Book Club: All You Need to Know About Talent Development w/Corey Manley

First podcast of the book club, featuring USA Swimming’s Corey Manley. We discuss previous guest Kristoffer Henriksen’s book All You Need to Know About Talent Development. The book was co-authored with Carsten Hvid Larsen and Louise Kamuk Storm.

Book Club: All You Need to Know About Talent Development w/Corey Manley Chris DeSantis

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I'm Chris DeSantis, and today I am thrilled to be joined once again for the second time, making a second time appearance. He's he's three away from a t-shirt. Corey Manley, who's Corey, I'm about to introduce you here. You've changed jobs a lot recently, and you're back at USA Swimming. Last time we had you on this podcast, you were at USA Swimming, now you're back at USA Swimming. Tell everybody officially what your title is and and say hello to the audience.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah. Well, uh, so what's really changed, right? I was USA swimming before and I'm still USA swimming now. Nothing's changed, right? Uh no, that's uh very accurate uh intro there. Yeah, Corey Manley here, performance scientist at USA Swimming. Thrilled to be your return guest here on the podcast. Yeah, I'm I'm really looking forward to diving into uh today's discussion.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah, but let me hear a little bit about what you're doing, because you know, as a listener, you're you're a faithful listener of the podcast. You know that I also just sort of love to get behind the scenes and into the weeds a little bit. And you and I have corresponded a little bit over email, and even in the pre-discussion here, we stayed away from like too much discussion of what it is exactly your role is with USA Swimming. Greg Meehan on here on the podcast, I made him tell him tell me what all the new folks at USA Swimming were doing. You hadn't come into your role yet. You know, when we last checked in with you, you were behind the scenes crunching data and trying to help USA Swimming better use some of the data that they were collecting to influence, you know, clubs, influence policy at the LSC level, all that piece of it. How much of what you're doing now is is similar to what you're doing before? Or just give the audience an idea of like what exactly it is you do at USA Summit.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, I it's funny that you mentioned Greg's podcast because the same day that you interviewed Greg was actually when I had my final round interview for this position with Greg. So it was uh kind of That's why he was so nervous on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

He was like, he was like, man, I gotta interview Corey later. That was the problem.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, right. I think I was the nervous one in that relationship. But to your point about crunching data and kind of influencing policy, what I do now is a little bit of the same. So now performance scientists is fully on the national team department, so it's more the highest level of swimming. And looking more at micro trends, I think stroke counts, tempos, those kind of things, as sort of the base level of what we're trying to accomplish. And in addition to that, uh, we just had our national team coaches seminar, for example, and trying to put together a talk on uh Olympic data two years out and what trends we can draw from the two-year lead up to the games, looking at previous squads. So that was one thing that I was working on for a good amount of time. And you know, in the near future, we're hoping to roll out some new race analytics software to our national team and national team coaches. So that's been a big project of vetting different vendors and testing and making sure feasibility of different products that we're considering. So that's been at the forefront. And yeah, we're we're really moved and shaking. I'm excited to be back. And uh the new energy with Greg and staff has been great. I think we're really forward-thinking and considering all ideas. So it's been a really fun group to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, I I haven't been, you know, uh I haven't been hiding the fact that I'm also pretty excited about the way things are going. And I feel like I I need to talk that way. Um because, you know, I'm somebody who over the years has been critical. When it's time to be critical, I think I have to offer my um I have to offer some good reviews when I feel like things are headed in a positive direction. And I have just like a really good impression of what's happening at USA Swimming right now. And I'll I'll tell you where I see it, and you can you can speak to it, I think, a little bit because you were just on a call yesterday. I feel like the most important thing, and Greg spoke to this as well when I had him on the podcast, was we have this huge, diverse country, and that has been a massive strength for us over the years. What we maybe always haven't done very well is get people cooperating, knowledge sharing, and kind of rowing in some way in the same direction. There hasn't been a lot of cooperation, if I'm being honest, over the years. And I feel like there's just a there's something in the air with Greg, and he is really trying to marshal the country towards some kind of cooperative effort to be sharing best practices, knowledge across this kind of huge, unwieldy country that we have. And that gets me really excited. Uh, and it probably is pretty in line with the book that we're gonna talk about later in this podcast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

I was gonna mention that, you know, knowledge sharing came up quite a bit in the book. So I I completely agree that a lot of what we just read over the past week in this book is kind of how I feel the direction is moving now. And it's been really exciting to be a part of. And obviously with the data side of things, I've got a large responsibility to knowledge share as well, and that's something I'm gonna take really seriously and continue to dig in and find some insights that are worth conveying and try some things out and go down some rabbit holes that may not always pan out, but that's how you find really good research and really good figures.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

And are you uh in in some of that stuff that you're talking about, are you gonna be out on the road? Are you gonna be like, you know, an in-person presence at various places, or are you gonna be more kind of like distributing this stuff remotely? What does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, I think the in-person presence will be at most of the competitions. So still have to do the on the ground filming of the races and analyzing piece. But also our goal is to create channels where we can share information on a consistent and regular basis, whether that's weekly, monthly emails, whether that's coaching seminar talks that we host once a month, webinars, those kinds of things. Something we've started to do is after each pro swim, we've put out a post meet report to our national team, national junior team coaches, and say, here's a couple things that we're noticing. One of the big changes this year was the inclusion of the semifinals at various pro swim stops. So we did an analysis on how much racing we're actually doing and what our progression round to round is looking like. Most athletes are progressing really well through the rounds, but you see some that are still fastest in freelance, then a little bit slower than semis and a little bit slower in finals, which is obviously the trend we're trying to avoid. But this provides some really good racing opportunities and being able to look at it from an analytical point of view and say, okay, what is the actual trend here? Because we can get kind of caught up in the one-off examples that can carry a lot more weight than the data would actually show. So that's something that we're trying to do and we'll continue to do after each meet. So to your to answer your question, I guess the answer is both. Hopefully it'd be in person and distributing from more regulated but remote channels.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I'm looking forward to seeing you in uh Indianapolis then.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Let's get to the meat of the podcast today, which is you emailed me and I had Christopher Henrickson here on the podcast, sports psychologist from Denmark, and a lot of the stuff we talked about is in probably his, let's say, his uh foundational text uh that he wrote along with two other colleagues. Um now I don't have the book in front of me. It's Carson Vilasen and Louisa Kamuk Storm. Storm. Storm. You did great. Three uh three sports psychology colleagues, and they wrote all you need to know about talent development. And you were saying, like, hey, I'm gonna get the book, and I said, What if we did a little book club, right? What if we both read it? What and then we could come on, we could discuss it here on the podcast, we could offer kind of like a little bit of a review, talk about some aspects of the book that came across really well with us. So uh you accepted. We on a pretty tight timeline got this book and and uh pounded our way through it, and now we're coming on to discuss it. Let me start here. Give me your overall impression of this book after reading it, and then I'll I'll tell you what I think.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah, I think the word you used in the intro there, foundational, is not only what this book was for the authors, but I think what it can be for coaches and talent developers as well. I think the book goes through just about every piece of creating an environment and fostering a culture and high performance and all of the things that are necessary to help talented young athletes succeed in a longer career field. And I came away from it really blown away, honestly. And I think it's you know, if I were to ever start a team or be in contact with team leaders, I would recommend it to the highest degree. And I think there's each chapter, almost each paragraph, I feel like I wrote down a quote. So I think there's something to be taken for everyone at every part of a club from you know the parents of the youngest athlete to the coach that's been there for 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, I'm with you. That's where I sort of want to start. 10 out like if people are looking for a recommendation, 10 out of 10, I would recommend reading this book. Um doubt. And that said, like, there was a lot of stuff that I feel like I'm already in line with in it, and I still found it very, very valuable to read those parts because I thought, like, oh man, that's actually articulated quite a bit better than I've been doing it, right? And so I learned a lot from reading this. And I think I agree with you as well. It's it's quite comprehensive. Like it really covers pretty much every angle that I could think of to approach things from. And that's really satisfying because I think sometimes when you read something like this, you go, like, oh man, you know, like there there was a lot unsaid contextually in terms of the whole environment that we're looking at, right? I think that's a danger in terms of a lot of things in in sports psychology where you like kind of detach from the greater context of everything else that's going on. And it's interesting, you know, that the title might make you think like, oh, this book is all about like what you should be doing with your, you know, um nine and ten-year-olds, eleven, twelve-year-olds, like growing athletes on the team. And yet there's so many examples and um anecdotes in the book used to explain sort of broader points that go straight to the top level, right? And sort of try to tell a story working backwards, matching some research to say, like, this stuff still matters when you're 20 or 25 and you're already at an international level. And I think, you know, again, to to give some props to Greg and his role at USA Swimming, I think he recognized that too. That, you know, like you can think of your role as a national team director as like basically I have, you know, all these sort of mostly finished products and we're just kind of polishing to I think he views it in some respects as a talent development post. And the truth of the matter is I don't think there's any coaches out there that really aren't in the talent development game. And so, you know, again, you have something that at face value, you might think, like, well, that's not relevant to me because I'm, you know, I'm a college coach or I'm a senior level coach. And I would, I would very much disagree with that. I think everything in here is relevant for you as a coach, no matter what level you're at. I wanted to send it to my daughter's soccer coach, you know, who's a volunteer dad, right? I was like, this would be this would be great to read. There's so much in here. He's uh he listens to the podcast sometimes. Shout out to Brian. Brian, if you're listening to the podcast, there we go. This is uh Coach B. This is your shout out on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

But well, there was the one great website in there, too, about uh sportparent.eu, the the guide for how to be a great sport parent.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, exactly. Um all right, let's get into some specifics. That uh some pieces and I'll I'll lead off this time to get into that. I'm gonna I sort of organized where chronologically, right, as I followed through it. The first place that I am going to reference was actually loved the sometimes, you know, like the introduction to these books are like a real snore, and I just found myself powering through them. But um, it's quite a long introduction to this book, and but it really, I think if you're gonna get it, like read this piece of it because it really helps you to work through the rest of it. And it addressed something that I think is really, really important that I come across all the time in my work. It talked about the difference between having abstract concepts versus practical application. Um, and this was actually something that like one of the reasons I had Christopher on my podcast was because I wanted to press him on that a bit. And I found out there's there's plenty of practicality underneath, you know, some of the things that he says where you're like, oh gosh, like how could you ever really apply some of what you're talking about? Right. But there's this great section in there where they're talking about that they as researchers see, especially like in a social media age, there is information being shared, and people who really don't know what they're talking about are speaking very, very confidently, as if they do, and they are kind of becoming the loudest voices in the room. And so researchers don't always do that, right? People who are, you know, as a as a um a data guy, a science guy, you know, the data, the nerds are often people who are like, well, actually, you know, it's there's a lot of nuance here, and like we have to like did, you know, where they're so cognizant. Exactly. They're so careful that they end up shying away from trying to share anything. And then the only thing that gets disseminated out there is a bunch of crap, right? And I was like, this is such an important conversation to be to be had before this. And I'm so glad that some people who are obviously like very, very committed to the academic side of this were like, here's the book where we're gonna do like our best academic version of being as definitive as we possibly can and like really drawing some sharp conclusions so that you can feel you come away knowing at least what we think is best practices and not with like a million qualifications on it. And I really, really appreciated having that off the top of reading this.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, that was my biggest takeaway from the forward was there was an emphasis on clear communication and how that wins out over knowledge, regrettably. And that's something that I can struggle with myself. I'm sure you probably feel the same way too, that you've got something that you feel is 85% on the mark that's really good quality information, but you know that there's that 15% where it's not gonna apply to everyone, it's not gonna work in XYZ scenario, but that's what holds us back from sharing it. Whereas someone may have an idea that's true a third of the time, maybe, if that. Right. And they just go ahead and and share it broadly.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Right. They're sharing it with utmost confidence. They just go straight for it. Actually, I I had this conversation yesterday. I was meeting with the coach of TCNJ, uh, Dave Dow, who um I've been working together with for the last two years, and I was talking about a job interview once that I had that went terribly. And in it, they were sort of like, hey, here's this situation, what would you do? And I did all that kind of vacillating. I was like, well, you know, given this context, I would do this, this context, I would do that, but this context, I so gave like three different things that I would do. And they were like, we just want to know, given the information that you have, like what would you do? Right. And I couldn't, I couldn't get there. And um, I think they found me a little waffly, right, in that interview. Um, and I think that that frustration comes across. And I I think about it too as I read something like this, because I've had a book, you know, kind of written in the back of my mind for a long time, but like I I never fully put it to page because I'm like, oh God, it's gonna be perfect first. It doesn't have to be perfect. I felt inspired by reading the the the front of this.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, I think it's a good lesson too that you know, even if it is perfect in our mind, your mind, anyone's mind, there's still gonna be criticism of it, no matter how good the information is. There's no piece of work out there that is universally loved. I'm sure, you know, the two of us love this book, but someone else may not. And that's their loss. But I think every kind of work out there is gonna get some kind of criticism. And then to your point, I find myself trying to find the courage to share insights like that. And that's been a real area of development for me, and I think that's pretty common in any kind of field of uh research. All right, give give me another part.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Um give me your first part that you uh you're gonna have to filter down, Corey. You said you you had like almost every page marked. We we only have so much time on the podcast, so give me your best ones.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, I will say the I found myself drawn towards the first couple chapters the most. Let's see. Chapter two is what I picked out the most. Um I think the the conversation on motivation and focus, I think was really well said. And one of the quotes I wrote down, I think was Focus is the currency of development. I thought that was really good. That you've got to really be bought into everything that you're doing and really intentional about environmental design and the practice that you're putting forth and the structures and the how they all work together. But once the athletes, once the talent, as they say, gets into their work, the focus is what makes the difference. And I think we can relate to that in swimming a lot. You've got to be doing everything with intent, every piece of the practice to get the most out of it. Whereas you're gonna have practices where you kind of go through the motions and those are gonna add up over time, and that's what the difference ultimately becomes. So I think that was a really salient point that I found myself pretty drawn to.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, and I think it it points to a broader theme of this book, which is like all it's really all about environments. Almost every conversation is about environments, and they they use an example, they use a couple fake coaches throughout this, and I it makes me think of sometimes the way that we share knowledge within swimming that drives me crazy. People who listen to this podcast know that I I'm interested in different things because I think so often we're latching on to like, you know, the the best example I can give of this is Eddie Reese for the extent of his coach's career. Like, it's obvious that he created an incredible environment at Texas, and yet so much of what got passed around and shared from like appearances that he would make at a conference, somebody would be like, he did this set of 25s. And I'd be like, that's not the point. Like, that's that's not where the magic is. Right. Yes, he did some 25s and the guys tried hard on them and they believed in what they were doing, and they're producing amazing results. But sometimes we can latch on to that stuff because it's so tangible, right? And it's so easy to like for our mind to rationalize around. And some of this other stuff, yeah, it is a little bit subjective, and it's harder for us to, you know, sort of hang a marker on it. But unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, like that's the that's the real important stuff. The real important stuff is what, what are what is the overarching conditions you are creating within whatever area, you know, team, governing body, local area, like that you have some responsibility for. What is the what what are you creating there? And on the basis of that, what what comes out, you know, what comes out in the wash in terms of how people respond and develop and and perform.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, completely agreed. And I think your point about Eddie is well taken that you know that's we latch onto what we can measure or what we can tangibly see, and that's the set. That's the okay, I'll do this, and then I'll get Eddie's results. Obviously, not the case, not true, but the subjectivity of the environment and the guardrails that you put in place and what you prioritize and what you value is so hard to maybe it's a communication problem. Maybe it's just, you know, we don't have a mechanism to clearly articulate it yet. But there's a lot in this text about environmental design and what you permit and what you allow and backing it up on a daily basis. I think that's the biggest takeaway. And you know, it's it's great that it's applicable to all levels, like you mentioned, the local area, the governing body. And I one thought that crossed my mind reading it was I could see people taking this one of two ways. One, none of this applies to me, or two, all of this applies to me. And I choose to take the latter because when you talk about these broad themes and general concepts, it's easy to To hand wave them away and devalue their importance. Whereas I think you really have to lean into that and accept and really cultivate these different aspects of your program or whatever environment you're trying to create.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

All right, I'm going to get to the next point. Um, this is a quote that I pulled from it. Uh it was a in a in a section on adversity, and it said, allow adversity, do not create it, give support and make learning from adversity intentional. And I thought, like, this is so simple and so well said, and gets to the heart of something like I've been trying to like put, you know, that well in terms of this. There's so much of a conversation around, particularly when we get into the psychology of sports, we have a sense that overcoming adversity, what you learn from adversity, all that piece of it really is really important in terms of athletic development. But, you know, the implications of that, I think are very, very often misunderstood. For example, the first part of this quote kind of addresses allow adversity, do not create it. So one of the things that that's speaking to is that often we can clear a path for athletes, either as parents or coaches, sort of the most frequent examples that come to my mind where we're trying to make it easy for them to get to the short-term destination. But then in so doing, we clear so much like adversity out of it that we actually hinder their development. On the other hand, I think some people who look at that and go, like, well, adversity is so important, think you need to artificially create it in some way. When like there's a there's enough adversity in any given competitive system. And so your focus should not be on artificially creating it, but the end of this quote, which is like capturing thomes and being really intentional about how you make them into learning experiences and development experiences for the athlete. And so again, this is like one sentence, and like I just talked about it for like two or three minutes, right? Because there's just a lot of meaning that's distilled in that one piece. And I'm I'm gonna be taking that one with me for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Absolutely. I thought that was super well said and so clearly distilled into that one line that, you know, there's kind of two parts that one, we're recognizing adversity plays a huge role. And I thought the comparison to the highest level was a great way to emphasize that and say, you know, in Olympic Games, for example, you're in a village setting, there's logistical challenges all over the place. And athletes that aren't used to dealing with little adversity that adds up over the course of a day or a week are gonna suffer some negative effects with that. And it's important to allow for normal adversity in your programs. And to your point, I think we we emphasize a lot, especially as athletes progress in their career and start to develop, that you know, the the talent is shining. We need to take away all these obstacles and make the path as straightforward as possible when in reality that's actually doing a disservice. It's just harder to see and measure. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Okay, you get to your next uh your next uh poll.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, let's go with um let's see. I would say conversation on mental health was great, I thought. I'm gonna get to that too. So we're we're we're we're we're we're perfectly in sync. Okay, go. Perfect. Okay. Um one of the quotes I pulled here was motivated and mentally healthy athletes simply win more medals, especially in the long run. One of the constant themes is the development of the whole person and not just the athlete. And I think there's countless examples of that that to me make a ton of sense. And if we think about even our daily lives, if we want to be really good at podcasting or data science or whatever it may be, it's really hard to do that if you've got whatever challenge going on at home or you've got, you know, you're not physically in shape or physically healthy and taking care of yourself from a personal level, it's hard to excel in the field that you want to. And the same is true for athletes. And I don't know if you also drew this in your notes, but I had a picture of the stoplight, um referencing the red where the disorders kind of come into play, yellow where athletes may be unhappy, and then green is good, and of course, how to refer and seek out help when those situations arise. But I thought, you know, another quote that I pulled was recovery is more than physical restitution, and recovering from the mental side of things was super salient. And I think that was a new concept for me that I haven't really heard discussed in the sport of swimming, and I'm curious to hear your take on that too.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time, and it speaks to the section that I pulled out of this, which is kind of the flip side of what you're talking about. Something that I didn't even understand, honestly, about the way that I coached until a swimmer referred it back to me, and I've referenced it here on the podcast, is I was coaching at Georgia Tech, and I asked an older, you know, an athlete that had been training with me a couple of years to talk to the younger kids, you know, in a group setting and and the the kid, the first years, the freshmen that were coming in and say, like, what's something that, you know, they absolutely need to know about training in this group? And he said, Your brain's gonna be tired, like every day, and you actually have to like recover from that. And Chris is gonna push you hard in terms of the way that you think. And I think that was the first moment where I went, oh yeah, like this this mental restitution that you're referring to, this is a real thing that I've kind of intentionally, unintentionally put at that point, and then intentionally from that step forward put into what I was doing. Um, and I I was just talking about it yesterday because I was speaking to a group of coaches also at TCNJ across all sports, and I was speaking on this second piece of this, which I think is what I wrote down here is integrated mental strength as a part of day-to-day programs. Especially, I think, in the sport of swimming, we have reached a pretty high level of sophistication, obviously to varying degrees depending on which coach, but high level of sophistication. People make season plans, they, you know, plan their volumes and yardages and intensities to like, you know, a fine degree. Where we are, in my opinion, way, way behind and lagging is an idea of um mental capacity of athletes being planned and intentionally trained on a daily basis in the same way, right? That that we actually set out to go like, here's where we are, here are the things that we are going to do to train athletes and help them develop and improve. And like, here's a goal of somewhere we want to get to, and so that we can say at the end, like, did it happen or did it not? And again, uh I understand why that is, because when you start getting onto the psychological side of things, when you start getting onto the the mental game, things become a lot more subjective and a lot less objective, and it's harder to like really put a fine point on it. I still think that means you should do it. And I think this book makes a really good argument for that as well, right? That there's the side of it that that you started this talking about, you know, certainly struggling with your mental health is gonna be a factor in whether or not you do well. But when we're talking about like elite level performance, it's more than the absence of mental health issues. There is a positive, you know, we get to the positive psychology of it all, right? There's a positive side of the equation, right? And people who have trained up their capabilities more, have developed more in those categories are going to be able to perform better, particularly in the high-end situations that we're trying to demand of them. And I think it's unfair, honestly, to expect that of anyone if you as a coach have not intentionally put something in there to help them develop. I've seen my if we talk about Chris's pet peeves that are that would be addressed if like everybody embodied this book. My my biggest one are the coaches that just sort of could throw up their hands when athletes are are struggling with the psychological side of the sport and just go, like, uh, yeah, they're just they just can't do it. And I'm like, no, no, no. We you we got to figure out how to help them to do it in the same way, you know, any other piece of what they're doing, um, we're responsible and we're we're in there focusing on that.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Completely agree. I think it's the same as the physical side of the sport that we have a training plan, like you said, we're highly sophisticated. We don't sink our teeth into training the mental side as much. We hope kind of hope is the word, right? The it just comes out through the physical training and the group environment and the dynamic. And you'll get some benefit to that too if you intentionally create that group dynamic and environment. But yeah, to your point, it's it's something that needs to be taken just as, if not more seriously, than the physical training.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

And that's where I plug my own services. This is this is literally what I do, right? So, this piece of it, like if you're listening to this and you go, Yeah, I want to do that, I want to get better at that. I have a course uh that I've been doing. This is when I referenced to some of the work I've been doing at TCNJ and other colleges. I've been out there training up coaches basically on how to put this stuff intentionally in their program and how to train themselves as well, how to how to develop themselves. And so this is something which I'm really passionate about. Okay, get to your get to your next uh thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yeah, I think uh part two, sustainable talent pathways from the role that I find myself in. I thought this spoke pretty directly to what we're trying to do. And the title of the of chapter seven was foster many and cut few, which I thought was I had the same one, Corey.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Were we were we reading this together or were we reading this together? Okay, go.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

I thought that's that was so saliently put that yeah, you know, we think about talent identification, and that's touched on too. That's a whole nother topic we can get into, but there's almost like a funnel or a pathway that we are so familiar with, or a triangle, if you will, that we are so ingrained in in the sport, and maybe it's more prevalent in our sport because everything comes with a number and it's not reliant on other people. So it's if you have ten points in a basketball game. Right. If you have ten points in a basketball game, it matters who you played to quantify those ten points. But if you go 155 and a two-free, it's the same as this pool, that pool, and the next. That really spoke to me that we don't really know who's gonna end up making it, especially at such a junior level, that you are much better served broadening the base and allowing the talent to come through supported pathways and developed environments to then express themselves at a senior level and at that point start to really pour resources into the ones that almost self-identify as your next uh up-and-coming crop.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

So this I I wrote down the exact same quote, and this was something that actually was kind of a a spur for me getting involved with Christopher in the first place. So when I just give everybody a little bit of context, um, and I'm gonna use it as a launching point to talk about some broader points. When I saw him, I was at a coaching conference in Denmark, and I heard him more or less like give the same sentiment to the audience there. I'm not sure this is exactly what he said. And I thought, like, this doesn't jibe at all, honestly, with my experience working in a Danish swim club, and I will say I point this out because most of this audience is coaching in America. And I want you guys to actually understand what works in your system so you don't break it. Danish swim clubs, you know, are often quite small and they filter down to a very small group of high school age swimmers. We're talking like at the top of them, a lot of these teams have 10, 11, 12 athletes in their senior group or their national group or, you know, whatever you call that top group on your team. That's not, especially with a lot of the better clubs in the United States, that's not typical in my experience. We have much bigger peer groups there on the top end. So I was like, hey, this doesn't line up with what I see in Danish swimming. You know, what gives? And he was like, Well, I think that I think they're doing it wrong. I don't think Danish swimming, you know, has a good model, basically. And I was like really stunned to hear this guy, you know, who obviously in some ways is very proud of what's happening in Scandinavia broadly and Denmark specifically, be like, yeah, what I see happening in the swim clubs is just it's just not ideal by my own estimation. Where I want to head with this in terms of implications, to speak to one more strength of the U.S. system that's so salient right now, and I'm thinking about it a lot because I'm 10 days away, as I told you in our pre-record from the CSCAA. Our college system is probably one of the best examples of creating a really, really wide funnel into the elite international level of swimming. There are a lot of opportunities for athletes. We provide a lot of opportunities for international athletes as well. I know that's a controversial topic that we're not going to get into on this podcast, but we we provide a lot of opportunities for American athletes as well. And I think that's the real existential question when we look at like all the uncertainty in the college system. If we lose that, we're losing more than just, you know, the opportunity for kids to swim for those four years in college. We are losing something that I think has been probably, I don't know, you're the data guy, you know, you probably could study this at some point. But I'm like, is there something that's more important to our continued success at the international level than the fact that we've had collegiate swimming in our country? I don't know. I I think it is. I think it's so, so important. And if if that just sort of were to disappear overnight, I think we would have so much work to do um to sort of make up for it in other areas. I don't even I don't know even if we could, right? It's it's that important on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, I think uh I want to branch off of that a little bit and go a couple different directions. One of them being I've heard opinions the other way as well about the collegiate system that What? Who thinks that, Corey?

SPEAKER_01 36:51

You know, I'm give me the give me the devil's advocate on this. What do they say?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah. So if you if you look at other countries, to name, you know, some that are more centralized, that have a clear development environment and pathway for athletes, there's an argument to be made that sorry. Like who are we talking about? Someone like in Australia, for example. Okay. And there's an argument to be made that athletes switching in training environments and life environments at that critical stage of development could be seen as a detriment. I think the collegiate system is incredible for all the reasons you mentioned. The devil's advocate approach is is there something missed in that transition? And one of the points in the book is the the dual focus environment almost where athletes are in school and focusing on swimming or they're working and focusing on swimming, which I think backs up a lot of what is great about the collegiate system, that it allows for focal points to be outside of athletics and continue to develop the whole person and well-rounded. I'd be really curious to see, though, what it looks like switching those training environments and if there's any other analogous situation that we can compare to and see what that real effect is at that LSNH.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yeah, I think uh now we're getting into a conversation about this. It's such a juicy topic. So I feel like I have to say one more thing because you you reminded me of something as you were talking about that. When I look at this, when I look go back to the beginning, that the the quote that we read off foster many, cut few. When I look at United States swimming, we just talked about like kind of one end of it, but there's there's the inception of people's swimming career end of it that I think probably is where it's probably the biggest missed opportunity. And missed opportunity because it's the hardest problem to solve. And that's we actually lack facilities to meet the demand for people to swim. So, you know, like there's a lot of hand rigging right now about like numbers are down, numbers are down. We're not creating more space. We're not literally creating more water for kids to swim in. And we have places where swimming could be growing and it just l simply cannot grow because there's nowhere for those kids to go. Right. And so we could have more at the beginner level, more people starting. We could actually be growing as a sport, but we don't have it. And, you know, when I look at the college system, again on the other end of it, like you have all these facilities, and I wonder like, would they still exist without college swimming? Right. So would this problem get exacerbated, or would the colleges look at like, well, we don't, you know, we don't do swimming anymore, so who cares whether we have a pool for, you know, the professors and like a couple students to, you know, do a couple laps with their heads up, or you know, the one guy who does like the jog and the you know, that drives me crazy, right? Do we you know, do we need a 50-meter pool for that? No, we don't need that anymore. Right. And then there goes something that more than just that university accesses. So I'm being a bit college swimming alarmist. I actually can now that you explain the other side of it, I can see like, and I've I've you know, I've thrown a few ideas around off podcast here with some of the people that I've been working on. Like, could there be a way for there to be swimming opportunities for kids that are in college that are not necessarily NCAA or like collegiate competition programs? I I would love to see some innovation on that. I think there's like, especially at a lot of these places that have facilities, but maybe don't have a men's swimming program anymore. Like, is there a way that we could develop a business model that would support swimming in some of these places? I think that would go a long way to starting to build up a stack, you know, of of opportunity should the college system continue to to sort of slip away from us. I mean, maybe based on what you just said, I feel like maybe you've been thinking about it as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Yeah, I well, more opportunity would be better for everyone, right? And in the spirit of exposure and getting as many people involved and continuing careers as long as we can, I think that's a great thing because for a lot of reasons illustrated in the book that we don't really know what an athlete's career trajectory is gonna look like until it's done. Every path is different, and there are countless examples of people that blossom late and come into their own through the collegiate system, potentially. And taking away opportunities, of course, is not gonna allow for as many of those, and we're gonna suffer as a whole because of it. But it's interesting. I think the collegiate the collegiate system is great, and I'm really curious. It's another one of those we just don't know what the impact is because we don't have a clear A-B test of say athlete X went to university Y or Z or stayed at home and trains. What is their developmental pathway look like from that point forward? There's no way truly to ever know for any given athlete, but I'd be at least interested to look at what other countries do, what we do, and at that, at that critical point, at that inflection point, what does the different pathway look like for people to choose different options?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um I think we have time for for one or two more. So um, you know, choose wisely with what you you've got left from the book. Oh boy. In your notes.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Let's see. I thought the piece on role models was great. Oh yeah. I didn't have that in my notes, but but you go. Yeah. I think your point about Georgia Tech actually great gave a great example of that of you brought in someone that you had coached previously and had them speak to the team, and I'm sure they got a lot out of that. And you got a lot out of it as well. I think about that in the context of a typical club program when you're trying to design your weekly schedule. Is the silver two group gonna go with the gold one? What's the senior group doing? Who are we gonna pair them with? For a couple of reasons. One, obviously, pool space, like you mentioned, is a big concern and just being able to fit all the athletes in at the same time. But two, I think the role model piece, one of you know, those those are friends that would share the pool if you've got 13 and 14-year-olds that are in different groups, but also seeing the older kids and just noticing how they behave and how they interact. And I can say for certain from my own swimming experience that I benefited a lot from having those older teammates that showed me the way and set the example in ways that you would never think and ways that it's hard for a coach to program around. And it's really just those one-off interactions in the locker room before or after practice, or in between sets, you've got two minutes to chat. Just that time is super valuable when it's compounded. And I thought that that was a really great thing that they actually put out and mentioned in the book.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Yeah, the um I was reading this with great interest. Um, giving all the extra Danish context that, you know, uh readers may not have, uh, not having my uh cross-cultural experience. But the athlete that they cited, it was a great story in this, uh, Victor Axelson, um, been one of basically the best uh men's single badminton player in the world for the last, I don't know, decade or so. And he was, you know, he's he's still training in his home club and he's still doing exercises, you know, like basically they have this whole concept where, you know, sometimes you're practicing your shot and sometimes you're setting up to practice somebody else to practice their shot. And like Victor still does this for the essentially age group athletes on his club. And it was a a wonderful example of something that I think often gets maybe gets skipped because we think like, oh man, we have so much more important stuff to do. And I think it spoke so much to the value of like, yes, it's valuable for the up and comers for them to do it. Actually it was also quite valuable for Victor, even though he was number one in the world to be, you know, do it like his his work as a role model supported what he was trying to do at an elite level as well. And I know uh Coach Rob, who I work with and and I've had on this podcast a couple of times, has spoken to some ways in which he has his older athletes volunteering with the younger athletes in his club program. And just the importance of that I think, you know, getting people in front and and getting people to um the humility, the gratitude for the opportunity that you've that you sort of naturally get out of experiences like that, absolutely important. Okay, I'm gonna get to my last note um and then I'll g I'll let you do one more because I know you're fired up. The big one I saved my hammer for last and we were talking about it before we started this. This is this is my brief poll quote more collaboration, less rivalry. And to me, if tomorrow which I'm not saying you guys should do I'm not saying you and Greg should do this, but just as an idea, you know, like if you guys got together and you were like you know what Chris we're hiring you as our sports uh culture consultant this would be my number one project more collaboration less rivalry. I think the the level of competitiveness we have in the US is outstanding and we have a competitive environment like nowhere else in the world and it has fueled so much of what we're doing. And I wouldn't want to change that at all. But I talked with Christopher about this as well. I feel there's there's another level for us to get to by changing our definition of competitive right and so it can still be like we can still have all our competitions and have a winner and you know put some emphasis on the fact that these are like win or lose or somebody gets fourth place, fifth place, all that piece of it having an environment where up to that point competitors actually try to make each other better, explicitly try to make each other better. Coaches share knowledge with their rivals, with the people that could potentially use that knowledge to beat them in a competition to, to, to best them and that the athletes do the same. I think we have a long way to go on that. And I would love to see more and more of that. This is just maybe me projecting a little bit but I feel like Greg is focused on that. So you know I I think this is sort of the next this could be the next big progression in the in the sporting culture and we could create something swimming a small enough sport that that I think you could really move the needle on this and redefine what it means to be competitive and uh I think there's something, you know, there's a whole nother level for us to get to on the other eye other side of it.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Agreed entirely. And I think there's a lot of agreement with that idea out there and conventions like the one that you're going to next week and different webinars and series that we're trying to host as well I think we're all in agreement that is certainly something that can help push the sport forward. I'm curious though, as this is your number one project, what would you focus on to change the incentives almost?

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Because given the collegiate system it's very competitive as you mentioned and everyone's trying to be the best how do you incentivize someone to share with each other when their financial wellbeing is directly tied to beating them listen I wasn't counting on you to ask me tough questions come on Chris I I know I thought you would just say hey Chris that sounds great you're hired it's an awesome question and I I probably don't have a fully satisfying answer but it's something that I have thought quite a bit about you know I think it's it's a one-to-one persuasion game and it it's it'd be a long slow process and it involves some leadership at the top and this is again why it feels like I'm like lobbying Greg on the podcast but it it yeah like it involves somebody at the top who can command the respect of people and sort of more or less say like this is the direction we're going in, you know, are you in or you or are you out? Right? And because every single person, it's one of these collective action issues, right? Where if everybody's just pulling in their own direction and you become the one person who's like cooperative and collaborative, yeah, it's it's not going to be good for you. I'm but be honest with that. It's like you're gonna get taken advantage of basically by most of the other people in the system. So you know you have to get a critical mass. And I think the more that you can persuade people who are already at the top I mean for instance when I look at the college aspect of this the only positive I can pull out from the potential like existential doom of some of the collegiate stuff is like, all right guys, are we gonna cooperate are we going to collaborate or are we all going to die and not have a profession to go to in a few years. That's not that by the way that wouldn't be my preferred method would be mob style scaring people into it. Fear mongering fear mongering my my way into it but I think that kind of stuff probably will provoke some of that I see some of that in the college system. And I think that if from a from a top down perspective this was like put forward as like hey this is a value this is something we are trying to promote and you seeded that now realistically you could see a shift in the culture maybe in a decade maybe in 20 years where you look back and go, wow, that was the way things were then and things are quite different now. But it takes somebody with some leadership at the top and maybe some long term some long term thinking probably beyond the tenure of whatever they're gonna be doing to to institute and follow through that and withstand probably a lot of people being like this is just completely unwieldy, impractical and you know this is like wimpy stuff that you know that that's not going to help us be competitive. I think it it's gonna take some real bravery um at the top to do it. So but I'm I'm game I'm game to throw my weight um behind it and and I think that uh this this is on the other hand of this is something with a huge potentially huge payoff on the other side. Agreed entirely. All right you got the hammer Corey what do you got?

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Oh boy bring it home. Let's see I don't know if this is necessarily the hammer but the last one I had circled here was um assist athlete autonomy. I think that's so critical to the same one I had. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

So here we go okay. Beautiful I think I swear to my audience we did not discuss ahead of time what parts we were going to we we were we weren't that organized. We just came into this cold but you know great minds think alike.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Here we go Corey what do you got there we go yeah I think it's such a a great point that it takes a little bit of work on the coach side right if you've got a if you want to provide your athletes choices you of course have to come up with the choices. And an example that I think about is say you want to accomplish some training goal, you've got some aerobic set or something like that. You could simply write three different aerobic sets, let them pick and still get the same goal accomplished and they feel like they really had a part in what they were doing. And there's so many little things that you can do to build up that autonomy and increase that buy-in from the athlete level it takes more work it's not easy to do and it's a little time consuming but it goes a long way and I thought they did a really nice job of explaining how that helps feed into the whole development of the athlete not just the physical side.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Yeah autonomy is a great topic and I think again another misunderstood topic I think where a lot of people go wrong with autonomy is they start to think of it as an either or either you have autonomy and that means you can do whatever you want or you have no autonomy and you know people just tell you what to do instead of the way that this text really breaks it down as like a developmental strategy that you are trying to build people's capacity for making decisions for themselves, for taking responsibility for things in their own process. And I heard I saw a great clip on this recently that really like so people should go look for this I think it was on Swim GPT Instagram and it had Bob Bowman talking about working with Shane Cassas. Am I saying that right? Cassis? Yeah there you go Casas okay thank you I I'm bad with I'm bad with name pronunciation in some instances especially on the podcast. Not the Danish ones though. I know not the Danish ones it's because I've got all the Danish ones stuck in my head Corey that's the thing and he was talking about how people are like really surprised that Shane is is thriving training with him because a lot of people from the outset expected that that was going to be a disaster of a combination that and even Bob was like a little bit like you know I he hadn't been the most committed guy to training and I'm known as somebody who's like extremely hard nosed you know and will just like throw a guy off the team or out of practice or whatever if they're not you know going with the flow. And he said the first meeting that he took with Shane he actually very purposefully zagged you know when he thinks that Shane expected him to zig where he was sort of like well like let's talk about your training schedule and I'm just I'm paraphrasing over what he was doing but it was like maybe we'll just do you know singles Monday through uh Monday through Saturday and Shane was like well I I need doubles to get better right and he was Bob was like well right now you're not coming to all the doubles that we're giving you so like what do you think you could do and then basically from that point Shane in response built a schedule for himself and then all of a sudden the psychology was completely flipped right instead of the athlete feeling like oh like I'm just coming to practice stupid morning practice on a Wednesday because coach is making me do it and this sucks and I hate it. Right. He all of a sudden it was Shane's plan. It wasn't Bob's plan. It was Shane's plan right and it completely changed his level of commitment to it because he had laid it out and and and put himself on the line to say this is what I think I need to get better. And I I I love that example of it especially you know again from a coach like showing multifacets. I think Bob is right that he's a guy who can be known for being really hard nosed and for him to show like a completely different wrinkle and like some dynamism in the way that he approaches these situations.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Yeah that's that's a really great example and it's really important to remember that we're on the same team, right? Everyone here wants the same goal and the idea to get there maybe is a little different, but it's not going to be wildly off. And putting yourself out there to elicit buy-in and you know ask opinion and solicit feedback, I think you're ultimately going to end up in the same place you want to anyways. So it's just a much better way to approach the conversation so that everyone's engaged in the work that needs to be done.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yeah. Well as we said at the beginning we recommend this book All You Need to Know About Talent Development Christopher Henrickson Carson Varson the way I'm saying these names too I'm realizing American people are what's that name H V I D is that middle name and Louisa Louisa Camuk Storm. There we go and we we both recommend it Corey is with USA Swimming. If you're at a pro series go say hello to him right that's okay filming come say hi. Well don't don't say hello to him while he's intensely filming a national team athlete maybe wait until there's a break in the action after the heat. Right totally after the heat be like hey Corey we heard you on the swim brief podcast but uh and I'm looking forward to seeing you in Indy anything you want to plug Corey anything you where you want to send people to see anything?

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Not not a ton.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

I don't post a ton on social media probably something I can at all yeah I know that's one of your commendable actions on this podcast so happy to join that club we love people who don't have a big you know who also Christopher Henrickson the lead author doesn't have a big presence on social media. There we go. May I my goal is to someday get to the point where I have zero presence on social media. But for now you can reach me see that's how you celebrate 1,000 followers on Instagram you you trash your own Instagram on the next podcast Chris D underscore coach you can direct message me there. You can reach out to me via my website chrisdcoach.com fill out a contact form or you can just email me crdesantis my last name at gmail dot com I'm always happy to hear from a listener of this podcast. Two more business matters that I've been forgetting to to to bring up on here donations. You can donate to the podcast Corey is a donor am I am I okay to say that I don't have to put it out yeah Corey's a proud donator to the podcast and you can make a one time donation you're also welcome to keep listening to this for free. My aim is to make the number one podcast for swim coaches but if you feel like contributing uh keeping this pirate ship afloat over here get on to Christy coach there's a there's a link just down the middle of the front page for you to be able to do that. The second thing that I have never mentioned before on this podcast but I'm I'm gonna try to start doing is please please if you're listening to this get on and give us a review. Wherever you're listening to this podcast give us a review. I hope that if you're listening to it at this point you think it's a good podcast and you're gonna give us a a five star review. But you know what honestly just just get on there and say what you think it really helps uh uh drive this podcast and uh expose it to more listeners and get it out to more people we have we have too few reviews of this podcast so even though you guys potentially might hurt my feelings I want you to do it get on there thank you Corey thanks for coming thank you everybody for listening and I'll be back with you again in a week. Thanks Chris and I'm gonna be a little bit more than a lot of