The Most Important Thing a Coach Can Say After Failure | Dave Salo

Dave Salo has coached at every level of the sport—from NCAA championships to Olympic medals—but this conversation isn't about workouts or sets.

Instead, we explore the decisions that define great coaching.

We discuss why process matters more than outcomes, how a single sentence can change the way an athlete experiences failure, the transition from assistant coach to head coach, what it means to lead people instead of simply managing performance, and the lessons Dave has learned from both success and adversity throughout his career.

Whether you coach swimming, another sport, or simply lead people, this episode is a reminder that the impact of coaching extends far beyond results.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why athletes remember what coaches say long after races are over
• The language that changes how athletes process failure
• The difference between being an assistant coach and leading a program
• How coaching philosophy evolves over decades
• Navigating criticism, setbacks, and career transitions
• What separates great coaching from great instruction

If you're interested in becoming a better coach—not just producing better performances—this conversation is for you.

More episodes, resources, and coaching:
https://www.chrisdcoach.com

About The Swim Brief

The Swim Brief explores the thinking behind great coaching through conversations with world-class coaches, sport scientists, and leaders in swimming and beyond. Each episode is designed to help coaches improve the quality of their thinking so they can improve the quality of their coaching.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I am Chris DeSantis, and it is my absolute pleasure to be joined today by a coaching legend, three-time U.S. Olympic coach, coach of many other Olympic swimmers outside of the U.S., Olympic medalists. He recently retired from a position coaching with the Arizona State Sun Devils. Dave Salo, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Chris, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, I am so excited to have you on here. I'm so excited to ask you some of these questions. I sent you an outline. I have uh maybe an obscure revisiting of history that might not interest anybody but me that we're gonna get to get to in a moment with this. But let's uh let's start here because you know, you retired from from your position at Arizona State. But, you know, I was talking to David Marsh just a few weeks ago, and uh, you know, retirement doesn't seem to be what it used to be. He said he's still working with a couple federations, he's still working with a couple of colleges, he had his hands in, you know, multiple clubs across the United States. So what are you up to? Are you truly retired, relaxing on the beach, or what's what's going on in your day-to-day?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Marsh and I had a brief conversation at NC Twize when he told me he was retiring. It was in the back of my mind that I I might be retiring soon, but we both agreed that we were really retired of getting up at five o'clock in the morning to go to a workout. Uh I think he stipulated in his last uh association with Jordan that he wouldn't do five o'clock workouts. But Herbie had me going about three, four times a week at six o'clock in the morning. I had to get up at five, walk my dog, and drive to practice. So it that that gets it's nice to wake up. Now I wake up early, but I don't have to be somewhere at six. So I've been I've been really fortunate. I've always had my my landing spot is back with Irvine Novaquatics. So I, as you recall, I was the head coach at the University of Southern California for 14 years from 2006 to 2020. During that time, I stayed on as general manager of the Irvine Novaquatics program. So when I left USC, I went back to Irvine, had a small pro group, was helping out with our top age groupers, 11, 12 year olds. And then uh when I took the I I call it sabbatical to ASU, um, you know, a lot of people wondered what I was doing, why I wanted to do it. And uh I got to know Herbie as one of my assistants at the uh duel in the pool in Australia a few years back. I think he's one of the brightest young coaches that's coaching today, and I I really wanted the opportunity to to work with Herbie. I have this, I I think I I had this compulsion that I think I could be a really good assistant coach. And having been a head coach for so long that uh it was kind of fun to be an assistant for a while. And and I wanted to see what the what the collegiate sports landscape was gonna look like in real time and not be on the outside. I wanted to be on the inside. So Herbie Gate afforded me that opportunity, really enjoyed it. So now I'm back with Irvine Nova Aquatics. Uh I haven't defined my role as yet. I'm I I've kind of been titling myself general manager head coach emeritus. If that if there's such a thing in club swimming, I'm working with a couple of our senior programs, a couple nights a week. Look, I before to be honest with you, before I left to go to ASU, I had contemplated taking our 13-14 group, creating a new group that was out of the age group, just pre pre-moving into this the top of the senior group, and thought that would be a great niche to where I could really be impactful, get the just kind of nurture those kids into preparation for senior swimming. But then I went to ASU. So when I came back, I found out they gave that job to another one of my coaches. And so I he's gonna go on paternity leave here in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna take over his group and maybe, maybe he'll hold on to a little tighter. I hope he's not watching this, but he may be. He's a he's a kind of a swimming nerd. So Kevin, you're you're safe. I'm not letting anybody go. But so I'm gonna find my role. I want to do do a little bit more mentoring with the coaches that we have. We've got a great staff at Irvine, and uh the city of Irvine's building a new pool, so there's gonna be three 50-meter pools on site or location in Irvine. Uh I've I've got a lot of things going on. I I think uh I think Irvine Nova wanted me, needed me more than Herbie needed me at ASU, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, so what I'm hearing is you wanted to try being an assistant coach, and I'm curious what that experience was like for you for you. I mean, we had Marsh on here as well. You know, he had this turn as an assistant coach later in his career. That's quite a heavyweight resume for a assistant coach, and I'm I'm I'm curious about that. And then you're gonna try being an age group coach too, here at this later stage of your career. What do you I mean, how do you reflect on being an assistant coach? You said you wanted to find out, or you thought maybe you were gonna be a good assistant coach. Were you a good assistant coach? I was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I I well I really enjoyed it. I I I I learned I was I was Peter Dalen's assistant coach for five years back in 1984 to 90. So I had that experience being an assistant and and I enjoyed it. I I I was never gonna get Peter's job in my mind, obviously. And I was just an assistant. I was a grad student at the time, so I had my priorities with was finishing up my PhD and everything. I felt like everything that I learned as being a head coach, I could I could hold I could help Herbie if he needed it, if he wanted to call upon me and say, hey, how did you deal with this? And it it uh I I I just enjoyed it. It was fun. It was fun. I'll tell you real quick the the onboarding process involved sitting down with compliance before I s the week before I started workouts, and it just brought chills up my spine. And it's like, what did I just what did I sign up for? Because those the days of that were just look just awful. So I got through that first day. But uh I just it Herbie gave me the opportunity to just coach and he he assigned me a group. He the focus was just coaching that group and not worrying about I I did some recruiting, but uh priorities was just just being on the deck and coaching. That's what we agreed to do. And I just it was it was fun to focus on that one thing. I didn't have to worry about the the late calls on Saturday night and have to deal with that on Monday morning. I I was the kids would tell you at USC that the things that would get me really angry were uh lane line's not tight. That sent me off all the time, and when the grades came out, and then I was really mad. And so if I was mad at Pratt, just they go, oh, the grades just came out, Dave saw the grades. No, I'd I would look at the grades here at ASU, but uh that's that wasn't my responsibility. So it was I would look at them but not be as emotional to it as uh Herbie might be. So it was just fun. I was just it was just uh it's funny. It was when I was at USC, I'd I'd get there at I'd get up at 4 30 in the morning, drive up to LA, I'd be there all day till 7 30 at night, and uh it was just there the whole day. And then when I got to ASU, I I asked Herbie what what the coaches did after morning practice, oh we all go home and do whatever we need to do. It's like I get to go home? That's kind of fun. So it's it's fun to have that opportunity just to focus on the coaching, focus on the athletes. And and I think I think the kids at ASU would tell me that that I didn't present a lot of stress in the environment, that I was pretty pretty laid back and energetic and energized by being there, but didn't have all that stress behind you that nobody knows about that uh that you're dealing with as a head coach.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, I mean I think it's a lot of coaches' dreams, right, to just purely coach and not worry about administrative stuff. I don't think anybody in college swimming would get on here and and you know, you talked about compliance. They're not gonna get on to here and say, you know what I love about college swimming? I love compliance. I love you know, I love filling out forms and sending them in and, you know, getting them back when I make a a small error and and getting, you know, busted for some tiny recruiting infraction, like, you know, back in the day we couldn't text people and somebody came on campus and you you texted them and then you had to write a letter saying, I'm so sorry that I, you know, sent one text message to this person while they were around. Things like that. You know, you talked about getting a chance to see what was going on in the college landscape firsthand. And I think there's been a lot of conversation about it. I think we're gonna keep talking about it for the foreseeable future. I don't see that dying down. What's your perspective as you look at the college landscape now and just having been able to step away from it? What are your general thoughts on what's going on in college swimming right now?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, well, first off, I I just I I mean, I I think it's really important to understand that the the house verdict, if you will, or house decision that was made that that was I I worked with Grant at ASU and and he handled it pretty well, but but I think people neglect to understand that his name was just put on a on a brief. It was had not it had very little to do with Grant, and he took a lot of the slings and arrows for that. I think there's a I think there's some positives that came out of it. But if you really dig deep into the weeds about it, that I think it holds athletes accountable, that you can't just assume that if I make a commitment to a particular school that I've got a spot. That that that spot is very precarious and it's not held held uh in perpetuity for you. It's it's you have to earn your spot, you have to earn it every year. And I think I think that's not a bad thing. I think the other thing too is that because of roster limitations to each university program, it allowed allowed the opportunity to kind of spread the wealth a little bit, that if you couldn't go to Texas, but you could go to you could you because they've got 22 or 20, whatever their roster limit is, it you had to look outside the Texas box. And there's a lot of good boxes, and there's a lot of great coaches out there that just need that opportunity to work with some serious athletes. And and so I think it it can spread that out there. And and the the hope is that there aren't opportunities being lost. I think there's there's judgment about that, that that there's opportunities being lost because the roster limits and stuff like that. But it does open the doors to to different opportunities in swimming with Division III, division two, NAIA. And hopefully athletes are looking a little bit broader versus it's gotta be a Texas, it's gotta be a uh a Cal or a Virginia or whatever it might be. Um but but I do think that the accountability piece, I think, is a real, real important piece. It's uh we still believe in the meritocracy of our country. Most of us do, I think. And uh we want you to earn your earn your stripes. And uh the the unfortunate part of it all is is as we sat there at ASU trying to continue to build a a really good program, and we were cutting kids who had committed as juniors before they even got to campus. Yeah. We were had to cut kids who had just finished their freshman year, and you're recruiting out of the portal at the same time you've got to recruit the kids that are currently on your team, and that really wasn't a problem with ASU for Herbie. But you've just got this this and that's why being a head coach now is just it's it's crazy because you're constantly recruiting people, constantly on the eye for for kids. You got kids that are being uh pulled in different directions, telling them to get out, go somewhere else, and and uh but uh I I think there can be some good. I think uh the the opportunities for athletes, not just swimmers, but athletes to earn money is is of value. But it's it's it's getting a little bit out of hand that these high school kids who haven't really done much uh yet well have haven't gone on to college to do anything are getting paid lots of money. But that's that's that's again, that's one of those things that's uh it's not a guarantee four years that you're gonna get a hundred, hundred, two hundred grand a year, might get one shot at that. And I yeah, I think I I it's it's interesting. I th one of I I think the new rule coming out I think will help settle things down a little bit. The the five, I'm not sure kids used to swim for five years, but at least it it creates a window of opportunity for athletes to to compete. One of the last recruits that that Herbie picked up uh while I was there is a 26-year-old, and that it just doesn't make sense. You know, 26-year-old's coming as freshmen. Uh but that's that's the that's the landscape, and Herbie's gotta put together the best team he can. And if that happens to be a 26-year-old uh Spanish swimmer, then you do that, and it takes an opportunity off the off the plate too for a for a high school kid. And now the the problem now with and I've I had this conversation with Daniel Mathis from US ASU the other day that that now that they have these this five-year window now, it it really means that there are going to be fewer roster opportunities immediately out of high school. So high school kids really need to be encouraged to hold off make any decisions till their senior year, prove them prove themselves a little bit more. I always told the kids, even the kids that I was coaching at ASU said you you don't want to be number 30 or 31. You want to be number 20 because we have a 30 roster limit. Don't don't don't train to be number 30 because you're more likely to be out than than in. And just like swimming, uh NC Tways, like we want to make NC twas, don't try to be on the bubble. You gotta make sure you're you're top 16, you got a chance. So I I I I think it can give some I think we can get some great swimming out of it, actually.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah. I think, you know, I think you're pointing to something that whatever the rules are, whatever the adjustments that are made on a bureaucratic level as a coach, I mean your job is to compete and compete within those rules and figure out, okay, how can I make this work in in my situation, right? If if as you say, if they if they allow, you know, 26-year-olds, well, who wouldn't who wouldn't recruit that? I think I'm I'm throwing around history here and we're about to get to a historical question. I I think I remember Attila Zin swimming the year in NCAA Division I, way back when coming off of like competing, you know, internationally in the Olympics, he was in his mid-20s or maybe even late 20s. He did like one Division I was a Hungarian I amer. I think we're talking like early 2000s. Yeah. We'll we'll have to get I'll have to get my fact checkers on that, aka me looking this up after we record. But let's go even further back in history because I have a question that I've been dying to ask you. And that is I was communicating back and forth with USA swimming's Corey Manley, and we were talking about some of the debates that we see online, people almost getting in like a religious fervor about how to train swimmers, right? And like they they get into their camp, they go, well, you know, I'm in the high volume camp, and high volume training, that's what's always worked, and that's what you got to keep doing. And then there's, you know, a group of other people who are like uh mainlining Cam McAvoy videos, and they go, You guys are all idiots, you know, you're just training people to death, you're abusive. Things get so heated, and it makes me think back to a long time ago, I had a one of my first jobs. My my boss said, like, let's make a training manual for coaches. I want you to look through old articles in Swimming World magazine, transcripts from Askatox. And I remember I came across this like 10,000-word essay by Doc Councilman, and it was basically all about you and how you were ruining swim coaching and how you were gonna like destroy, destroy the whole sport. Now, I actually haven't been able to find the original article, but I found another article that he pr wrote afterwards where he was mad about how that previous article had not been published in Swimming World magazine, instead had been published in Swimming Technique. And I want to read just an excerpt of it so the audience can get the flavor of how the conversation was going in that time. He says, I think it can be fairly said that a crisis point has been reached within the swimming community on account of these articles. Coaches who have had a lot of success with proven methods have become fearful of the effect of these articles, especially on impressionable young coaches who would like nothing better than to be able to use these simplistic methods to produce world champions. Most of these articles have been written by a graduate student from the University of Southern California, David Salo, and have been published in Swimming World, which offers a primary forum for our sport in this country. A list of some of these titles clearly shows the direction their writer would like our training methods to take. Training tenets challenged, concepts of high intensity training, a quick look at the distance myth, and low yardage high intensity trainings. And then he goes on to talk about he's been to a conference and he's talked with all the best coaches in the country, and he's like, it's 18 pages long, right? Citing examples of here's how Vladimir Salnikov trained, and and now you don't understand. What I've always been dying to ask you is I I have to imagine for like a young coach today, imagine you're a graduate student, you're an aspi aspiring coach, up-and-coming coach, you've been studying exercise physiology, you've been trying to innovate a little bit on what people are doing training-wise, and you you publish your work, and then Eddie Reese is like recording hour-long YouTube videos talking about how wrong you are and how stupid you are and how you're ruining everything. Like, what was that like at the time?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, the backstory I was I was working on my PhD at USC. I was an assistant to Peter Daland. He was cited as one of those concerned coaches in that article. Yeah, Corey Manley, who you had on your your brief a couple times. And Corey, I got to work with Corey at ASU. He's he's great. He's a smart guy. I we had a great time together. I I loved working with him. Um he brought the the article back to my attention because I forgot all about it. But uh probably at the time I was probably I I I don't think I don't think I was ever intimidated because I think my my focus and direction was was working my PhD. I wasn't exactly sure I was gonna go where I was gonna go with coaching, if I was gonna continue. Uh I wasn't as as connected into coaching as as I'm if I had been really in a head coach somewhere and I was writing those articles. So I was kind of protected by the academic layer, if you will, that whatever you guys are talking about. I was challenged by my professors is what it what started it all. And I had when I started coaching, I was a very traditional coach. I I uh I remember as an athlete, and I always bring up this as an example, that there were times where our coach would have us go 175s on a minute. And it's like, she many trick is. And the first time you do that, it's the hardest thing you've ever done. And then once you get used to the fact that, oh, we're doing 75s is not telling us how many, we're probably doing 100. And so that was kind of standard fare for back in the 70s when I was swimming. So when I started coaching a little team out of LA County, the Downey Dolphins, I was hell-bent on going 9,000 yards of practice. The kids hated it. I hated it, I wasn't having any fun with it. They hate, they it was just miserable. But then I was working on my master's degree with really, really interesting fit exercise physiologist, Joseph Mastropollo. And uh he was just like, why do you guys do that? Why do you why you're trying to go faster, not longer? You're trying to go faster. And I didn't, I didn't have academic answers for him. And all all the research I was looking at, and he'd show me research, and and it would say otherwise. And the the the key element to my the directional change for me was in a lab class for his exercise physiology. Our pre uh professor Master Paulo had us do this lab exercise basically, where if through the semester, you would ride a cyclergometer and you'd ride it for, I think, 30 minutes, and you you'd measure your power output over that 30 minutes. And when you would when you'd plateau out, we were assigned to go, I think it was 20, 15 second bouts of all out exercise on the ergometer at twice the the torque or whatever it was, and then you'd come back and do your 30-minute long ride again, then all of a sudden your your power output was increased significantly. Like, that's just that doesn't make any sense. You did less, you went faster, you went harder for a brief amount of time, and it impacted your 30-minute ride. And you'd go through the semester, whenever you plateau out on 30 minutes, you would go back to these short, short high power output efforts, and then you'd find that your 30-minute ride would be more powerful. So that was that's what instigated it all. And then a friend of mine uh was the was one of the editors for Swimming World magazine, and we had a little we had this little uh book group that we got together once a month, and we bunched three, three or four coaches together, we'd write, we'd read articles, we'd read books or whatever and share them. So we had this book club. And so he he invited me to be a writer, a columnist with a physiology corner and swimming world magazine. He said, just throw it out there, I'll publish it. So it's like, okay, we'll we'll do it. So that started all, it was all very academic. When I reread the article that Corey sent me from that Doc Councilman wrote, it was like, yeah, that would be really intimidating because it was Doc Councilman. He was citing all these really great coaches, very successful coaches, who were really concerned about me uh writing these articles. But I once I once I I changed my coaching with the the small little club. I had and changed it dramatically. And the first swimmer I had to make a junior national time was a 13-year-old 500 freestyler, Miler. And it was like, well, there we go. It's proof and pudding. So once I once I kind of got on my own, it was like I I really I I was convinced that that we could find a better way to train, more race pace oriented, and and it just it it it just took off. So it uh yeah, in retrospect, it was it could have been really intimidating. I didn't I didn't let it get to me, so I just stayed the course.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, to what extent though, one thing another thing I've always been curious about, to what extent do you think I mean do you run into people who you know maybe they say to you, like, Dave, I'm with you, you know, uh I I read your book and I'm I trained swimmers the same way as you and you start going like I don't I don't think you're I don't I don't think you're doing the same thing as me because I I have noticed, I mean, for instance, you had a long-standing relationship with John Urbanchek. That's not somebody who people think of as necessarily a high-intensity, low volume coach. I have the sense that there were many things that you and John had in common that, you know, people who are sort of thinking very dogmatically about how to train swimmers just don't really get. I mean, what what was the what did you guys find in common? And do you ever feel like people are ascribing what they're doing to you but but missing the missing the mark?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Well, I swam for John for a year. I went to Long Beach State and I swam for him my junior year. I was I swam two years at junior college, thought I was done swimming. My roommate was going to swim for Rubanchick, and I happened to be in John's office, and John asked me if I swam. I said, Well, I used to. He said, Well, I'll see you Monday morning. So I decided to swim. So I swam that one year with John. So John and I had a great friendship. John is John, I think, is is is kind of characterized as a distance coach, but he's he's he's a lot more, he's not like over distance. And he would always tell you that he doesn't, he doesn't most coaches train for the mile by swimming at 3,000. John would come to the thousand to the mile from the 400. So he'd come to the 400 through the 200. So I used to laugh at it. We joke. I when he retired from Michigan, he moved back to California. And I said, come be my volunteer assistant coach. We're good friends. And I trust John. And that's where I think he probably coined the term, or we did it together, work works. And if you get athletes to believe in what you do, the work works. And if you you you're trying to get them to maximize their their skill set. But but John's workouts weren't 175s on a minute. It was very, very thoughtful set of work. It was not a lot of times that I saw John where we were he would do things that were just you would just think of them as more distance oriented, they're more mid, you call them middle distance, if you will. But that's how he built the the the mile. And uh, but I used to laugh and joke with him that I said, John, I have a gold medalist in the mile, you only have a bronze medalist in the mile. And he goes, Yeah, but I have a faster spear than you ever had. So so we we I I I'm inclined to believe that John was so effective. He would have been effective no matter what he did, because he was just it was the character of John. And uh it's he used he I used to laugh. He'd he'd get away with that that Hungarian accent of his. It's like, John, you've been in this country for 70 years and you still still sell, you just came out of Hungary. Come on. But it was it was the thing that ever everybody just was charmed by. Is that that cute little that cute little guy with a Hungarian accent? And and uh he'd coined terms that you you'd hear that that you just you just laugh. He just go, okay. He called it when I swam very long, we'd say he got mad at us one time. He goes, You're swimming lower than a frog's ass. It's like, what? Yeah. So he was just a charming guy that no matter what kind of work you you he prescribed, you did it, did it well. There was one time he was working with me with my my uh Trojan swim club group, and I'd gotten there a little bit late or something. He he always writes a workout, whether he's gonna deliver the workout or not. So he uh Jessica Hardy was swimming with me at the time, and and he had wrote this workout. I thought, oh, that looks pretty good, let's do that. And uh and I I'll put some nuance to it if I think it's necessary. And there was a set that said 16100s, and Jessica Hardy just read the 1610s, and she's just flipping out over that's just ridiculous, this is stupid, this is dumb. And I'm like, well, look, look at the further detail. And John was detail-oriented like I am. And so there are always details to a set. It wasn't just 16100s, swim them. It was it was four this way, four that way, a fifty of this, fifty of that. And so I had to re-re-prescribe the set to her that would make it more palatable to Jessica Hardy that don't look at it as 16100s, look at it as as 250s plus 100 four times through. It's like that sounds different. So yeah, so John and I had this just had a great friendship and relationship. He he was always so supportive of me. And and I don't know that he necessarily agreed, but he was never uh critical of the of what I believed. And so he's always to the end, he was he was always so supportive of what I did. And but I also recognized that the the results I I had with athletes is pretty significant, that it it matched anybody else in this country, and and some might say a little bit better, in a in a very different methodology. And and uh and that's always been my message message with coaches like look, I I do what I do and I believe it a hundred percent. And it's it's it's it's based in the sciences and and not experiential. And uh I had to I had to find my grounding in in that methodology because it was new to me. And uh and once I once I really embraced it, it was it was uh I'm just a hundred percent convinced that you can you can have great performances the way I coach, and you can have great performances the way Greg Troy has coached, and and we coach very, very differently.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, but I think also what I'm hearing is you know sometimes people tend to think of these things very black and white. And to me, the elite of the elite coaches, they actually have a lot in common as well. Even if you think of them as diametrically opposed, there are aspects of the way that they're coaching that is actually more similar than you would think, even if the workouts on paper look quite different. And that sort of brings me to my second point, which is I don't mean to I've I've said this in many different forums, but I don't mean to say this as like, especially to you. I don't want to say that the workouts don't matter. The workouts do matter, but what I think is more important is how you deliver them, right? Because you could have the best workouts on paper in the entire world, but if you can't explain them to athletes, if you can't get athletes on board with them, if you can't like rally, as you said, work works, like if you can't rally athletes to the work that they need to do to get better, well, it's just a good workout on paper. It's it's not actually accomplishing anything. Yeah. Let's pivot to uh another topic that I've been dying to ask you about. Now, I have heard that you were a finalist for the USA swimming national team director position. I spent the day with Greg here at the Indy Grand Prix and talked about that on my podcast recently. Uh, you haven't had a chance to listen to David Marsh, who was also a finalist, but I asked him this same question that I'm about to ask you. When you got to that interview, what was your kind of theory of the case to USA swimming? What were you talking to them about in terms of like, here's what we need to do to have an awesome LA 2028 and beyond?

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Well, I think the the clues that I was getting from those that were introduced me, there was a lot of concern about team dynamic camaraderie with the athletes that were involved and swimming at the greatest level. So I was looking at what my presentation to them was about two things, two areas of concern is that I wanted to affect the the development of our coaches to a higher level. And uh and I think a lot of times our coaches are are are not receiving the kind of the really kind of education I think they need. And in my example is a good friend of mine, Kathy Wickstrand. She is involved with the the disk assessment tool, and it's a communications tool. And I have I was criticized by my sports administrator at USC at one point that that I asked for some guidance and she didn't really give me any. So I I went to Kath and said, Kathy, I want to bring you on board and I want to learn more about myself. And I know I'm I'm know I'm good at what I do. I think I'm a really good energized coach. I think I I I have some great methodology, but there's something missing, and and I think it's the communications piece that that I need to I need to enhance that. And so I went through the disk assessment and I'd done it a couple of times, but I went through it more seriously, and it gave me a better understanding of myself and how I communicate and how I receive communication. And um I told the athletes I was going through that process, and and it allowed me to, to me anything, it allowed me to be a little bit more patient with my athletes that I'm I'm very detail-oriented, that I want things done a certain way. I always joke uh that that when I do create sets, there's always an odd number of rounds of things that we do. And the reason I do that is when I coached Aaron Pearsall, as great an athlete as he was, great trainer, easy to coach, he never got the first round right. So I I always had the build-in Aaron Pearsall round, then everything after that, okay, now we all on the same page, everybody's doing things mechanically correctly, the way I want it done. And so I've I found myself, I again, I think probably the the you know, even during my club days at Urban Nova before I went to USC, it's a there's just you you just get so overwhelmed by the the way things are being done and they're not doing that the right way, you get really frustrated and you take that out on your athletes. So I I think I think the athletes learn from my experience with that is my patience level increased dramatically. It's like, okay, I'm not explaining it correctly. If they're not getting it the first time or by the third time, then I'm I'm not communicating it correctly. And I need to understand how they how they receive communication. And I can't create an environment where they are fearful of of how I'm communicating to them. And and so I I think that that was one element that I thought would be of value to coaches to learn how they communicate so they can be more effective communicators, so they get more better performance out of their athletes, and really tighten up that bond between coach and athlete, which is so critical as you're trying to trying to mount the podium at the Olympic Games. So that was one piece that I was really interested in. And I was really honest with USA Swimming, that that that they never had an impact on my my ability to work with my athletes. I was I what USA Swimming did, I'll tell you it's a skip Kenny. I was at '96, I was at the training camp in Colorado Springs for the Olympic team. I was just a personal coach with a man to beard, and uh all the personal coaches were there, the the coaches for the team were there, and they they gave us an opportunity to ask questions of the coaching staff. And I raised my hand and I said, Look, you I'm I'm afraid I'll never have this experience again. I don't want you to goof it up. I've got a 14-year-old girl on the team, and she should she should meddle, and I'm for three weeks I won't have much experience with her, and you guys are taking charge. And and after this meeting, Sip Kenny came up came up to me and he said, David, that's a crappy attitude. You can't have that attitude. This isn't your first and only. You're gonna build off of this. And I'm like, shoot, Skip Kenny believes in me or something. So it it it it it changed my whole focus that it's not about Amanda, it's about creating an environment where more Amandas can happen. And that was instrumental. That I think coaches need that experience to to this isn't your own one and only. And we get a lot of one-offs, and we don't need, we don't want one-offs. And I think I think that communications tool is one of the important pieces to that. The piece about the camaraderie is that that I that I I was looking at our our I'm always looking at our sport and how we can kind of redefine it. If you look at all the other sports, major sports, even minor sports, they've been trying to reintroduce their their brand or their product. My example, I think, to the the steer the committee was that recently they had had the four Four Nations Cup with hockey, which everybody loved. Everybody they started adding three-on-three basketball tournaments. Now they're adding flag football. And so they're re as much as Live Golf has as has uh taken a lot of hits from the PGA, Live Golf was trying to create a new product. And the new product was not just the money, it was they were creating teams within teams. And so they had teams, team components within their tournaments. And so I like to look at other sports and go, well, how can we reproduce our product or our brand? And so I was trying to introduce some concepts that I thought would help bring the team together mid-season or within the season up to the Olympic Games. So they're working together all through the the quad and they're not just independent swimmers. So one of my ideas was to create uh teams at all the the pro series meets. Uh you bring your national teamers, you put them on four different teams, they're competing against each other to kind of keep that camaraderie building through through to 28. Uh so those are some of the things that that that I was looking at is doing a better job of of helping our coaches be better. The other thing I was adamant about that if I'd gotten a job is I was not going to take a bonus for performance, that I thought that that should be shared with the coaches and not not with the staff. And because you're not coaching the athletes, you're you're helping to create an environment for the coaches to be better at it. And I was really adamant that that I think that was of value that let's let's put that money back with our coaches, not within the staff, because the realities are that USA swimming really doesn't have a a direct impact to that relationship between coach and swimmer meddling at the Olympic Games. So but anything to do to facilitate that development, that's that's I think that's what the role I was gonna play.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Yeah, I love the two points that you have made. I mean, uh just echoing the first one when you talk about coaching development. I had Kevin Ring on here as well, and that's something I asked him about when I saw him at the College Swim Coaches when I saw him here on this podcast, and I've been pretty blunt about it. I just think and and you said it as well. USA swimming really hasn't invested in in coaches. In at least in my coaching lifetime, that's 20 years you're speaking from a greater experience set than than mine. And those coaches, they're a force multiplier for everything that you're trying to accomplish from that point. And I think they've been capitalizing on the fact that in many ways we have a very healthy ecosystem for coaching in the United States. I've coached in a small country, I coached in Denmark for three years. And one of the things you notice when you're in a small country is that a lot of things sort of converge to the mean and and people go even more sort of into like doing the same things. One of the nice things about the US uh is it's a bit unruly. You have people all across the country innovating, trying new things, uh sort of pushing the envelope in one way or another, and you're gonna have people break through, but it kind of bleeds into your second point, which I've also made on this podcast. So I'm really happy to hear you say it. The analogy I've used a lot of times for USA swimming is you know, you have this organization that they are their mission, right, on some level is to win medals at the Olympics. That's what they're being held accountable for. That's why they were created. And I think we all pretty much know why there was a leadership change at USA swimming, and it had to do with the performance of the team back in Paris, that people were saying, hey, this is not good enough from that side of it. But I think the danger for USA swimming with that is you, because that is what you're being judged on, over time you can start to think, like, well, well, if we have a really good, successful competition, it's because of us. And that's not the case. They are a better anal the analogy that I've always used for them is they're they are basically organizing a lottery. They're swimming all across the United States. There's all these kids getting involved in the sport, there's all these coaches across the world. And in that big egos ecosystem, swimmers pop up, right? Immensely talented swimmer. And Michael Phelps will pop up, a Jessica Hardy that you coached will will bubble to the surface, a Ryan Lochty, Katie Ladecki, right? And their job is to bring like broaden that lottery, to give it more chances that someone really talented is going to break through, but they're they're not the ones that are creating that. They're just sort of cashing the ticket at the end. And, you know, and then we all, as you say, share in that success. I think one of the things, last thing I'll say before I'll let you respond to everything that I just went on. Um, one of the things I'm trying to spread awareness of, and I I believe that uh Greg is changing this at this point, but maybe not a lot of people know this. Up to this point, coaches have not been paid to coach in the Olympic Games. You know, you it's a huge commitment. I know you've done it several times, but you you don't get compensated for it in any shape or form. You're just supposed to, I guess, you know, do it for the honor of representing the United States. Um it looks like you were wanting to change that as well. I'll give you a chance to respond to everything I just said and and give your perspective because my audience probably mainly wants to hear what you have to say. Well, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

I I that's one thing that we all did it for the honor of it. We we we got a pair of s uh you know we got a pair of sweats and a couple of t-shirts and a pair of shorts, and that that's about it. And you it's a great honor. Um, but sometimes we we'd find ourselves begging for can you can you afford can you send us a couple hundred dollars to help us pay for laundry or a phone bill or whatever it might be. So I definitely think that's that's one thing that I was adamant that in my mind that that that I I think if you instead of being bonused for something that somebody else has done, um, you put the travel tickets together, you you put you you you identified where we're gonna have a training camp. And those things are all very important. But it really is that relationship between the coach and the stormer that needs to be be identified and and celebrated and and and there'd be a be a be a bonus for that. And so I think definitely I think that uh it makes sense. Even the head coaches weren't being uh paid for that, and that's uh that's an even bigger role. Right. So I I hopefully that will change here in the next uh few quads and it makes sense. And uh so I I'm certainly agree with that. I like I said, I I I've found that there are moments in my relationship with USA swimming that kind of inspired me with Skip Kenny, kind of telling me knock it off, you're you're you're gonna produce more athletes. I I came away from national team coaches camp once and early on when I was at Nova and came away under better understanding that my role was was bigger than just my club. It was about finding those those kids that could could become medalists and then develop them and and work them towards that. So but outside of that, the it used to bother me during during Lindsay Mentenko and and Tim Henshaw's reign at USA Swimming, you you'd be around national team coaches and they'd be complaining about Tim or they'd be complaining about Lindsay, and it's like, what do you expect from these people? I mean, they're not gonna they're not gonna they can't change your environment where you're coaching your athlete. Uh do you need more money? Then say so. But but what are the resources that you're lacking? And my criticism of that complaining was that a lot of these national team coaches were college coaches. You have all the resources possible. You've got weight rooms, you've got nutritionists, you've got psychologists, you've got great water time. You can you don't at ASU, I didn't eat uh for two years I didn't have to tighten a lane line. I mean, it was what? That's like unfathomable. So they would complain about things that never really made a lot of sense to me because they they they're not gonna impact your relationship with your athletes. And unless it is you're just barking up the tree for money of some sort, what are you gonna use those those dollars for? I I I I think that I think their role is to just part of what I what I wanted to do is to do a better job of selecting a coaching staff for these trips and and educating those staffs that you're you're you're here clearly because you put people on the team, but your job is global. It's not isolated. We've had coaches on staff, and I I became aware of this like after the fact that that sometimes we'd have coaches who are on a staff who've been assigned three or four people and they pay only attention to the ones from other they have. And I've had that experience. And it's like that's not your job. Your job is to is to help all the kids on the team. It used to frustrate me when I'd be on a staff, and it literally all every time I was on a staff, I would have I'd have two men, three women, or three men, two whip men on the team, and there'd be a sprinter and a breaststroker and a backstroker and uh all these different elements. And I was comfortable. I told Aaron Pearsall when I was with him in 2000. thousand, go train with Mark Schubert and Lenny Kraselberg. Because Mark's not going to let Lenny train with me, but I want you to train with Lenny. So I think that we we would divvy up athletes per group in part based on who you coached. So I remember one World Championships, I've got a breaststroker and Eddie Reese has a breaststroker. It's like, why don't we put those people together and get our egos out of it? And there's a I can't remember the book now, it was a book about the Ryder Cup and the captain of the Ryder Cup. He kind of can't remember that I had it that he he picked the players based on the disc assessment in part. He picked players that were going to that were going to meld and really really push each other forward in different ways. And the the disc assessment can give you an assessment of what are the strengths and weaknesses of your of your staff and your crew. I found out at USC when we did that of all the athletes that too many of my team were socially oriented. They're good swimmers, but they're more socially oriented. And the social aspects of their experience that took precedence over performance sometimes. And you need more of a balance of that. And I think the staff needs to be balanced that way as a matter of fact. And I would love to I I when I was when Lindsay was the director national team director she afforded me a lot of opportunities to be on staff. And I sh I think she liked me being on staff because they didn't have me on the team. And so I could just oversee everything and try to mentor some of the younger coaches that were in play as assistant coaches. And she could always count on me like in December for world championships because nobody wanted to go do a travel trip in December whereas I'll do it. So I got a lot of those I got a lot of those December trips because everybody else wanted to take a vacation or something. But I I think we can we can do a better job like I said of of of of of yeah I think it you asked in our in the agenda you you you you sent my way this is what what can coaches do better? And and I think coaches need to understand they're really critical to the performance of their athletes but they're not indisposable. They they aren't they're not necessary. Once you've gotten that athlete to uh take some ownership and some accountability they're pretty good on their own and they don't have you don't have to hold handhold them. And I think if they were better understand that they're not critical to that you've got to give them the tools and let them play with those tools and and let them let them ex explore what they can do without you dictating every single thing that they do. And I I think that's that's part of part of what my program is like and my methodology is is about that. There's a lot of choices that athletes can make within a within a workout. I don't I define what the work looks like but you can define what what a stroker going to do. And that independence I think uh helps the athletes better prepare for getting up the block. One thing I really I really liked from Herbie's program is every Wednesday without fail we would do suit up swims. Suits up a lot. And uh the assignment basically was you got 40 minutes to get ready. We're doing 650s on four minutes and you're going all out you're going to suit up for them and be ready to go. I'm going to announce what the heats are and that's and we'll go. And what I I saw the the athletes be developed a lot more independence in their preparation for that swim because they want to do well in these 650 time trials. And uh so when we go to meets I they didn't they rarely were asked what should I do. It's like well do like you do on Wednesday. You warm up for 40 minutes and then you go race. So I I think coaches get they get to believe that the the kids can't can only do it when they're there. And there's times you won't be there. And it's you gotta make sure they can get up to the block, find the block and and do the race that you expect them to do.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

I I I think you speak to one of the experiences I said I got to coach in a small country and that gave me some opportunities to put athletes on international teams that I definitely wouldn't have gotten in the U.S. And I can remember early on in that I had a meet that I couldn't go to and you know my athlete was like oh I'm going to be coached by this random guy. You know I don't know this coach and what am I going to do and you know we're not going to be able to replicate what we're doing at home. And I just said listen I got an assignment for you. Your job is to figure out what can that coach can do to help you to swim well at the meet. And it was just a prompting question to shift their perspective because I think actually one of the terms that I don't like in the way that a lot of people use it is they say think critically. Not that I mean that you should never think critically but sometimes we only think critically we only look at other situations you you refer to the coaches as well you know and they're complaining to USA swimming and they're going well I don't have this I don't have this I don't have that I want people to think a little bit appreciatively. What do you have right? The worst coach that I've ever had in my life I use like double digit things from swimming with him in every day in my own coaching because it wasn't all bad. There was some there was some really good stuff in there. And if you just take the perspective of I think it's it's and you spoke to it as well it's kind of an ego defense, right? If you just take the perspective of, you know, I'm going to protect my ego at all costs, then yeah, you're not going to be open to the fact that other people can help the athlete that you're working with you're going to you know make all these critics criticisms or complaints about your situation when as you say objectively you're in an amazing situation for creating performance because it's more important for you to protect your ego than to actually think about okay what is it I can do as a coach to be better for my athletes to create a better situation for them. I want to you you you sort of responded to one of these questions, you know, what does an average coach have to do and I want to give you an opportunity to answer that more but you can also sort of throw in there what do you think people just focus on too much to their own detriment when in when they're coaching in general.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Well I think I think you learn this with with as you age through this process that that when you're young you're you're you're so focused on results and the results are a reflects on you and your own value. And when you get older the process takes over the process is really important. So but it's hard it's hard to I mean we're we're ego driven you got to hold your ego check. Results are really important but they don't define who you are as a person. But that's all we have as coaches. That's that's how we're valued is how how our swimmers perform and but you but but again that you become so paralyzed by that. As a young college coach you get paralyzed by that because you're afraid you're going to get fired. It's like it's swimming it's not football it's not basketball. In most cases you're probably going to be fine for three or four years just try to get better. But uh but I I think it it's it's focusing on the process is is the most important thing and and and and really appreciating and understanding we lose sight of the fact that we have we're we play such an important role in these kids' lives at every level and the the things that you say they they remember and they they they take that to heart and they play that over and over in your head. It's that bad coach you had who there's still double digit things that you do because you were able to glean out from that experience what other important things and and my classic example it it came to me this my first year at ASU we were at the midseason meet and I she knows I tell the story a lot because she texted me last week about it. But um a girl named Zoe she finished her hunter breaststroke wasn't what she expected or wanted and she didn't talk to me for like 30 40 minutes and she finally came over to me and I said where have you been usually you swim then you come see the coach and she goes I was so afraid to talk to you I I didn't swim well and I looked at her and again I'm I'm the assistant which affords me this opportunity but also I've got the age behind me and I've coached for 48 years and I've had great experiences that I I told her I said and she's Oe I'll I will never be disappointed in you. I'm disappointed for you and sh and it's just that change in language gave her a different message that you you yeah yeah in perspective I know you work hard you come to practice the other day you work hard I have I have no criticism of the effort you put into this so when you fall short of your goal or what we think you're capable of doing it it's a matter for as a coach to go, well what can we do better? Not that that you haven't done your best. It's like what can we do different what can we do better? And not to be so judgmental about a performance because it's in the in the life's perspective it's just swimming and nobody died because you went one double O instead of 59 whatever it was but it it just changed I mean just you saw this weight lift off her shoulders immediately and and uh and that's that I think is is is we got to re remember that the kids the kids again goes back to disc d the disc assessment thing is is how you communicate to somebody you've you you've got to understand that they receive the messaging very differently based on how you react to them and you've got to be really aware of that and be careful with that. And you can you can do you can just destroy not I mean you can destroy that kid's perspective on the sport involvement if if you're if your reaction is is if you don't understand that athlete and how they receive information and you you come at them in a different way. Some kids need to be yelled at that's fine. Some kids really react and respond to that well. Some kids don't they they want to be be coddled a little bit and you gotta just kind of understand that that that game that's that's played. So that's why I think younger coaches can can benefit from just take a step back.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

It's not it's not about you and if enjoy the process and the the process will take care of the results I think yeah uh I think this almost a perfect segue into some the sort of last section of questions here where we I ask you some more personal questions. I mean you've been talking long coaching career too many highlights to mention we could just spend the whole time here talking about all the amazing accomplishments but I wonder if I could get you to talk about a low light of the of your career. Is there a moment you reflect back on you went, that was a low point for me where I was pretty dejected and how did you move on from it?

SPEAKER_01 54:43

January 13th 2020 I was called into the athletic director's office at the University of Southern California where it was in my 14th year and I was fired without cause and so that's pretty low point. Yes pretty darn low comes out of the blue and and uh didn't see it coming and with no explanation and no explanation forthcoming in the middle of a season. And so that was that was my low point. And just the story is basically I can't I was I did a clinic in Sweden came back from that got a text from the athletic director to meet him in his office. Went to his office and there in the office were a couple people that I I didn't know didn't recognize he was a brand new AD been there maybe two months and uh when I didn't recognize these two people sitting down there I knew it was a it was a bad sign. Yeah. I was four they basically said I was going to be walked off campus that that afternoon. Holy smokes and I I sat there and and I said I don't think you really want to do this. We're in the middle of a season and if you fire a coach in the middle of their season it doesn't look good for anybody and went back to my office got called back into the athletic director's office and basically said God you're so professional about how you handled this let's let's let's re let's reconsider your departure. You're departing but we'll we'll let you finish the season and I said well let's how about July? We'll finish July because it's Olympic year. We didn't know COVID was going to hit us so bad. So I topped them off the precipice finished up uh through July basically was my last deal they they paid me off paid my contract off and uh but it was it was disheartening obviously I always knew I could uh go back to Irvineova so it wasn't I was without a job so I could row cover there but I left because we had to because of COVID instead of running through July uh they basically closed campus off in late April. So I came home to my my my my property in Orange County felt sorry for myself for a couple days and then said well that's stupid that's if this is if this is at the end of my coaching career I had a pretty darn good career. So let's quit getting up pity pants. The thing that bothers me the most is not knowing what what transpired why was that happening but I came to find out that there was just a purge that if you know that that fell in line with the whole varsity blues scandal that USC was involved with a lot of universities were involved with my sports administrator was the key featured person involved in that and basically anybody that had been that any sport that she supervised every coach had been let go regardless if we had anything to do with it or not. I had nothing to do with it I can assure you that in fact my brother had called me the morning that there were some arrests going on and goes what's going on and he explained to me what was going on that people rich people were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kids into USC and I told him I said well that's really dumb to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to school where you're going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to school. That didn't make a lot of sense and then it obviously became more clear about what happened but the the the the tennis or the golf coach was let go a month after I was or a couple people fired in the morning that before I was fired. So that was my low point the high point was that I just brushed it off and and figured that I'll go go back to no and keep doing what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Yeah I think you know I've have we have something in common we were both fired at a certain point in our career without cause and I know uh I think I spent a little bit longer than a couple days feeling sorry for myself unfortunately when I was in that situation. But I think too when you find yourself in that and I've I through my work coaching coaches I've unfortunately I've I've worked with some coaches who have found themselves in that situation as well. It's really challenging right because on some level you're kind of racking your brain you're like what what did I do? Right? Like there must have been a moment there must be something I could have done in the past and it's natural to do that but it doesn't really help you because you got to just look forward. I mean there's there's really almost nothing to be gleaned by playing this kind of game where you know it could be anything right when when there's when there's no cause on the other end and then ultimately you find out that it's something essentially that had nothing to do with you. And so even if you had known at the time it would have been just as unfair yeah and just as bad and and just as completely out of your control, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Yeah well the the the redeeming fact was that my boss went to jail for a year. It's like Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Yeah. So so you think almost they were preemptively firing people just to be like we got a clean house just in case something comes out down the line we will have already purged or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Yeah if you follow the case they they they wanted to create the image that the the universities were victims, that they didn't they they didn't engage in this was these individual rogue people. And the the the argument and I I I didn't have a very good relationship with this m administrator, but her argument was that that there was pressure placed on administrators to bring in money. And this was just a vehicle to bring in money that that the universities kind of she wanted to say that the universities turned a blind eye to it and the vic the university was saying no we were victims of this. And so I I that's just my supposition of of what uh what happened and uh we were just purged and it was it was it's yeah otherwise I might be there today.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

Right? What do you do to stay on top of your game? I mean I think people know you got an educational background you got a doctorate I mean you've just been working with Herbie. I can gather from also you saying that you got along well with Corey, you know, you're just the kind of person who I think values other people who are curious people, people that are knowledge seeking, that have a love of learning. But you know I think part of a reason why I do this podcast and a lot of the questions I've been asking you is because I I want coaches to hear about you and your own process so that not so that they can again just copy paste what you're doing, but I think if they understand some of the process for how you accomplish what you did in coaching, it might inspire them to do some of the same so what what are you what have you done over the course of your career to better yourself to to stay on top of your game?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Well I'll tell you real real interesting that one of the things that I did when I was at USC is that it may sound a little strange, but I also use this as a messaging for coaches is that I was playing um a pickup game of basketball every day and it was faculty and staff every day at noon and we'd play for like an hour and a half and we'd pick up five on five and we'd play and I'd never played basketball before except a little bit of PE stuff in junior high but nothing much. Didn't didn't really know how to play the game didn't know the skill set and so I wanted to play and so I would be there every day and purposely I purposely I would be the I'd be the first one there because they had to pick me if I'm the first one there yet. And I had a ball. So Saylor's here with the ball he's the first one here he's first in line uh I guess we have to pick him so they they figured out I wasn't going to go away and so those with skills were were uh there to teach me the skills so teach me how to how to block how to how to box out how to do a jump shot how to whatever layup whatever what a pick and roll was all that stuff. So one thing I mean my athletes would would would tell you that that Dave is Dave won't ever compliment us for anything. He's always he's always he's always seeing something we could do better. So we don't get a lot of compliments and and so it's like yeah I'm pretty pretty pretty that's yeah you can break a world record I'll say oh we could have done better. And and so and I think in the back of my mind I was always afraid of contentment that if an athlete was got your compliment they'd be content they wouldn't try to improve and and and I know that that that's dumb. That's just a stupid sense. But when I was playing basketball and being being coached by these people who wanted me to be better so that I would be better on the team, I I didn't find myself being content. I found myself eager to be better and to do more and and to watch clips on YouTube or whatever to better understand the game and how to pass and stuff like that. So I responded in a and I'm a very average athlete that that response just organically gave me kind of that messaging to say okay the the kids aren't going to be can become content and start slip sliding away because you said nice job. So I'll tell you my last few years at USC when I was doing the disc assessment and doing doing the bat the the aha moment of basketball they'll tell you that I was I was I was different. I was I was still very focused on the details and the the energy of the workout and the environment and all that stuff. And but they found me it'll be be uh more personable because of that. So I I I because I'm so technically oriented and and uh like doing different things within the work I like I actually like looking at Instagram posts that coaches put up with some of the things that they do and go, oh that'd be that's a cool drill or because I incorporate those things readily and a lot of coaches who are more volume based they don't want to do any of that stuff. Whereas I I like to explore just the different ways to do things to get things done. So I actually like some of the the Instagram post stuff that I see. As much as everybody says things like social media or Instagram things like that is a danger to our kids I think there's some great really great valuable things in there. There's great motivating things that you can glean from posts and different drill things and some of the mechanical things that you can see. I got got a little upset with some coach who posted something up about brushstroke one day and I I sent a message and as I'm sending a message I see a message come from Roxantos and we were both on the same page like yeah you're teaching it wrong wrong so uh yeah it's uh I I don't I don't do a lot of academic study or read uh Herbie does a lot of that stuff he's he's he's very very well read I don't know if you've had him on your podcast but he's he's yeah okay yeah so he he's he's funny because a lot of the the books that he reads are more track and field oriented. He's a big fan of that stuff. And and I there are some similarities just from him but there are also some contrasts and so it in and I and I and I don't think it's it's hard scientific fact the way track track and field does what they do. They just have they've gone a certain direction because track and feel so but I I think so I I got a few books from him. I actually the podcast you did with Corey you guys were talking about a book so I ordered that book so I'm gonna read that book and see what that that can enlighten me with and you're gonna get exposed to some Danish sports psychology. I'm so excited just randomly picking up and I yeah so that's that's how I s and I and and I think the way I answer that question as well is that When I when I create work, it always goes back into my mind. It's like, how does how does this work represent what I know about physiology and the swimming of a race or the mechanics of a race or the logistics of a race? And so it that's I'm always having this self-talk going on. And so I I never pre-write a workout. I I write workouts as I go. That that the first line's easy because it's always those same warm-up, and then I start going. And I've got some ideas, and then one idea that leads to another idea based on what I'm seeing in practice. So I I'm I'm not a big fan of of writing a workout the day before. Sometimes you don't know what the water situation is going to be like. So I like to be at the ready. It's like, well, where am I going to be? What's my water space look like? So I'm really affected by what my environment looks like. So I intend to write as I as I go. And I have some great workouts when I do it that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Yeah. I one through line I can hear in everything you're saying. I mean, you are actually really seeking out opportunities to be coached yourself. You talk about the work that you did with Kathy Wickstrand. I mean, that was I I am talking to coaches uh about this all the time. Of course, you know, I have a vested interest in it because it's what I'm doing now for a profession, coaching other coaches, but I think a lot of them miss the opportunity. You don't have to do it with me. There's plenty of people out there that can help you if if I'm not the one for you, but I think there's a lot to be gained from that. And I have gotten a lot out of continuing to swim myself too, because I put myself in situations like you did with pickup basketball, where I go, like, how am I how am I learning this? And how does that influence the way other people that I'm going to coach are going to learn stuff? I I continue to improve my coaching by continuing to expose myself to environments where I don't really know what I'm doing and I need some help from other people in order to level up my own abilities. One last thing, last final, final question. And this is like, I'm aware of asking this. You know, I asked different versions of this. It's uh it's a tough one, right? Because you have shared so many memories and experiences that you've had, and now I'm, you know, basically asking you to pick your favorite child. But and and don't worry, all the other, you know, all the other memories, your great memories too. This is just uh Dave's favorite one. But like, what is one moment in your career that you'll always remember?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Well, you you you sent you sent that that question. I was like, God, I've there's so many that I could could expand upon. They're all so important to me. I I gotta tell you, the most the one that comes up almost instantaneous right now is that I got to coach Amanda Beard as a as a as a 13, 14-year-old kid to the Olympic team and wasn't that wild. And just have this this experience with her is see ri uh coaching her through her rise, through coaching her through some really tough times that she was having, uh watching her rise again away from me uh when she surrounded Arizona. But now when I was coaching at ASU, I got to see Amanda in her coaching experience uh at Arizona. And it was it was it was it was just really cool to share that new experience with some of you you worked with at such an impressionable age. And and now here she's a mom of two kids and and we have these great conversations. And I I got uh I was having I was really frustrated like mid-season with our breaststrokers pull down. So I called and said, Manda, what are you doing with your with your breaststrokers on pull down? I'm just having a tough time. And and just just having that end-to-end experience with with an athlete. And uh I had the same kind of experience with Michael Kavok. He goes by Milo now. Milo Kavok coached him as a a young kid, a great experience. He was he was sometimes tough to coach. He was but I learned a lot coaching him uh to be better at coaching athletes like Mike, uh Milo. And now he he invites me to do clinics up at his program in Seattle periodically, and we have a great time getting together. And and uh I I love those experiences that I've I've been able to coach somebody, but having burnt the bridge, I think, is is really critical that that we stay in contact. Aaron Pearsall, we we talked at least once a year because I always I call him up on March 20th of every year because that's when he broke his first world record, and it happened to be my mother's birthday, so that's that's why I keep it in mind. And so we we talk at least once a year and just share those memories. But uh yeah, I uh yeah, every one of them has uh you know, it's it's uh O smooley winning a gold medal in in the mile. And uh that was special because nobody thought I could coach an athlete to that. Uh my first year at USC, I coached Larson Jensen to the NC2A championship in the mile and the uh the 500 freestyle. And so that was those again moments where unexpected by anybody around me that's like you don't coach distance people. It's like, yes, I can, and I'm gonna prove it. So yeah, there are all those moments. The moment when Rebecca Sony breaks the world record that that goes 220 under 220 and the 200 brushstroke. I was so happy for her because that was her goal. That was always her goal. And to be a part of that was was pretty special. And I I just like I said, I've got there's so many stories, so memory, so many memories. But I think the end-to-end, again, watching Gabby Rose continue on, who I got to coach uh after she graduated from Stanford, and and watching her story continue to develop. And yeah, I just I'll lead people out, but there's some great experiences there that that uh yeah, I've I've been very fortunate in my career. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

Yeah, you're totally cheating. That was like eight different experiences. Dave. Sorry. Sorry. That's all right. I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna wrap this one up. I know that I've seen you pop up a little bit on social media. Maybe I've been watching clips of you talking to Milo's team, and I definitely want to have him on here as well. So, Milo, if you're out there, you're gonna get a message from me in some shape or form soon. You're on my list. But is there any direction you want to point people to? Anything you want to promote in terms of of what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

I anytime I write a workout, I post up on Instagram. So you uh I don't know my handle is Sailor.david or something like that. I don't even know. But uh I post all my stuff up there and and that's about all I'm doing. I'm not I'm not writing a book, been asked to do that a couple times. I'm not interested in doing that. Yeah, I do clinics for Ask periodically. So that's that's that's about what I'm doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

All right. Amazing. If you guys want to get in contact with me, Crdesantis at gmail.com. That's my personal email address. Uh, if you want to go to my website, chrisdcoach.com, it's actually brand new, looks really cool, and you can donate to this podcast as well. This is a listener-supported podcast. We don't do ads on here, but we bring great guests like Dave to you. And if you want to support the podcast, there's a link on the front page and on the podcast page of my website. You can give a one-time donation. You're not going to be sucked into any vortex where you're like sending me money every month and you forget. You know, I'm not doing that kind of manipulative stuff, but I really appreciate your support. Chris Dcoach.com. I'm sorry, Chris D. underscore coach on Instagram is where you can find clips of this podcast and other posts about the coaching work that I do with coaches. I want to thank my guest, Dave Salo, for being incredible today, and I want to thank you guys all for listening, and I will be back with you again in a week.