I'm looking across your bio. I mean, it's an it's a factor of coaching that sometimes you gotta be a little bit itinerant. And you had you had a bunch of stops on the way to becoming a head coach.

SPEAKER_01

I did.

SPEAKER_02

You really did.

SPEAKER_01

It's funny because like sometimes people look at that as like red flags, like, oh, you've been so many places, but I don't know. I just yeah, I I have also looked at it as like, man, I have so many tools in my tool belt, right? Like I've worked for so many different people. I've seen, I actually haven't worked for so many different people, but I've worked for a handful of different people. And but I've worked with a lot of different assistants. I could say that. I've worked with a lot of different assistants, and I think I could tell you now I've learned something from every single one of them, good and bad. And I hope they've from the same from me, right? And I don't know, I just feel like that's that's a good thing sometimes.

SPEAKER_02

If if you could go back in time, um, I mean, and just what was the motivation? So what drove you to go from one place to the next? What was behind those decisions?

SPEAKER_01

Probably a little bit like at the time the grass is greener, or like how do I keep getting right? Like I think that competitiveness and like that that being the swimmer and like the student athlete of like always wanting to be a little bit better and be around more elite athletes and how that goes uh was probably the initial factor in the beginning, right? Like going from Northern Arizona and Andy Johns, who Andy Johns, if you want someone on a podcast like Andy, he's he's awesome. And I learned so much from him and I was so grateful to have him as my first head coach that I worked for. I learned so much and I did a lot, a lot there. But then also when you get the opportunity in the SEC at LSU, like, how do you say no to that? I don't know. That was really hard for me to say, like, I don't know, I think I'm gonna stay at Northern Arizona. It's like, no, you're gonna go to LSU, you're gonna love Baton Rouge, worked with Dave Geyer and and once again learned so much, got to work with my own group. I wasn't working with my own group per se at Northern Arizona, but just getting some trial and error as a coach, like on my own, was amazing. And at the time, my parents were living in Florida, my husband's parents were living in Florida. So for us, going from Arizona to Louisiana kind of made sense. Like it did bring us exponentially closer to our family. And so that was really good. I mean, my husband and I got married in Baton Rouge. He moved with me from Arizona and we did that. Oh my gosh, you want to talk about moves? Like he has more moves under his belt. And I am a military kid. So like moving for me was okay, it's been two years. When's the next thing coming on? So that was real, I mean, that was really good. And then I felt like similar with Auburn. It's like, man, it's Auburn.

SPEAKER_02

I know, right?

SPEAKER_01

That is the pinnacle. Like I wanted to go to Auburn when I was younger, right? Like Auburn and Georgia were just like, how do you go there? I wanted to be Mimi Bowen, right? Like that's who I wanted to be. She was like swimming idol. And now I get to coach under the flags and banners that she raised. Like, wow. So that was pretty, a pretty neat experience. And um, I, you know, even I think when we moved to South Carolina, it was like, well, Jeff's been so successful. What can I learn from Jeff? And and how does that work? And so I think some of it has been like that urge to keep learning is like and moving and learning from others more than it probably has been anything.

SPEAKER_02

I'm totally with you on the Auburn thing. I mean, I was uh my last college coaching stop, I was coaching at Georgia Tech. And so we were maybe like a 90-minute drive away from Auburn. Those two schools are pretty close. And uh I think it's for the best that I never got a job there. I mean, Brett Hawk currently has me blocked on social media. Yeah. So I don't I don't think we would have gotten along that well if we'd spent more than like, you know, a few hours together. But I just remember like, you know, trying a few times with with my wife being like, could could we move to Auburn, Alabama? And her being like, no.

SPEAKER_01

What a different place. I mean, and and everyone that has ever been to Auburn or lived in Auburn will will attest. Like, there's no place like it. It's like almost utopic. It's kind of wild. And we still have great friends in Auburn and our neighbors, you know, we still keep in touch. And I think that's just it's very Midwest in the South. And that's unless you're a Midwesterner, you don't really understand that. But there's a lot of similarities.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I just to defend my wife, she was not objecting to Auburn, the town. It's um she's she was an architect at the time, so we we more or less professionally had to be in major urban centers. So Atlanta made a lot more sense than Auburn, Alabama for Yeah, because it's a little different for sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay, you become head coach, you've just passed four years in the job. Yes. At Illinois.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, crazy. Starting my fifth year already.

SPEAKER_02

I know. I feel like this is where I'm getting old too. I'm like, oh, Gina just got hired.

SPEAKER_01

You know, like and I haven't.

SPEAKER_02

It's been a minute. It's been a minute. But it's still not too late to ask you this question. What are your reflections on kind of the biggest differences between being an assistant and a head coach? You had all these stops as an assistant coach. Now you've been you've been the big boss for four years. What are the biggest differences?

SPEAKER_01

It's hard. Like being a head coach is hard. And I know, right? Yes, it's so hard. And I think people, you know, it's like being a parent. Like you you never know if you're ready until you just do it. And I feel like being a head coach is pretty similar at this point. Like, I don't I think I had all the tools and I and I had a little bit of everything. Was I ready? I don't know. I think I think I was, but I think it's just been, it's been a whirlwind. The first year was just like drinking from a hot fire hose. And I know that self-expression or that like expression is used a lot. Literally felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. Every day was just like marking off the to-do list. What's next? What's next? And before I realized it, it was January and we were still going. And now it's funny because four years later, I don't have that feeling anymore. However, hiring a new assistant was like drinking from a fire hose because I've never done it before. And so there's a lot of things, even as like a first-time head coach, that four years later you realize, haven't done that, haven't done this. And so I do find that to be kind of crazy that even four and five years later you're still doing things that you've never done. But I think the hardest part is the decisions all the time. Everything is a decision. Everything, big and small, always come across your desk. You always have to have the answer. I find that a little bit exhausting. Like I think you can have decision fatigue and always wanting to make it sure it's right. I think that's where I struggle the most as a head coach. Is like, is this right? Well, it it's not always gonna be right. And I just have to be very steadfast in it and I have to be very confident in that decision. And sometimes I'm wrong. And I gotta learn from that and and grow. So I think that's been the hardest part of being a head coach. That and like mentoring the staff. And all of a sudden, like you're not it's not just you. Like you are also responsible for these other people to help them in their career and and and and push them and hold them accountable and also have fun with them, right? Like, so I I have found that to be, I think that's been a huge challenge for me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's I it's you know, not only the decisions, but then everybody's gonna second guess your decisions, right? I mean, like pretty much everybody else, all the people who are not actually accountable for the decisions. I used to say this when I was an assistant coach, I I guess I'm giving myself credit, I at least had enough forethought to say this to my boss at the time at Georgia Tech, uh, Courtney Hart. Because I could see her getting frustrated with, you know, athletes second guessing her, us as assistant coaches second guessing her. And I think one one time I just sat with her and I said, like, Courtney, just so you know, like the rest of us don't have to live with the consequences of our hypothetical decisions. I can sit here and go, things would have been so much better if Courtney had just done this and this and that, but like I just get to create that for a fantasy world. You actually make decisions and like bear the brunt of responsibility. So just like, you know, be proud of yourself a little bit. I know it's hard.

SPEAKER_01

I look back on things that I might have said or thoughts that I had, and I like cringe at myself and be like, Gina, why? No, need to go back and say I'm sorry. You know? So yeah, you're right. And I think that's the I I often look at my assistants and be like, Well, you're not the one that has to sit in the chair and actually do that. So let's let's have another conversation.

SPEAKER_02

You're not gonna be talking to our AD later if this completely blows up. That's gonna be me.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02

Right?

SPEAKER_01

We don't have those situations though, so that's okay.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, no, no, no, that that kind of stuff doesn't happen in Illinois. I know, I know. Speaking specifically of Illinois, and I think you're particularly, given some of the history that we've just discussed, like you're really equipped to answer this question because I think you spoke to it that you know everything's every situation is a little bit different. You have these experiences in different places, and although, you know, structurally the thing that you're doing can be the same. Oh, it's swimming. We have practice, we go to the pool, we go to the weight room, you know, meets on Saturdays, each institution presents its own challenges, it presents its own they have strengths as well, right? They have things that are, you know, that can turn into that are advantages, they can turn into even bigger advantages over time if you know what to do. So in Illinois, how are you tailoring the way you coach specifically to the strengths and limitations of that institution?

SPEAKER_01

Of of our program and institution. I think you know, even from just from a training perspective, I think about, you know, year one, we did something from a weekly cycle, and then year two and year two, we did something different, like we tweaked it. Year three and four, we finally did the same thing two years in a row. And my heart of like organization was like, yes, we have two years in a row where we're doing the same thing, got completely different results, which is kind of crazy to think about. And then in year five, we've already like tweaked it again. So I do think from that perspective, for us, it's just been learning still and learning and growing, and like whose whose strength and coaching is where and whose weakness and how we like keep manipulating that a little bit. But I do think Illinois is a is a really highly academic school. And our girls are very high academics, um, mostly engine well, not mostly engineers, but we have three to four engineers on the team, and we have a ton of business majors in the team. Of people that go exercise science or MCB and want to do PA school, PT school afterwards. And that's just how they're wired. And so I think the biggest adjustment for me is tailoring to coach those women and women that can be very high stress in all facets of their life and not needing swimming to be another stressor, right? In a in a place that they can still still find happiness and it's success. And I have planned a lot of like how we do our meets around big, big test weeks for them. Um if I know midterms are here, I tend to stay away from that. You know, our first couple years we tried to go to a mid-season meet after Thanksgiving. Terrible idea because of finals. Uh so just like little things like that have been eye-opening. We tend to train in the mornings as our as our bigger practice or go every morning because of class conflicts. And it just always I was gonna go there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

I I think that's been, I don't know. I kudos to to the former head coach because she would run makeup practices all the time and and do that. And I was just like, I don't know if I can sustain constantly doing makeups. And I had told the staff, I'm like, obviously, we let's let's accommodate and we're gonna work with it, but let's find the schedule that allows for us to all be together because coaching a single gender program. I think being together is super important. And once you start breaking up a lot, and I think that's not good for women per se. So I think there's things like that at Illinois that I would say that we've really figured out from an academic standpoint how to get the best out of our teen.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, I think there's a critical mass in terms of people out of practice. Not that you can't do some amazing things with a small group of people situationally, but I really saw this when I went abroad and I coached in Denmark. It was very, very common that you would have like a whatever you want to call it, senior group, national group, whatever your top group on your club program of like 10, 11, or 12 swimmers. It was brutal to try to get something going, like sort of team spirit culturally in a small group like that. It was really, really hard. I feel like 20 is kind of the magic number when you just have there's something that changes in the chemistry when you when you get up to that amount of people all together doing the same thing at the same time that you can't recreate in in smaller groups.

SPEAKER_01

I think it just allows for you to like cross other people, right? And we're 24 swimmers on our roster and six divers. So it's nice. We're three to a lane, like we have all this space. But then when we break out, I mean, you what you have like three distance swimmers doing a mile or set over here, and then you've got your nine sprinters, and those two groups can feel really small very quickly if you're only training in those groups. So the importance, like we are we have always been better together in our program. The practices, meets, like the whole thing. We've always been better together.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that distance group that's dangerous. I mean, one person gets sick and then the other two don't get along with each other, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you just got sometimes I think like maybe this is like the wooden ism in me. Like, yes, you you've gotta like, you've gotta love the work, but I do think you have to like kind of love the people that you do it with. You don't have to love them all the time and all of the things, but you do have to love the grind with them and they need to help you through that. Like that's really important.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. No, I I say all the time when I'm out working with teams, and you know, my work is almost solely focused from a uh uh psychological perspective. And I tell people it we're so lucky in swimming that we actually organize things in on big teams because it's it is really an individual sport. It could very easily be the teams could be like way smaller. It could be and and I think it would be to the great detriment of a lot of the people, like it would not have the same quality of experience as they get, just being in a in a bigger group and being able to bounce off more people and you know, and finding your people within that structure.

SPEAKER_01

Could you imagine if our rosters were 18, like most of our scoring rosters are at conference, and that was all you had, like no reserves, eighteen scores.

SPEAKER_02

You're bringing up controversial topics, Gina.

SPEAKER_01

I just I feel like that that's like such a small group. I wouldn't even know how to handle 18. It's funny, like talking to our women's basketball coach, they only have 15, and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so little.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, like like I said, like you you just it the smaller the group gets, the more likely it is that you know, some dynamics can just by nobody's fault at all, can kind of fall apart, or you're just not getting along with you know this person or that person. Um people drop off here or there. It's it gets really, really tricky. Uh really hard. Let's let's broaden out. I mean, you're in the big I can't why c w why when I come to say the name of your conference, I mean I want to call it the Big Ten, but like they changed that symbol to like the B1 team. Are we still calling it the Big Ten Conference, even though it has like 14 teams? Like what what can I get an official ruling on that?

SPEAKER_01

It's um it's always gonna be the Big Ten.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Am I supposed to I'm not supposed to call it like the big conference, right? Oh well, I don't think so, but I'm outing myself as like out of touch with this group.

SPEAKER_01

It will always be the Big Ten to me, just like the Pac will always be the Pac 10. Like I will never be RAP. Yeah. I can't even like get the Pac 12 out of my mouth. So like it's always gonna be the Big Ten.

SPEAKER_02

It's always gonna be the big R.A.P. Pac-10.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sad. Anyway, one of the challenges that you face is your coaching at a school where even if you have a lot of improvement, if you're really moving things within your team, the hierarchy within that league is is strongly entrenched, right? It's huge.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

How do you how do you measure progress then? How do you keep yourself focused, evaluating, like, okay, we're headed in the right direction, we're we're catching up or we're getting to where we want to be. How do you look at that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it I think it's been it's been hard, right? Like, I think we've had so much internal success within our program in the last three and four years, which has been so awesome. And I just, it's been really hard as a very highly competitive person to be like, oh man, you don't see that all the time on the outside, but we know it on the inside, right? Like we know we've broken all these school records. Like we've rewritten our top 10 in history. I feel like something that our athletic director talked to me about on my interview was he's like, Gina, I want you to write your chapter. And I want this to be a huge chapter and and and the biggest chapter of Illinois Swimming, which was such a cool picture in my mind. And so I'm like, how fast can I do that? And I felt like we did that. And Chris, like, you gotta think this is, I think this is kind of a cool stat, and maybe this is normal, but um when I was hired, like, think about our 200 and 400 medley relay from those times that when I was hired in four years, we've gone faster than that, like 15 times on both of those relays. Like our top 10 lists are only relays that we've ever swum since I've been hired and since our staff took over. And I think just like things like that, I mean, that's crazy, you know? Um, that took 20 years for them to do before. And we've done that in four. And I'm very, I'm very excited about that. And I think the way I best describe where I feel like we are as a program right now is, you know, when you're like filling up your water cup and you're like, how many more drops until it all like spills? Is I'm like sitting there with the I what are the it's not a beaker. What would that be called? The like the eye. A dropper. A dropper. A dropper. And I'm like, okay, that one, that one, that one. And and just like we're just on the brink of that. And you can feel it at practice and you can see it. And we're also in this territory that now in this program, every time we're at our best is a school record. Like now we, now we're we're creating a new path. Like we've kind of figured out the old path, and now we're creating a new one and having the women, we're kind of trekking that together and doing that together and and and doing all these things. And so I think that's been, it hasn't been a challenge, but it's definitely been different. Is how do we go from there? And we keep focusing on ourselves because I do think, like in the end, like you always want to be the best version of yourself. That's how we're gonna keep getting better. And now, how do we take the best version of ourself and compare it to others and know that swimming is time-based, right? Like it's black and white. Like that does not the scoreboard does not lie. And we need to go 156 in the two pack, right? Like, and you need to do these things in order to get better and and and have that depth. And so it's been nice. And I think that's the next step that we're taking. We actually, really cool thing about Illinois is our head coaches are pretty close. And we do a lot of collaborating. And this summer with the girls that are here training, we've done like a leadership thing over the summer. And our soccer coach talked to us last week about mental preparation, setting the tone all the time, just about all the thoughts that you can talk talk to yourself about, setting neutral thoughts and not positive or negative, but like bringing it back and centering it. And then our women's basketball coach talked to the team this week. It's just about day-to-day, like be great every day and all the choices that you can make in a day to help you get to that end goal. Um, we have our assistant volleyball coach, who's an Olympian, is talking to the team about imposter syndrome and like being steadfast in who you are and the work that you've done to be prepped for that. And then we have one more series that our head Olympic strength coach is talking to the team with our assistant throwing coach, Deanna Price, who's world champion Olympian. And um, they're just gonna talk about what it means to be strong women in the weight room and how they can be leaders in the weight room and what that looks like day to day. So we do a lot of really cool things like that. We've done this two summers in a row. I think there's so much value in what that looks like. And so helping us take that next step, right? Like, how do we, how do we get out of the bottom? Because that's the reality. And we talk about that. Like we have to keep working and we have to outwork other people and we have to be smarter, and it can't just be always in the pool.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I just listening to it, and I really am a believer in it takes a village, and it's so interesting to me that that's what you're describing. Like, that's not typical. That's not typical that an athletic department would have that kind of, you know, cross-pollination, especially even with with it's like with athletes. It's one thing for you guys as coaches to be getting around and talking to each other, but actually having your athletes exposed to coaches from other programs, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01

That's so cool. Cause you know, they they look up to those coaches, like they look up to Coach Green with women's basketball. I mean, like she's crushing it and they they love her. And so then to have her in front of them, they're like, oh man, this is awesome. Um, you know, our our women's basketball staff, they actually sat in on um fall practice with football last year, just learned how Coach B like runs his staff meetings, run their team meetings, like what do their day-to-day look like? I think there's a lot of that in our department, which is why Illinois as an athletic department, I think is just like on the rise and how we've done a lot of things a little bit different. And we have really great leadership in our department.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and that's an investment that, like, as everybody else is talking about, like, oh, we need more money, money, money, money, money, money. That doesn't really cost money.

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_02

It's a cultural shift, right? It's a cultural shift. It's it's a reallocation of the resources that you already have. And I think, you know, sometimes with the conversation so dominated by money, we start to get tunnel vision and we think like, oh, we just need more. I mean, Illinois's not going to turn into Ohio State tomorrow, you know, and get that kind of budget to throw at things. But you want to compete anyway. And so your task is to think about, okay, what can we do here versus trying to emulate a formula that is maybe just not even replicable for us.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And it's not, it's not how we operate operate as a department. And, you know, we or university. Yeah, or a university.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_01

And we talk about that a lot in our head coaches' meetings. It's like, hey, this is how we're going to operate and this is how we're going to do things in our department. And we all fall in line with that pretty well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Speaking of culture, I'm giving you the magic wand question. And that is, you know, I I bless you with a wish-fulfilling wand. And, you know, you can just sort of tap it and make any kind of cultural change uh within NCA swimming or power conference swimming. What would you do?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I'm glad that you put me on this one because I I really did need to think about it a little bit. I okay, so one thing I love that the SEC did is they they usually had like a some sort of mandated schedule, whether it was like a home and away. I think I wish our sport had a mandated schedule because every other sport, they have this like big release party, like, here's everybody's teams. This is their home, this is their away. And I just feel like there's an element of that that is really exciting. It's exciting for fans, it's it's exciting for the teams to have that and know, like, okay, we're in the Big Ten. I'm gonna compete against Wisconsin year in and year out. We're always gonna go here and it doesn't matter. I would love that. I would, I would love that. And then, like, hey, you get three out of conference competitions, you get to schedule them, you get to pick. I don't know. I I just think that having that, like, there just be something that's like super tangible that everybody else has. Like every other head coach has that. And I think that would be pretty, I think that would be pretty neat.

SPEAKER_02

I think it, I think I like that idea in the way that it brings parody as well. I mean, one of the things that I've observed uh all the way back to my Georgia Tech coaching days, I got charged briefly with building a schedule. Courtney uh let me know, you know, that she's like, hey, I'm gonna deputize you, kind of work on our schedule for next year. And I was a huge nerd, not now, because obviously now I'm not a nerd anymore, but back in those days, uh, I was a huge nerd. And so I actually like sat down and studied. I thought, like, okay, the top schools, like, what are they doing when they plan a schedule? And I found out like there was there was a lot of nuance there. There was a lot of like they were kind of playing around with that aspect of it. In fact, actually what I saw more than anything was that they weren't competing very much, which was an interesting insight. They were, you know, I think there was, at least at that time, I think it's the culture around it has probably changed in some respects, but I my inference was that a lot of them were going, like, well, we want to preserve bigger blocks of training, so we're not really gonna focus on having like a lot of meets on the schedule. And yeah, I mean, like, I never even until you said that, I never even thought about the fact that like that's just something within our ranks that we have autonomy over. That's not and it's not typical that a that a school would have autonomy over that piece of it.

SPEAKER_01

No. And I wish we did. I think it would be, I don't know, I think it'd be I think it'd be fun. I think it'd be great for our student athletes to have that experience too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. All right, let's get to the personal part of this. Okay. Part where I I ask uh deep probing personal questions that really put you on the hot seat. We've already talked about a couple coaches that were really influential to you that you look up to.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Aside from those two power women, Cindy and Mary, who are some of the coaches out there that you look up to the most? And what do you admire about them?

SPEAKER_01

And like you they might not know this, right? Like it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02

This would be perfect if they don't know this. It'd be so nice to send them.

SPEAKER_01

They'll go like because I think you have like mentors that you like call all the time or whatever, or have a different relationship. And then there's like people you look up to from afar. Um, I might not know them at all. I would say like Matt Leach at Iowa State.

SPEAKER_02

I just I love Matt Leach.

SPEAKER_01

Me too. You know, I just like he's he's been really successful. He's been a lot of places too. Like he's done it, and but I I do love about Matt is like he's picked the right places for him. And he wasn't, yeah, he didn't, he he didn't have to go with the grain or against the grain. And he's he's always figured out how to be successful. And I think that's been pretty cool to watch him, but he's also someone I pick up and call like once a week. I'm like, Matt, what do you think about this? Or hey, Matt, I think one day we went out to lunch. I'm like, tell me all your secrets about sprint training. Like, I just want to know. And so, and and fiery and competitive, and I love getting to see him all the time at Iowa State, and we we did a dual meet there last year, and then they're coming here this year. And so that he's someone that I do look up to, whether it's as a friend, as a mentor, because we we swam at the same time, so we're around the same age. So that's been fun to kind of see. And he worked at LSU under Dave, and so we just have like some of those things that are really similar. So, Matt, and then I would say like Jordan at UCLA. I mean, she's amazing. I I feel so fortunate that she took over my alma mater, and we've probably gotten closer since she took over at UCLA, but she's just I've watched her and her evolution of being a head coach. And she's like a constant, like my constant cheerleader. Like, Gina, you got it. Like, it's okay. Like, hey, you're gonna have ups and downs. Like, you got it. Just keep pushing, like keep doing this. And she's the person that I call if, like, hey, Jordan, I really need some advice. Like, I really need to know how this works. And I've I've looked up to Jordan for a while and she's fantastic. And then Stephanie Yunker at Louisville. I I think she's I think the world of Stephanie, I think the world of Blair at AN, and you know, those are just women in my core group that I've always had in my corner, and I hope I've always been in their corner. And then probably the other one from afar is like Bobby Gentoro. I think he's I love the way he markets their program. I love the way he does things, and it's so different. I could never do what Bobby does. I could never do it that way. I don't think anyone can. I think it's Bobby, that's how Bobby does it. So I I I do admire coaches that are so uniquely themselves, like Brian at Akron. Like they're just, they do what they do, and man, they're good at it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I'm with you there. I I I think one of the misunderstandings I had when I started coaching was, and I think this is a really common thing with people is they start and you know, they look up to people and they want to emulate. And there's there's actually at a core, like from a learning experience, that's probably a good thing to do to kind of try and emulate a little bit on the front end. But over time, what you learn is it's not a matter of emulation. You got to figure out how to coach best within who you are, and and really figure out who you are. And I think knowing some of the people that you're referencing uh better than others, like I I think your your your list there, it's it speaks to it. I mean, I I had Jordan on here, as you know, a few months ago, and I still find myself I mean she was so good on it, such that like people were intimidated afterwards because they were like, Oh my god, I'm gonna have to follow that appearance.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I just found her to be such a breath of fresh air. For me, I was like, oh, this is different, right? This is like this is just a different wrinkle on how to do this that I haven't come across before. And it was really, really inspiring to be a part of that. Okay, we'll we'll stop the Love Fest for now.

SPEAKER_01

Those are good though.

SPEAKER_02

Let's let's flip.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

One of the questions I always want to ask coaches, because I think it's not discussed very much, but God, is it important? Is how do you take athlete feedback, right? Especially in this day and age, we athletes are feeling more and more empowered to tell us what they think, tell us how they're feeling, all that peace. And, you know, sometimes that's a point of frustration for coaches. I I talk to coaches when they're, you know, having their private moments quite a bit. But how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good question. I think feedback, I mean, we'd be remiss to say, like, I'm like, you guys need to be open to feedback, doing all these things, right? And then not being that myself. However, I do find it like it can be feedback in the right way, is always good, right? And and feedback is is making us better. And so I do really welcome it in times. And I think I welcome it in the terms of I get more clarity on where they're coming from. It's like, hey, like I hear you, and I know you don't understand all the reasons that like I did this or whatever, but can you tell me more about your thought process, right? Like getting curious with them and maybe, maybe putting the bridge up. But I do think feedback can can also feel like very threatening, right? Like of, you don't trust me, you don't do all these things. And I and I think in my first two years, I felt that a lot because I was so excited to get going. I'm finally doing my own thing. And then when you get pushback and people ask questions, you're like, you're not supposed to question me. Well, it's really okay. And I, but I've learned that now. And I think I will say I think I've learned that better as the kids that I've recruited have been in the program because I've gotten to know them longer and we've set that expectation a lot earlier. And I always tell them in the recruiting process, like, you're really good for a reason. Like obviously, whatever you and your club coach are doing is really working. And so when you come in, like, let's collaborate, like, let's sit down, let's talk about these things and let's be better together. Right. Um, I think Chloe Diner for me is a huge example of sitting down at the end of the season every year and being like, okay, Chloe, give me your feedback. And she's an engineer, so she's super analytical of all the things. I Am not an engineer. I am also super not analytical, as you might know. Maybe not everyone knows that, but as you might know. And so, like making sure that I truly understand where her feedback's coming from and understanding the why, because the why for her is very paramount in everything that she does. And so I think it's I think I welcome it now in the right setting. I've even, when I send out the end of the year questionnaires and when we are going to have our end of the season meetings, I I asked for feedback on myself of how can I coach them better? Is there something that they need more clarity on? Um, and I felt like that was really helpful this year when I did that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head in there talking about how things have changed as your relationship with the athletes giving you feedback has changed. One of the things that I mean, I work with coaches and I I work with athletes as well. And probably one of the number one things I spend time on with athletes, because I feel like it's just a lost skill, is they they feel in many ways empowered to share feedback more than ever, certainly more than I did when I was, you know, like a teenager.

SPEAKER_01

Right. No. I don't know if I would have felt okay doing this for anybody.

SPEAKER_02

I was I was a little bit of a punk, so I shouldn't say like I was not. I was I was feeling a little bit empowered, but probably more empowered than your average person. But I think what they're often missing is that the relationship that they have with the person they're giving the feedback to completely changes how that feedback is received. I mean, you you referred to Mary earlier, you know, she tells it how it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But somebody might try to emulate that without understanding that the reason why Mary's been able to coach successfully for so many years with that as a strategy is because she has the relationship to deliver that feedback. 100% on the other side of it. And that is a very, very important ingredient. And often, unfortunately, I just think this, like, if you want to talk about magic wand stuff, I would change so much of the youth sports system just does not necessarily bring up athletes in a in a culture where they have the best relationships with the coaches that are that are bringing them in there. And so you have this kind of it's a little bit of a toxic combination where they're saying things that that should be fine in a context where everybody like knows and loves and respects each other, but that's not the context it's being said in. And then you have big problems between athletes and coaches.

SPEAKER_01

And I think I've even found that um this is just talking about like the hierarchy, right? Like you have your sport administrator and then you have me and then you have the team. I have found because our team and I'm sure a lot of programs and departments have to do this, they have like an end-of-the-year like evaluation, right, from your team, and then you get that information. I have found it easier to receive feedback from the team, literally from the team to me, as opposed to from the team to an administrator and then back. Like I would much rather say some them say something to my face so I can ask and understand and like have more clarity than just getting feedback, right? I think there's two ways for me. If I can ask and I can talk about it and make sure that relationship is there and like that communication factor's there, give me feedback all day. That's fine. But you know, as long as it's a conversation and I can ask and learn, um, I think that's important.

SPEAKER_02

That's hard to create though. I mean, that is it is really hard. It's you can ask for it, but but getting it. Yeah. Setting up an environment, it's actually one of the things I work with in some of the work that I do with coaches. I have a whole section where I just talk about like how to create the atmosphere for the exact meeting that you're talking about, where two things I think both you create one where the athletes are like, I feel like I can really say what I think in this meeting, and that you have some kind of boundary on it so it doesn't just snowball into like two hours of like another person being like, and you know what? The oatmeal is always chunky in the dining hall and after morning practice, and that means like I don't enjoy eating, and you're like, okay, we we've lost the plot on what we were trying to do.

SPEAKER_01

We've gone way far away.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Right? We we've we've gotten so unfocused that we're all going to walk away from this super frustrated, but without any kind of like momentum in a direction where you know we want to go. It's like it's like a key relationship skill. I mean, um look, I'm I'm uh 16 years married, and maybe within the last year and a half have finally learned how to have the like conversation, set up lots of conversations where it's like, let's work on this together versus like you're wrong.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know?

SPEAKER_01

Well, boundaries are super healthy, right? Like having boundaries and like knowing your parameters, like you have to, like all the time. I think that's good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, last question about you, okay, Gina. What's your biggest interest outside the sport?

SPEAKER_01

I I have a lot. Maybe I don't know if I have a lot, but I I do, I really I tell our team like I really want them to have lives away from the pool. And so I feel like I have to also have a life away from the pool.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta lead by example. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I and so that's like a big deal. Like, well, one, maybe this goes in said, but I love being a mom. My time with my two girls and my husband, but my time with my two girls is like paramount because you don't get a lot of that. So that's fun. I've got one three-year-old and I've got a 10-year-old, and it's just the dynamic is kind of crazy all the time. But I do love my oldest place softball. And I have loved being a softball mom. It's so fun. It's different. It's different, but I love being outside and I love watching the game, and I love watching like that progress. It's been really fun. Um, and just being able to, it's just a different, just different sport, just different system. I like the coach in me is kind of like, oh, this is cool. Um but I do love that, but I love to garden. Like I've got a huge green thumb. That's like a big thing for me. Um, I want to say I'm like a secret closet homesteader. Like I love I'm I'm I love to cook and I love to garden. And so in the summer, like that's like my happy place, is where I'm at. Yeah. I love to jar and can things. Like, yeah, I'm I'm like one of those women. Well, why?

SPEAKER_02

It's pretty fun. I I'm with you on the kids' sports competitions. A, you know, I I was saying to somebody earlier today, like, I I don't watch pro sports anymore, basically. I'm not a not a pro sports fan. I might be making a comeback as a as a women's pro sports fan because it's I went to a Gotham FC and it's the women's professional soccer league match around here, and it was like, oh, this is what I like about pro sports that I haven't experienced going to some other stuff in a long time. So we'll we'll we'll put a pin in that. I don't know yet, but like another time. The the kids' sports stuff, I mean, on one level, like any sporting event is so enhanced by having an emotional attachment to what's happening. And what could you think of that's like gives you a bigger emotional attachment than watching the person, like the people that you love most in the world play sports? Like it is it is absolutely top tier.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I can see, unfortunately, I can see how a lot of parents kind of lose their minds around youth sports stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I have to really bite my tongue as a coach. Like, and as like by like you get competitive quickly, and I'm like, oh, that's your 10-year-old, not your 18-year-old.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right. Right. I I find it's a great social opportunity to talk to other parents and like, you know, gets me out with a kind of diverse group of people that maybe not necessarily are like people I'm you know friends with or seeing in my community, gets me, gets me talking to them. I I am a bit of a I'm a little bit of a sideline police. Right. I've I've a couple times I've talked to other parents and been like, you know, it's it's not good that you're shouting instructions out on the field right now.

SPEAKER_01

Well, how about like I look at it and I'm be like, look at my husband and be like, I would never recruit that kid based on their parents. Like I would, I I that's a real thing. I would sit there and I watch some of that and I'm like, do I tell them? Do I not? And I'm like, no, that's not my place. Just walk away.

SPEAKER_02

Only a couple times. It's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01

No, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I think it is wild though. The one thing about being this softball mom and like learning a different sport is it has given me some gratitude for swimming, though, because we look at swimming like whether it's summer league, let like swimming lessons, like someone's constantly teaching your kid how to swim. Like you can't just throw your kid in the pool and be like, okay, I see ya. You're always learning how to do it, you're always refining your skills, you're always trying to be better. And you are in so in softball, but it's wild because rec softball, it's like my daughter really wants to learn how to pitch. And they're like, Oh, well, we're not gonna teach her, like, she can do lessons. And I'm like, Isn't that your job as a coach? And and I I just and then that's no knock to anything. Like it's just I mean, maybe it's just the rec league. Um, but it's wild to me that like we're in a sport where you have to always be teaching, always. And there sometimes you just play games, and I like can't wrap my hand my head around that. It's kind of cool, but it's also given me appreciation for it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I think even uh I don't know what you think. My my oldest is a little bit older than yours. My daughter is 12, but I'm kind of realizing something that I mean, this was always true. I just didn't quite put it together, but like she's 12, she can be 13 in December. She's just kind of getting semi-serious about a sport. And then I start to think, like, oh my god, like she's four years away from like looking at colleges. That the period in which from where they sort of reach a developmental stage to where they're potentially getting recruited by somebody like you kind of crazy is so small. Yeah, it is, it's so small, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01

Time can slow down at any point. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_02

I know. It won't.

SPEAKER_01

It doesn't.

SPEAKER_02

Gina, it's been amazing. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so happy you had me on.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, me too. Me too. It's been so fun. It's like one of those uh absolute time flying moments. Uh uh, I'm lucky that I have a uh a running clock in the upwards uh upper corner of what I'm doing. Anything you want to plug, any like uh social media pages you want to send people to a secret blog that you've been publishing but you haven't shared with the people that's about my sourgo bread that I make.

SPEAKER_01

No, I mean I would say obviously, like you can always find us on Instagram. I feel like that's the only thing that I'm really good at when it comes to social media is Instagram, but I try as I have two lives, right? Like I have my coaching life and I have my real life, and I try to blend them together as much as possible. I think just always following our program and us and as a staff, and you know, we're we're actual humans. Like we have more than just posting about our our teams, right? So not too much.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. If anyone wants to reach me for any reason, you want to nominate somebody for the podcast, you want to uh engage me for coaching, whether for you as a coach or an athlete, email me, crdesantis at gmail.com. You can go to my website, Christycoach.com, and you can go to Instagram, Christy underscore coach. And uh I publish this podcast every week. Uh one more thing that I always forget to say is that uh you can donate to support this podcast. Uh in fact, Cindy Gallagher is a donor to this podcast.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Something I very much appreciate her chipping into this whole process. Um so if you want to be a donor too, you can just make a one-time donation. You're you're not gonna get trapped into some kind of subscription, you know, Patreon portal where you forget that you're sending money to the swim brief. If you go to Christycoach.com, you scroll to the middle of the page, uh, you should see a link there uh to do that. And those are always appreciated because they help fund me going to events and meeting people in person like Gina and then having wonderful podcasts like this. So, Gina, thank you one more time.

SPEAKER_01

You're so welcome.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you to everybody for listening, and I'll be back with you guys again in a week.