Debrief: Peter Casares

The recently named CSCAA Division III Coach of the year, Peter Casares of Bates College, joins to recap the year and talk about getting a walk on to a National Championship. Plus, a bonus at the end for all D3 Swimming nerds.

Debrief: Peter Casares Chris DeSantis

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hello, and welcome to the swim brief. I'm Chris DeSantis, and today on the debrief, we have a very special guest, the hottest guest, perhaps in college swimming right now, the 2026 NCAA Division III, sorry, C S CAA, Division III Men's Swimming Coach of the Year, Pete Casaris of Bates. Pete, how are you? Good. Thanks for having me on, Chris. And don't forget it was co-coach of the year.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Greg Perini did a great job too.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

That's right. We are gonna we are we're gonna shout out Greg Perini. But Greg, so far, he has not agreed to come on a podcast, you know? I don't know. Well maybe because I haven't invited him. Well, there you go. I don't have his phone number. I don't have him in my contact list, you know, the same way uh the same way I did with you. Um too bad for him. Yeah, I've been meaning to have you on here for a long time. It's been, you know, I've got these ideas, like these potential guests that are floating around in the background. And sometimes it is a little bit about timing. And so that's why I texted you. I was like, we got to do this now. Like this, this is the best timing for it. And I mean that, I'm saying that like 50% joking. I think the other part of it is serious, right? I want to capture people's attention, maybe have them be a little bit more likely to tune in because I think we're gonna have a really good conversation and there's gonna be some really interesting points of this. And if I just drop this at some other random point, I think there might be more people, and this is your fault if you're one of those people who would go, like, okay, yeah, okay, Division III coach from Maine. Why do I care about this? Moving on, right? Um, but let's get into it a little bit. Um, you know, I I start with the biographical portion of these, and I went onto your website just to, you know, because I'm researching. I I have an idea of places you've been. Man, that that bio on your Bates website, you keep it really simple. Yeah. It could be so much longer, Pete. What's up with that?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Well, no one likes to read a bio. I think, you know, I I I tend to live in a world of bullet points and things that, you know, I think matter. And um, I don't know, I don't I'm not too fond of living in the past, you know. So like I I think about uh a bio page on a website, and I actually I did that this year. Like I I contacted our SID and cut out as much as I possibly could about the past and wanted to focus on what we've done recently and show people that this is a place where you can improve and compete at the highest level and and make that the message of you know what the head coach is is doing and thinking about and the direction that that he wants to take the program and the people he wants to attract. So it it didn't need to be about me, it had to be about what our program's about. And I'm I'm the guy that's led it for 19 years. So I think that kind of speaks for itself. And so, you know, no need to to list all the stuff that's happened over the last 19 years. Let's just keep it present. And I don't want to live in the past. I want to be looking to see what we can do next because I feel like that's that's been what my goal at Bates is is to to reach a level that's better than we've been.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the things that is remarkable about you. I mean, I don't I don't know that we're gonna see very many coaches stay at a program very long anymore. I mean, it just seems like even kind of a concept from a generation before you, coaching wise, and to look at that and be like, wow, he's been there. I mean, you basically like I graduated college, you rolled into baits the next year, more or less, and that's been that. And I should note for people listening to the podcast, we're not gonna talk about my alma mater very much on here, but but you're the coach of the rival school of my alma mater. I've now adopted Bates as uh as my um as my alma mater because you can do that. You can, you know, do whatever you want. I I looked at what you're doing, um, and and actually it goes well beyond, I think we're gonna talk about this as well. I looked at what the school is doing, and I just thought like I identify more with what's going on at this place. Um and I'm gonna try to keep the whole conversation focused on Bates because I I want to be positive and and affectionate about it. I've said that in other forums and and I really mean it. If we go back to the beginning of you coaching at Bates, I mean, did you think you were gonna be there 19 years later when you started?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

It you know, it's I did tell the team in year one it was my dream job, you know, and that was And you meant it. Yeah, and I I was 32 and I had um I grew up in Connecticut. I had been to college at Gettysburg um in Pennsylvania. I went to grad school at Miami, Ohio. Um I worked for two years at uh Kenyon. And so, you know, I had eight years between Pennsylvania and and Ohio, and then I then I spent five years at Wabash College in Indiana. Um, you know, Maine was vacation land to me in terms of like being a New Englander and um the NESCAC was a phenomenal conference that would uh surround me with the type of athlete I really wanted to work with and felt um I would connect well with. I mean, so when the job opened up and Coach Mulholland took his interim year and year off, I I became very kind of obsessed with the application process to Bates and and honed in on it and thought about it as like this is gonna be my place and I'm gonna build something there and I'm gonna raise a family and um you know do do the best I can. And so you get to a point after uh 10 or so years and your kids are invested in the local school systems and they're getting off to college and whatnot. And I'm very blessed that I landed at Bates College and found a place that was so supportive and so helpful and helping me feel like I could accomplish my dreams year in and year out. And there was ha there hasn't been many times at all that I've ever thought of leaving. But as you alluded to earlier on, it's hard to stay in this profession this long, let alone at one place. So proud of, you know, getting the job at Bates and working with these great kids, and I'm lucky to be here. So very thankful, very grateful.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, and I think when you I think you sort of alluded to it, like when you stay at a place a long time, you have an opportunity to see things through in a different way. Rather than like, I think sometimes just the way things shake out, people get caught in these sort of short-term traps. They're they're trying to, you know, get something going in a few years and and looking at as a stepping stone to something else. And it does a disservice. I mean, I don't blame any coach for doing that, honestly. Like go out and and make a living and and do the best you can, but it does end up over time, sort of generally doing a disservice to the school and the and the kids on the team because they're not seeing something that where there's been a decision made five years ago that's now paying off for them. And you see you reference another thing that I really want to ask you about, because you talked about how the school is supportive. I mean, I went to a Nescaq school, and one of my memories of it was that I almost felt like there was a borderline like antagonistic attitude towards sports. I mean, I remember when I was there, it was like discussed, okay, are we gonna let people from athletic teams room together? Because maybe that's too exclusive, maybe that's too much like fraternities. They have a r very restrictive practice season, probably the most restrictive practice season that any sport has. So when you say like the institution was supportive of what you wanted to do, what does that mean at a school like Bates?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I'll tell you, like, first and foremost, like I don't know why anybody would want to leave Bates. Like, I that's the kind of place it is. It is um a school, you know, founded by abolitionists that believed in, you know, community and differences and opportunities and you know, support and interaction and equality and you know, from day one. And so I think it's in our DNA, and I think it's a really happy, good place to be. There are struggles, there's no doubt about it. And so like I just felt like this place and I really were cut from the same cloth in terms of how you treat people and and and who you and who you're attracting. Now we're not not the um Williams Amherst tops, you know, of the world that, you know, are ranked top three in the country academically and and really can be exceptionally selective and and the branding is amazing. But I liked who we are, and I and I know that even in the Nest CAC, we would have a lot of swimmers over my years that would have siblings on other teams. You know, they would uh make offhand comments about how this felt like at Bates that the school cared about them and they were they weren't getting that at their institutions. And so, you know, I I don't know, those are college kids. I'm not gonna take too much, you know, of that into account or you know, know how honest and true that is. But I think our kids really appreciate their four years at Bates and what made me want to take the team when it was 11th in the conference and you know, last place, and 14 women and nine guys left in the program when I showed up, it was that every person I'd met that had gone to Bates said it changed their life. And I just thought about like some of the special moments I had leading up to Bates and like the Kenyan swim team alumni were so amazing. The Miami swim team alums were all about, you know, swimming for Coach Pete and coming together at conference meets and showing up in the stands. And and like I just knew that my experience at Gettysburg with my friends meant everything to me. And I thought, you know, like this is like the next step. It's an entire college. So people I was meeting were they were peers of my parents, or they were neighbors that I grew up that were coaching at Bates, or they were alums of the school that I ran into and met along the way. They all just felt that Bates was what made them who they were, and they loved it. They loved it. And so having a place that creates that type of feel, I thought was a great starting point and something you just you might not get other places where you just feel a loyalty to to an institution, not just a certain person or a certain club or a certain fraternity or a certain whatever team. And so I loved that. And I felt like I'm a really kind of like solutions-oriented person, like, okay, that just tell me what the box is, and then I have to figure out either how to think outside of it or how to work within it and and like how do you make it work? And uh my first boss at Bates was Kevin McHugh, and he really believed in me. And his answer to almost everything is like, okay, how do we do that? And we would come up with different ways and different approaches, and he would he was very, like, very focused on that. And that reminded me of the, you know, the institutional support I saw when I was at Kenyon College. Like it was like, how do we how do we help Coach Steen out? How do what do we need to do to make sure that the swimming and diving program is good? And I just felt like, you know, I got really lucky to find a guy like that for my first 10, 12 years at Bates that really allowed coaches to to chase their dreams and tried to find ways to make it happen. And I just think that's who we are. And I and then you run into professors and administrators and custodians and people at the dining hall, and you're like you just bring them all into your team and they're excited to see you succeed and they're there to help. And so we just try to build that culture of really being thankful for all the people that would help us along the way. For years I would bring the custodians in the first morning practice of the year and introduce them and be like, you know, we don't get to swim in this pool without our, you know, certified pool operator, and like you're not getting the stuff in the locker rooms cleaned or you know, this or that. And like these are the little things that allow us to chase our dreams. And so I just wanted them to know who it was that was making it possible for us to have our hard part of the day be swim practice.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, I can speak to some of what you're talking about. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out did we have a conversation about this last time we hung out, how we met in the first place? Because all I remember is I graduated from Colby and then I got introduced to you somehow, and then all of a sudden you were like helping me with my job search back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

You were you were who had a a strong passion for division three swimming. And there was true. I still have a strong passion for division three swimming. Right. And there was like there were forums and there was you know the beginning of of different worlds that would allow us to find pockets of people that were excited about it. And um, you knew Abby Breathauer, and I think the two of us got connected probably through her, if I'm guessing correctly. Um but um it was just awesome to see a fan of of what we were doing and somebody that understood what division three swimming was and how amazing it is and how perfect of a of a situation it really is in terms of like chasing dreams academically, athletically, and swimming at a high level and getting published or doing research and just like you know, like someone that was, you know, not drinking the Kool-Aid, but understood that it could really happen and how great it could be at that level. So I just was a fan. I was a fan of the content you were creating and the messages you were sending. And you know, we we were both younger back then, so maybe some of the things you said weren't perfect, but I knew where it was coming from. Felt like a big heart over there.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah. Uh I that's the second Abby Breathhour reference in the last month on this podcast, which means Abby, I know you're gonna listen to this one. You you're up, okay? Your time is coming.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

She should be, man. She is the real deal.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

We have got to get her on here. Okay, let's let's pivot to this season because you had a pretty special season. Okay. Um, and that's how you, you know, that's how you get named Coach of the Year, is because people recognize, I think, the outstanding performances that some of the athletes on your team put up. One of the things, I mean, that probably stands above all else in terms of recognition. You had a group of swimmers that set a NCAA Division III national record in the 200 medley relay. And the 400 medley relay at NCAA's as well. I'm remembering both of them. We want to make sure we we recognize it all here. And here's one of the things, like, you know, here's where I'll show my nerd chops. Because I was looking at the content of this relay, and for instance, you had a breaststroker, also won an NCAA title in the 100 breaststroke. He swam 51-8. Did he never break a minute before swimming in college? So Maric, um, and you're gonna have to pronounce his name for everybody because we all need help.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Maric Samritovich is uh is a kid from West Hartford, Connecticut, and he swam and went to school in high school at Kingswood, Oxford. And his coach, Kata Baker, swam at Conn College, worked a Kenyan College total performance swim camp alongside me back in 2006. And when I started the Bait Swim Camp, I hired her immediately. Um, I was like, You're in Connecticut, I'm in Maine now, don't fly out to Ohio, come to Maine. And Kata and I and Abby pretty much started the Bates Swim Camp together, and she's been by my side for the last 19 years that I've been at Bates every summer. And she was Maritch's coach in high school. And she said, you know, I got a kid that got into college got into baits. He's he's really leaning towards going there. He's he doesn't think he wants to swim in college. He thinks his career's done. But um, he swam the hundred breaststroke in our last dual meet and went 101. Then at conferences, which was trials and finals, he went 59 and then 58-9. So, you know, we've been swimming him in freestyle, but you know, 25 and the 50-free, 24 and the 50-free wasn't cutting it. We decided to try something new. So, I mean, it was a program where there's a three-sport, you know, requirement at Kingswood. Um, he was swimming probably 2,500 yards a day for 12 weeks out of the year. And he came into the office in April as a at a regular, you know, regular decision admitted students day. Um, and we had, you know, 55 on the team and and two sevens and a recruit that was coming in already at 57. And I said, you know, without a doubt, Maritch, you can if you want to swim in college and you wanna you want to see how good you can get, we we'll find a spot for you, you know, and and you can try it out. I can't promise you you'll even travel based on how deep we are right now and the team and where it is, but you know, you're making a good strides, I believe, in in Kata and and you know, her idea of, you know, you can get her telling me that you could improve. And so the potential's there. Let's see what happens. So, I mean, that's how it started. He he showed up at campus, and to this day, the team still makes fun of him because he walked into the first day of practice with a jammer on. Like, right, like no knowledge of like swimming culture and like what's you know, what what is acceptable and not, you know, like so it's the biggest tell right there. So he never had swam club, he had never like done anything at any high level, had never hung out with the cool fast kids. Like, so he was there and uh, you know, it was it was one of those things. I was so blessed when he showed up to have Vanessa Williamson on deck with me, when we'd been together for 10 years at that point, and I just was like, hey, I know you've got the sprinters. Marge cannot make it through more than 2,500 yards of practice. Like, we're gonna put him over there so that you know it it slows things down a little bit and he can handle the kind of volume up, you know, increase that he's gonna get this year. But just like make sure you don't break them. Like, I I you know, like, like we can't put him in uh a fatigue tube that you know is is debilitating for the entire year. And I had learned great lessons leaving Kenyon and going to Wabash about like, yeah, people can train really hard, but maybe they'll never be going fast for you. And so I just was like, let's make sure that you know we we take care of them. And if you need to pull him out and talk to him a little bit so he gets a couple hundred yards off in a main set just to waste time and make it look like you know, he's not skipping laps because you know he's he can't do them, like just figure it out, Vanessa. And she coached him up really well that year, and he split a time in the in the two medley relay that made our eyes kind of like eyebrows raise, and all of a sudden he was our fastest 50 breaststroker on the team who could barely finish 100, and the the 200 was just god-awful. I mean, it like last year at Nationals he went 210 in the 200 breaststroke after being 53 in the 100, you know. So like the you could see like the background just wasn't there, and that was after three years of training with us, but he swam very fast, and um, we had probably you know the greatest swimmer in Maine history, Nate Barry, going 21-2, 21-2 on a 50 back for us, and then March got to jump in freshman year on a on a 200 medley relay at nationals and do his thing, and I think he split like 24, which was just crazy fast. And we had Max Corey at the end as a freshman going 19 mid. Um, and our relay got, I think, sixth in the country as a freshman, and he just went for that 150 breast. And then the next year he still hadn't qualified for nationals and made the B cut. So he got to swim on the relay and then tried, you know, the hundred breast and prelims and came in twelfth. So he came to the night swim and got fifteenth or fourteenth, and you know, the moment the moment was big. And then, you know, junior year he went 53-7 and was top eight. And then this year, you know, he just made some really big leaps and bounds and in a dual meet against Middlebury. He wanted to put a suit on and have me time his four twives to see where they were at on each level and each point in the race. And so very just like focused on the process and like putting together a smart race and learning from it. That was his only goal. And he went 53-07 and broke the Nescaq record. And from there, I was like, okay, I don't know where this is gonna go. It's either gonna be 52-5 at the end of the year or it's gonna be something really special, but I should have known because uh the guy is the guy is as hardworking as you can imagine and did everything he could um in and out of the pool. And then, like, I can't talk just about Maric as a swimmer. Like, he helped me build the culture on the men's and women's team the last two years and probably more than anybody else um in the program, conversations in the office and and and just um a deep caring and sincerity about where the program was and what we stood for and what was going on, the stuff that, you know, a 49-year-old, 50-year-old coach doesn't quite know. And so he was he's just heart was in the right place and and he wanted to see Bates succeed at the highest level and um, you know, did everything he could over his four years to to make this year happen. You know, splitting 50.4 on a relay, which you know, only two people in D1s last year were faster than, like that that's the ultimate, you know, slap on the back for him. Like you are you're the man. Like you are you did it, and you should feel really proud of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, I mean, so much to follow up on, but I I almost want to zoom back out, right? We've just taken like a real like deep dive. No, it's good because I think there's so many parts of this story that are instructive, and actually I really wanted you to tell that story because I want my audience to kind of like see the way that you talk about people that you're coaching. But if if we pull back, right, we're talking about an athlete and you you end with like basically any college team in the country would love to have somebody at his capabilities on their team, and yet he was, you know, maybe not even going to swim in college. Right. That's that's where we started this story. Okay. And I just think there's something in here that's instructive when it when it comes to two concepts that are like one of them I know people put a big value on in college swimming. The other one I think people need to put a bigger value on. And the first one is recruiting, right? Recruiting. And the second one is development, right? I think that I, you know, what I observe recruiting from afar, and I speak to something I said earlier about short term decision making. I don't necessarily see a lot of people thinking. Thinking about, hey, how can I take a kid that's maybe not going to swim in college, not swim thinking about swimming in college, doesn't come from a strong training background, played some other sports, and give them an opportunity, because that's what you did. You gave him an opportunity to grow in your program. I I just don't know that a lot of people are thinking that way in terms of recruiting. And then it really bleeds into like what is your approach going to be to development? The idea that, like, do you really plan around developing athletes, or do you have a program where you're just like, okay, we're just gonna keep this recruiting churn and hopefully a few people get better? How do you you think about all that?

SPEAKER_00 22:45

It is it is hard not to in this or get caught up in times um and um you know who who's leaving your program and what you need to bring in, or hey, I have a I have a 5,500 breaststroker, I need to be recruiting in people that at least go 55. Um, and um I kind of I kind of like I guess I have two schools of thought. Like one, like I I do, I tell people a lot of times, like you you gotta be having times in the top 20 of the Nescaq if we're gonna if we're gonna travel you. We're at a program, we're at that level. Like you can't write me and be a 5,800 breaststroker and think I'm gonna recruit you. But I'll tell you that if you are interested in baits and want to be at baits, there's gonna be a spot on this team for you as long as one, you're not afraid to work hard and you're gonna commit to it for an entire season. Two, you want to make your teammates better. And from day one, they're just told like, if you want to work hard and you want to feel like you're in the best shape of your life and you want to dedicate and prioritize swimming in school above everything else, because I know you'll take care of your social life. I know you'll take care of your like your happiness in other areas. But when push comes to shove, be like, I want to do that. We're gonna we're gonna have a great training program. I've worked with some of the best. I I know what's out there, I've done the reading, I I I try to learn as much as I can. You're gonna get in great shape nine times a week. It's gonna be awesome. But you're gonna need help. And if you're not there helping others on the team, they're not gonna be there when you need help to be there for you. And so I think we just speak to that. Um, and I've lost a lot of really fast recruits to other NESCAC schools, especially. But the ones we've gotten that have heard that message and maybe been the tier below the the, you know, instead of the top eight, top 16 next swimmer were the ones that were between 16 and 24 and weren't getting the looks from the teams that need to only recruit those people in order to stay where they were. I mean, we were still traveling in a direction. You know, I think those people came in with some more development still to occur. They came in with a chip on their shoulder because maybe they didn't get into Bowdoin or they didn't get into, or the coach at Williams didn't recruit them, or the tough's coach told them they were too slow. Sorry, we've got too many people, not enough lanes, our team's too big already. Like real, like real things that coaches were honest with them about. They found a place at Bates that was like, hey, I'll run two practices in the afternoon. We'll find a spot in the lane if you can, if you can, if you can keep up and do it, I would never want to take swimming away from you. It was way too important to my development as a human being over college. So I try to find a spot for everybody. Try to find a spot for everybody, and that was the thing. I mean, March is he's a unicorn. You know, we have three kids, four kids every single year that kind of walk onto the program. And, you know, they might go from 51 to 49. They're not going from 49 to 42, you know. So, like it, like we get what we get, and then we provide them the opportunity, like you said, to see how good you can be. And I think the thing I sell along with that message of like, you know, work hard and be there for your teammates is like our seniors go lifetime best. And to me, that's the best selling point of all is that they love swimming enough to care their senior year as they're going into senior thesis and getting a job. And they're not, and they're still trying to accomplish goals. And they're not in the locker rooms going, Thank God this is done, so I can go party, you know, the last and the end of the year. They're like, it's conferences. Can I get another month of swimming? And when the team kind of developed that culture, that was something I was really proud of because I was like, they want more. And I remember being a college swimmer in the in the 90s and being like, when that when that season was over, that pool was pain and agony. I'm not going back to it. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave it until the summer when I have to start training again and get ready for the next year. But my swimmers are back in the pool and hanging out with each other and laughing and having a good time. And I was like, that was the dream. So I don't know. Does that answer some of the questions? Did I do that? Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

It leads me to another question I was thinking about as you're talking uh, you know, one of the topics I've I've interviewed a lot of coaches on here, and people usually give like a knowing nod when I say this. Um, and I think it's important in this context. Like, coaches are control freaks. I think it's very often that people get into a coaching profession because they have a lot of ideas about what people can do to improve themselves, to get better, to be the best version of themselves. And they really enjoy kind of like guiding people along that. And sometimes that guiding, you know, we all kind of walk a line of like how much guidance should we be providing, like how intense should we be, you know, how how much should we be telling people what to do, and how much should we be helping them find their own answers, right? And I I just think in the context of the NESCAC in particular, when you talk about development, like I just know there's coaches out there listening to this that are like, I'm sorry, I don't understand how that works. You know, they're practicing like essentially, I know you guys got an extra week. We talked about this when I was off with you, but like essentially practicing a glorified high school season where you can mandate one practices. And so, like, you know, for your average club coach who's like, we need to train, you know, 50 weeks out of the year, and that's what it's gonna take to get better, it's very hard to visualize like how do you approach development in this environment where most of the year you have zero control over what people are doing. You have like basically, I wouldn't say no influence. You have some influence, but you you aren't directly administering anything. So how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

A lot of communication. We talk to the team often about nothing great in February starts October 20th. Like it's gotta start, it's gotta start over the summer. And everybody at a place like Bates is in much different places. Like some can train over the summer, some are working to to pay for tuition, some are interning, some are trying to get their abroad experience, some of them are in the city, and you know, they're not gonna they're not gonna pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to swim with a club team. They're gonna find a master swim team or a local Y or you know, whatever. So we talk about, you know, different needs that they should focus on over the summer and an idea of overall fitness being the number one goal so that, you know, when they show up to preseason practices, they're they're not hating the journey of getting back into shape because it it's it's way less fun when you did nothing. And weeks and weeks and weeks of terrible practices is much more immensely difficult to get past than it took me a week and a half and I started to feel good in the water again. I mean, we got nothing to keep people on the team here. There's no scholarships, there's there's a hundred plus clubs on campus, there's every reason in the world to make your life easier. And so um I I you know, I I want them to see gains and see them, see them being good and and training well. So I write practices that I believe people can do really well and intervals that I think are challenging, but allow people opportunities to get back in shape, those that are in shape to go really fast. And so you're just kind of mixing and matching that type of thing. It's it's very real. Like I tell the swimmers, like if you start in October and you finish in February, that's like four months with Thanksgiving break and a and a Christmas break, uh uh uh December winter break. So, like, in essence, you're getting about three months of coaching every year after four years. That's a year. You've got a year of coaching that has happened when you used to get coached 50 weeks out of the year. And so um, you know, it it's it requires a tremendous amount of accountability and um desire on their part and motivation on their part. And so that's that's the secret sauce of the Nescaq, because when you stand up on the blocks, you feel like you did it. You know, it wasn't some coach that made you do something for 50 weeks and you had to do. This was your choice and and you figured out a way to do it. And um there's an ownership there that I think is really unique to our conference, and one of the reasons why you see us do so well top, you know, in the top 10, 15 at nationals every year. Um, there's a lot of Nescaq teams that that show up at the end of the year and and and do well with a month, month and a half less of training together as a group. And I I would love that month and a half, but you know it's it is helpful, I think, for their own identity and their own ownership of their successes. And Coach Raleigh at Gettysburg gave that to me, and that's been part of my program ever since then. It's if you know, if you want it, you'll figure out a way to make it happen. And if you succeed, it's your success, not mine as your coach. Yeah. That was the gift that I wanted to give all my athletes is when you graduate from Bates, if it gets hard and things are difficult, you might fail, but eventually you're gonna figure it out. And you have the four years of college that proved that to you, whether it was academics or swimming or or life or whatever relationships, like you made it and you improved and you went a lifetime best, your senior year, you made it through four years, you've got your 3.0, your 3.8, whatever it was. So why would that stop? You're gonna you're gonna be successful going on because of who you are. And it might be tough, but you came back from tough before, so it's gonna, it's gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I still train and compete, and I feel like the NESCAC made a huge difference for me in my swimming career. You know, like I just have this natural well of motivation. It's not a problem for me to go down to the pool and train, you know. It's just I I see all these people who are like, I just can't do it, you know. I like I'm worried about how well I'm doing, or, you know, I need some other people there to like motivate me. I'm like, I could I could go down to the pool anytime and because I I did it, you know, and I did it, and I that was just the way that it had to be sometimes. Obviously, you know, I had teammates every now and then, but there were days when I had work I wanted to do and it was just me in the pool and nobody was making me be there, and there's something that's so powerful about it, right? I think on its face, a lot of people can look at it as a disadvantage, and I just don't think it is. Like I think what you learn through that process is in the end, some of things it ends up being a huge advantage.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah. Like I said earlier, like I'm a solution-oriented guy, and like I'll spin, I'll spin the shortened season to any athlete that wants to look at baits and and what what the pluses are of it. I mean what's what's being developed that's different than other places. And if that jives with you, then you're gonna you're gonna really do well. But if you know you're the type of person that needs to be surrounded by a team and get and they get you to the pool or a coach tells you and and that's that's who you are, then yeah, go those are the those are the ones we lose because I'm really honest about how it is. I remember Nate Barry, I told him during his recruit meeting, he asked, Well, how are you gonna make me faster? Your what's your vision? And I think he'd asked every coach that. And I said, Nate, I'm not gonna make you faster. That's your call. Like you have to go to bed early at night. You have to show up, you have to wanna do that. Like my question for you is, are you gonna make my team faster? Are you gonna make your teammates better? Or is this only gonna be about you and what, you know, what needs what need what you need over your four years? And I think he appreciated that I wasn't gonna be like, well, here's a power rack set that we do, and here's the here's the weight room program, and I sprint more athletes than any other coach in the country. It was just like I gave him the keys and said, if you're gonna be great, it's gonna be because of you, and I'm gonna be the best caddy around, I promise. Like Coach Steen, that was that was his mental, you know, mentality when I was at Kenyon for those two years. The athletes to learn and know why they were doing what they were doing, and then he would direct them the best they could. And he was also way more like motivational than I'll ever be, and and could do whatever you know his amazingness was, but and sustainability, jeez. But like I like that type of coaching. I like that type of coaching.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

I think you have your own motivational talents. I think promised in our text message, I said I wouldn't accept any modesty from you. And I will I will just, since you're not gonna say it about yourself, here's what I will say about you is I think that you have a wonderful blend of something that is kind of like maybe in my opinion, the most essential piece of coaching, which is, and I this goes back to when even when you were helping me in the beginning, you were very unafraid to deliver really like blunt assessments to me, critiques, right? Stuff that I needed to hear to get better, but you always couple it with like a deep care. Like I felt like you were critiquing me, and I felt like you really gave a shit about me while you were doing it. And I think people respond to that. I mean, I I think, you know, there's there's stuff that like floats around in the ether that goes like, you know, coaching has changed and you can't be honest with athletes anymore, and you gotta walk on eggshells and all this stuff. I go, I don't think that's true. I do think that, you know, in the past there were coaches that could maybe just get away with being assholes, and that's way less possible than it used to be. But I think that you can still, there's still a big lane for somebody who is honest, tells people what they they need to hear, but couples it with like a level of support that actually gives them what they need to make those changes, to try something new, to dare to sort of go out and bridge some new territory. And I think you're masterful at that.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

I appreciate that. I try to I try to be definitely, you know, more of the optimist. You know, like I I I believe in things that are delusional, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

I think that's I think that's important too, though.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

You know, like I I told, you know, team my year two when we were 10th in the conference, like we're the best team in the country. And I made sure that they heard that over and over again. I signed off emails with I'm so proud to coach the best team in the country and and the best team in the country. And I I wanted them to really believe it and understand what I meant by the best team in the country. I mean, like they got along so well. They helped kids in the community, they got great grades, they supported each other, they improved, you know, a great amount um as a team. Like we had great improvement, you know, numbers, we had great faster-than-seed numbers. Um, like I didn't say we're the fastest, I said we're the best. And and like it became a running joke onto the team. Um, but it was also something I think we we believed in our own in our own way. And so um I really have thought about that as who I am and what I wanted people to do. Sometimes maybe I could be a little bit more truthful to kids about, you know, what they need to hear, but I think I do try to speak honestly and I true to find out, like try to find out like what is really bothering them or what is really going on if they're not performing well. Because a lot of times it's not swimming related, it's it's other parts of their lives. And I think if you can, if you can just take a moment and be like, you know, things haven't been going well training-wise, it's not it's not what we're writing, and it's not how you're preparing, and it's not your stroke, and it's not your technique, and it's not some drill we need, or some change to practices, like what's going on in your life. Um, and that was that was a big moment for me when I started to have those connections. Um, and then the other thing I think that's really motivational going back to where we started is just like we try to be really tangible, you know, like a lifetime best is 0.2 faster than you've ever been. Let's let's not be thinking about three seconds faster in a 200 just yet. Let's let's figure out what it takes. And and then they would see themselves doing things day in and day out that represented that I'm swimming faster than I ever have feeling, and the confidence would grow. And I would tell them, like, you don't have to be great, you just have to be good. And if you're good for weeks and weeks and weeks and months, the greatness comes. So don't don't try to be great one day and then in the tank the next because um you're up and down on this, you know, roller coaster ride. Just be even and then all of a sudden you're good starts to get better and and you get great. And I think when you tell somebody to do it that way, it's less overwhelming. It's it's less stressful than to think like, you know, like I had a Myler this year that wants to go 1540, but he hasn't breaken broken 1615. And I'm like, I you can get there, but first, let's start training at six sixteen oh five, sixteen ten. Like we cannot be writing down paces for 1540. You have to understand, I'm it's not that I don't believe in you, but there's a step and there's a progress here, and this is how we've done it. Um, and we've made people better. And you know, some people fly through that process to 1540 really fast. Some people need the steps to get there. And so, you know, let's let's talk about what the next right step is for you.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yeah. One of the other things you were you were mentioning there, you're talking about even your second year and the the conversation around, you know, this is the best team. I I from the outside looking in, I think always about in a situation where, you know, you've just gotten this recognition, your team has gotten this recognition, and then all of a sudden everybody wants to know, like, oh, what are you doing? What was the magic thing that happened? What are you doing right now, et cetera? And I always think like these things are actually the results of processes that, you know, we don't even know really where they began. I mean, they've but they they started before you were even there. But certainly, like, I bet you can identify stuff as a coach that was like we were able to, you know, set a national record, multiple national records in a relay this year because of something that happened five years ago, something that happened 10 years ago. And I would imagine you probably even have years that you reflect on that you go, you know what? That was the best coaching I ever did. And I didn't get a, you know, coach of the year trophy for that one. Um, I wonder if you could provide some other examples of of that.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah. Um it is, you know, I I was super naive. I took the job at 32, 33 and thought within five years we would be, you know, top five. And now you're wise, right? Exactly. Which means I know much less than I did when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Your confidence is way lower, but your knowledge is way higher. Right. It always works like that.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Can't can't explain a lot of the things I've seen. And I love how my swimmers think that they know it all. Like I don't even remember what I was saying now.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

But you were saying you were naive when you started about how quickly you were gonna get better.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

I thought we were gonna be top three in the conference. I thought we would be top ten in the conference, you know, within 10 years. I mean, top ten in the country within 10 years. And I just was like, I'll I'll recruit people in and I'll make them better. And like I've seen great programs at Miami and Kenyon, and uh, you know, like I know what the best are doing and I know what needs to happen, and Bates is gonna be is gonna do it. And it took 19 years for me to win a NESCAC coach of the year award, and I felt like in year three I should have won it, right? Like, and that's not me bragging, it's just like, you know, like there was a group of men and women that would go to these conference meets and they would be having the best time of their life and they'd be improving a ton. But when you're seventh, you know, it's hard to it's hard to ever get that recognition. So 19 years later, you know, I'm going in my 20th year at Bates next year, I just I realized, you know, how how the you know how you have to find your happiness in how your athletes are enjoying the program, what they're the notes that they're writing to you about how it made them better, the the parents that are thankful, um, and and you know, just knowing that you've created a uh an environment where people improved over four years, they enjoyed the process, they found value in it, and they're connected to their alums, they're connected to their teams, they feel like it is it is something really important, and those are the winning moments. And then you get some really fast guys, the awards, the awards show up, and Maric and and Max, they're the they're the reason why I'm coach of the year, but I will also reflect on the 19 years that got us there and what we had to do. But it was really about making it a really valuable experience. Um, and like Greg Earhart talked about that to me. I think that's where you come from. Abby's always been like that at Princeton. Like that's that's what it's really about when you look at it. And I think people would come to Bates and they would see a team that was enjoying the process, and they would look at, you know, how people improved over four years, attracted some really great people. And I'm just like I said, I'm so lucky to to work at Bates College that it that attracts that type of person.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah. Um, let's talk about some of the stuff uh around even team building. Now, I had a cool opportunity a couple of years ago. I came up and I was there right at the beginning of your season. And I've I've talked about it in other forums. Uh I think you were doing a like a little bit of an intersquad time trial in the morning, and then you're getting your team together for, I guess what would be more or less like a team goal setting session later on in the day. And this stuff is like, this is the catnip for me, right? Like when I when I was working with uh Tufts in a previous year, like Adam Hoyt was like, You really want to sit in on a team meeting? I was like, Yeah, I absolutely, I love to sit in on team meetings. Like, that's my favorite thing is to sit in because I think you get so much insight from from from my perspective on what a team is like. You watch the way a coach communicates with their team, you watch the way the athletes participate in something like that. You know, what are the athletes saying? What are they seeing as their role? Like, what is the culture like within a group? So I'm always game for. Or that piece of it. From your perspective, what are some things? I guess, how do you try to approach iterating on what your team culture is? And I think, you know, coaches as well, this is an interesting question because you referenced this earlier. I mean, you worked with Vanessa Williamson for a long time. Um, and that is pretty unusual as well, right? To have somebody that long in that position. But uh, you know, now you're bringing some new younger coaches along. So how do you approach kind of trying to iterate on like, okay, well, you know, this is our team culture today, but like it's not gonna be exactly that a year from now. And how do we make sure that that is heading in a direction? And also how do we make sure that it's like retaining things that we have spent a long time building up? I mean, what a question.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, I mean culture is uh it's constant. It's it's constant work. It's um I mean the biggest the biggest thing I've I've learned is that if there's something bothering you about your team or the way things are happening or the way people are acting, you have to act on it immediately and have a conversation and talk about what what you want your program to be about. And it has to be about stuff that matters to kids today, not just what matters to you. I try to appeal to their humanity of like this is this is what's important, this is the big stuff in life. Um, and like we're just never gonna do anything special unless we're doing it together. And that has just been the message all along. And there has been bumps in the road, and there's been moments where I have not done well and I have failed at this and and I've thought great ideas about like, oh, we're gonna pick our NESCAC team later in the year. And I found myself my decision pitted people against each other on the team. And like I've had to learn over and over again, you know, the type of kid that you have, the type of, you know, what what this generation is all about, like what they're looking for, um, and and not get stuck in in in ways that worked 10 years ago. You know, the team succeeded under being able to kind of adapt and move on. But starting from like, I do think culture is is the same. Like it needs to be the same every single year. And it has to be your guiding kind of light and your principle because they will, if they believe in the program, they will work hard and they'll work hard for each other. And that is that is what Bates has always been about is I'm doing this for my for my teammates. And yes, like I have goals and I want to achieve things. And like I have to figure out a way to balance that of being like you can achieve your goals and you can be a great teammate. They're not, you know, a zero-sum game or one or the other, like the both can exist. And that's really hard because if you're gonna chase dreams that are exceptionally challenging and at the highest level, you have to be selfish and and you have to be thinking about yourself and um and how do you do that? But you're also part of a program so your teammates know that you've got their back at all times. And so we do a lot of talking about that. And and you know, if anybody is, you know, acting in a certain way, we'll tend to have that person's back, but also show them that we have their back and they come back into the fold with us. And and and so it's been delicate and it's been consistent and it's been something that I wanted from day one. Like everybody's training the same out there. Everybody knows that there's two hours in a practice and you're supposed to do these things, and everybody can watch the underwater YouTube videos and see what strokes should look like. But if you have a team that's swimming for each other, and I don't do this all the time. I mean, we're not perfect at this by any means, but we do it a lot. And that's I think what I'm most proud of it because they because they will they will go to that place and that little X factor that that makes you do things you couldn't you didn't think you could do. And I'll tell stories left and right, you know. Um, Teddy Pender, you know, was our fastest hundred freestyler, um, first guy ever to win the Nescaq championship in the 100 free, went to nationals and won the B final of the 100 free as senior year. Um, I think it was like 44-7, and won the B finals. We had to pull him out of the pool, basically. I mean, he was exhausted. Um, and you know, NC2As, you've got four 100 freeze on the last day if you're on a relay. And he was so excited to anchor our relay and and have the fastest split ever in Bates history, you know, now that he's the fastest hundred free time in Bates history. And I just, you know, after a couple minutes of loosen, I just looked at him and said, Teddy, the only way we do anything in this B-final is you leading off and getting us the lead. And he said, You got to coach whatever the team needs. And that broke my heart. Like, I because I was ready for him to be like visibly upset that he wasn't gonna anchor the relay and have that ability. Like, I just took that chance to have the fastest ever split because we had always relied on him, and that was gonna be his gift. Like, you're gonna anchor this the four-free relay, your senior year at nationals at the IUPUI pool and and just throw down the best thing ever. And he just said, Yep, got it. That's what the team needs. And I was just like, holy shit. And and sorry, I don't know if I could swear on this. You could swear one.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, one, you just used up our one swear word. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

So good, it was a great use of it. Keep going. And then he jumps in and leaves off the relay and drops three tenths more. And I'll tell that story to the team all the time. I'll be like, there's no, there's no science, there's no physiology, there's no book out there that says in order to go your lifetime best, you have to be dead tired 20 minutes earlier after you just swam your lifetime best, because that's the key to going faster. I'm like, that's the heart, and that's that's doing it for your teammates. And and so we have dozens of those stories. And, you know, I think every time one happens, the team recognizes it and shouts it out at the end of the meet to the to the team. And it could be for third place, it could be for the win, it could be whatever. It could be that fifth place guy that came from behind on the last 25 of the thousand and got fifth place. And at time it doesn't mean anything, but his heart was there and he passed a guy and the whole team went bonkers. And so, like, I think that is that is the culture that we've wanted to aspire towards find, lose, and then find again. And in this year, you know, Max Corey, after junior year of um winning the national title in the hundred free, breaking the national record, looked at me after we deked the 200 medley relay and was like, I am swimming the four free relay in the morning, even you couldn't take me off of it because we're gonna get top eight in this event. And he sacrificed his ability to be the defending national champion so that he could be there for the team and we could have two top eight finishes, you know. And like I just was like, you know, you doing it for the team just made you the most decorated and accomplished athlete in Bates history. So it's that world that we live in where if you do it for somebody else, you're actually gonna reap the benefits. You're doing it for yourself. And and like, you know, by thinking of himself second, he became number one. And that is that's that's crazy. That's why I love sports, you know. Like that's the that's the silver lining. Like, yeah, he got fourth in the hundred free at night. Um, but he was top eight in everything, and he swam on every prelims and finals relay. And the year before, the, you know, we didn't put him on the four-free relay in the morning. He had been abroad for a semester. We knew his, you know, central nervous system couldn't handle swim after swim after swim. And we were trying to take care of our, you know, our our our guy that was just a superstar sprinter, and it paid off with a national title and a victory and a national record. And senior year, he he wanted to do something else. He wanted to wanted to make sure the team had a top 10 finish. He wanted to make sure that the relays were were taken care of, and and he focused in on that 50 free and all the relays over his hundred-free. And he was okay with that. And I mean, I think I say that.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Yeah, I say this to people when I go out and speak, and I really mean it. I think we're so lucky in the sport of swimming that, you know, we have the sport that on its face is such an individualized sport. But we for whatever you know, freak chance of how it developed way back in the day, we compete on teams, we compete on actually rather large teams for in a quote unquote individual sport. And I don't think we would be seeing anywhere near the level of performance we see if that wasn't the case. Swimming was like tennis, and it was like, you know, like you had like, you know, five men and five women, and it was just like, okay, you know, you win your matchup with the guy from the other team. Like the way that people, the level of performance that gets unlocked by the team synergy of our sport is it's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

The best thing in this country is high school and college swimming. It is a thousand percent my belief that that is the reason people do the most amazing things. And that team aspect is means everything when you can when you're doing it for 20 other people, not just yourself. And club swimming is so important and there's so much development that goes there, but it's in the end, it's what time do I need to go? You know, what time what meet can I qualify for? And you know, my kids swam YMCA and I was like, sweet, at least there's like this YMCA, you know, you know, you know, like relay team like moment that is that is very team oriented there. But I just love high school swimmers that talk about talk about how much a relay means to them. It's built base on relays. It's that's the most important thing I can ever tell you is go into the national meet on a relay instead of by yourself. It unlocks everything. And so I mean we had a we had a team in 2015 that time trialed the 400 medley relay before the finals of Nescax. And I had my backstroker and butterflyer and breaststroker on that relay all doing tiers of stroke, you know, later on in the session. And not once did they ever bat an eye at having to do a 400 medley relay time trial before their individual events went. And we got 16th in the country with that time that we time trialed. The whole Nescaq was going bonkers for us. We had gotten really close with Williams and their kids were going crazy for us. Um, and we went off to nationals and they got 14th and 12th in both of the relays and moved up from there. And they just wouldn't have had that moment at the national meet if they didn't try one more time and put the team ahead of their own goals in their individual events. So those are the stories and the things that we tell and talk about. And I think um, you know, if I've done anything, I've been trying to be a good storyteller.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Yeah. So I think we've reached the end of the serious part of the podcast. I have one surprise that's not on the outline that we can always add it out if this goes disastrously at the end. But I thought it would be funny. You referenced earlier. This is for the through true, true bred D3 swimming dorks, this last part of the podcast, okay? So I want you to go back. We're gonna have a quick debate. Well, maybe we'll have a debate. It depends on whether we come up with different answers. I want you to name your greatest D3 women swimmer of all time and your greatest D3 men swimmer of all time. Then I'll do my then I'm gonna Well you I know you have an answer to these questions. You didn't need to prep for this. You're ready. You just want me to go, huh? We this is a debate from the back in the day on the forums. This was like hundreds of pages.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Really? Yeah. Like that's a moment. You know, like I I worked with some amazing athletes at Kenyon. You know, Mark Courtney Brooks, amazing. That's a good answer. That's a that's a very good answer for the men's side. Beth Galloway on the women's side was phenomenal. You know, I don't know. There's so many of them, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Like, I I can talk about my women's one, I want to give a shout out to Kendra Stern. You know, I don't know. I dare you to to to beat me on that uh while you think for a second. Just seeing that her record go down this year was a reminder to me how far ahead of her time she was when she was racing. I mean, the times that she was putting up relative to the level of competition that she was just like light years ahead. She was incredible. And uh I almost like I almost debated between her and Britney Sasser, who was also really, really good at the same time they were teammates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Custer has had some women that did amazing things.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Who's the breaststroker? Now I'm I'm blanking on her name, but she was around uh my ear. Lindsay Payne. She actually won NCAA's four years in a row.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

She was 59 and top bait in the hundred breast at trials.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

It was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

It was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Yeah. But he had like Logan Todd Hunter, and then he had some 500 freestyler. I can't remember her name right now. Like it just unbelievable athletes that that Steve has had. I mean, I I I adore Steve Custer. I think he is a phenomenal coach and um always always working the team aspect. You've you've had him on. I've not. No. Yeah. Steve Custer. Did you add it to the list? Yeah. Like I'm can you send me his number? Sure. We'll we'll do. Yeah. But Mark Courtney Brooks is a great answer because I coached him his freshman year and sophomore year. And I think freshman year he won the 200 IM. Sophomore year, he won the 50 free, or he got second in the 50 free because we didn't have any 50 freestylers. Junior year, he won the 500. And like, and then one year he did 100 back, one year he did 100 breasts, 100 fly. Like he just wanted to race people and and beat them. Um, and he did every event, every event, every stroke. I mean, that guy was unbelievable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Who's your male pick? My male pick? Okay, so Andrew Wilson. I'm gonna take, yeah. I mean, it's my I'll tell you, I have my head in my heart, okay. My head says it's Andrew Wilson slam dunk. There's no argument about this because when you have a D3 swimmer that goes on essentially to represent the U.S. internationally, like, I don't know, how can you top that? He was exceptional. My heart is is James Bourne.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Yeah. I was just gonna say, like, you gotta talk about James Bourne and Kevin Mulville. I mean, they both went D1s and scored at the meet and represented the country and like at James Bourne's Jimmy Bourne was like the second fastest kid in the country, you know, for the United States of America when he was swimming 19 points in the eight in the early 80s. I mean, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

The old school debate on the forums was because it was mainly, let's be honest, it was mainly guys, so they were mainly arguing about guys swimming. The old school debate was James Bourne, Mark Courtney Brooks, or Aaron Cole from Denison.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Oh, yeah, Aaron Cole.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Yeah. You like if you were, if you were if you wanted to be counter-culture, Aaron Cole was like the counterculture pick. If you just wanted to hate on Kenyon because it was annoying that Kenyon was winning every year, you you had to like come up with arguments that was like, actually Aaron Cole is better than those guys. I think he was amazing. I don't I think he was probably like 95 out of 100 on uh on what uh James Bourne and and Courtney Brooks did.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Dennis Mobile Hill in 1988 went 136. He went 136 in the 200 free in 1988, you know, and Bourne, I think 86 was, you know, 19.8. 43 in the 100 free. Like unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

I mean, you can talk about Max Corey, he was doing 42 and James Bourne was doing a 43 in the 80s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

Yeah. So I mean, that's those were the guys that started, you know, the you know, what Coach Steen really put together, you know. Like you can you have those type of athletes come through your program and you have his type of energy and enthusiasm and desire. Um, he just he rolled from that from that point. And you can go down their lineage. James Bourne passed it to Mulvahill, Mulvahill passed it to John Howell, John Howell passed it to, or Greg Perini was in there somewhere and then Howell and just kept going, you know, one person after another. Grace Ken Heiss was in there. Like they just had the best sprinter in the country every two years. A new one showed up and followed that tradition all the way through to you know, Mark Courtney Brooks and Zach Turk. You know, like Zach Turk was pretty awesome. Like who what other what other team can win a Division III national title with Zach Turk on it and then have him go to Michigan and be the reason why they won those Division I national titles? You know, like he anchored those, he was the missing link on those teams. And you know, Josh White's the coach there, so there's more Kenyan connections that are going anywhere. So like it is it is is unbelievable to think about the athletes in the lineage.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

And the more important question is what other podcast is this being discussed? Because that's why this is the number one podcast in swimming.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

The best podcast in the country, Chris. That's right. The best podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

Nobody else is hashing out who are the greatest Division III swimmers of all time. They're not, they're not, these are the topical, viral topics that everybody wants to hear about. I just had to, I had to indulge on the end of it. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you, everybody, for listening. If I could make a shout out to everybody, please, for the sake of what uh we're trying to do here, get on and rate the podcast. Okay, if you've been listening to this for a long time, if you've been enjoying it, even if you want to complain and and not give me a five-star rating, get on there and give a rating to this podcast. It makes a huge difference in terms of how this gets pushed out to audiences and the visibility of other people seeing it. So, you know, if you're listening to this right now, hop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, give it a rating, help boost us in the algo a little bit. Um, I can't believe I just said algo. Anyway, if you want to reach out to me, uh, you can go to email me at crdesandis at gmail.com. You can go to christycoach.com, or you can go on my Instagram, handle Christy underscore coach. Pete, where do you want people to go if they want to follow what what you're up to? Bait swimming and diving on Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Yeah, I guess um we got a guy on our team, Noah Katz. He is the best at Instagram. So our social media is off the hook. Come check us out at baitswimming on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

Well, you tell you listen, you tell Noah when this podcast goes up, I'm inviting baits to collaborate on all these posts. So you know, I'm gonna get that boost from uh sharing it across.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah, he'll he'll put something together for sure, but check out the Instagram. It is it's fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Okay, amazing. Yeah. Thank you again to Coach Casaris. Uh thank you to everybody for listening, and I'll be back with you guys again in a week.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Thank you again, Chris. You do such good work for all of us in the sport. Like and subscribe.