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Letter
from Coach Jeff Rout John, I've enjoyed your articles about swim meet coaching. They ring very true from my years on the deck. I remember a story that Don Swartz told about watching races.... Seems he was at a long course outdoor meet watching distance events. The swimmer in water was having a great swim, on pace for a BT. As Don was debriefing a swimmer from a previous race, he had turned away from the pool. When he turned back, the swimmer was way off pace. After the race, Don asked him what had happened; he was swimming great and then lost it. "When I looked at you during the race, you had your back turned to me," the swimmer said. "I figured that I was swimming poorly." Another brief story. When I was coaching summer league, I was 'known' for my whistling. (I don't have leather lungs!) The team from my home neighborhood seemed to hate it the worst. Well, the next year I was hired by my neighborhood team. At the first meet, I didn't whistle for the kids because I knew that it annoyed them. The team president came up and asked why I wasn't whistling. "You guys complained about it last year," I told him. "That's because you were cheering for the other team." he said! We coaches must always pay attention; you never know who is watching! (or listening!)
Swimmingly,
Nominations
for the ASCA Board of Directors Election Now Being Accepted It's that time of year. The ASCA will elect 5 Board Members at its September World Clinic Business Meeting. Our current group of Board Members, whose term expires this fall are Bill Rose, Peter Malone, Jim Tierney, Bill Wadley and Richard Shipherd. Each is eligible to run again this fall, and we hope they will do so. If you would like to nominate someone for the ASCA Board, please obtain their permission to nomimate them first, then send to the ASCA office (either electronically to JLeonard@swimmingcoach.org) or snail mail to John Leonard, ASCA, 5101 NW 21st Ave. Suite 200, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309, the following information:
We will publicize all candidates on our website and at the World Clinic. Thank you. John Leonard
Time
(and Impetus) To Move Outside Our Comfort Box The latest and greatest Game Plan devised by the USA Swimming Staff under the wonderful leadership of Executive Director Chuck Wielgus sets an ambitious goal......”Build...Increase Membership. Goal: We seek to increase membership by at least 20% by 2012.” Two key strategies under this umbrella goal are “Create a Centralized On-line Registration System” and “Develop bridge programs that seek to transition youngsters from learn to swim programs to competitive teams” Lawdy, Lawdy, I AM A BELIEVER! If we want to grow the sport, lets stop yakin’ and GROW THE SPORT! Great Goal. Great strategies. Now allow me to stop cheerleading and think of what this will mean in terms of needs: 1) Some more pool time for most clubs. (start getting creative...you may not need even a 25 yard pool for a bridge program from lessons to team. I teach my novices in a 12 yard area of the pool. Better control. Better focus. Better teaching results. 2) Capable, exciting, child-loving (as opposed to just sport-loving”) new coaches. Don’t need to be young. Don’t need to be old. Just need to be dedicated to helping young and new swimmers improve. Start thinking who might fit that mold for your club. 3) More swim meets. More SHORT swim meets. More Swim Meets that are great opening experiences to our sport. Since 20% bigger registration immediately implies 20% “new” swimmers, the chances are they will be “B” and below level athletes when they start out. 4) More entry level swim meets raises the next issue.....more entry level OFFICIALS. And therein lies our next great challenge in raising our numbers. Because volunteerism is down. Number of new LSC officials are down. Getting parents to volunteer to do officiating is down as the economy demands a greater and greater premium on compensated employment. Many LSC’s cannot today, appropriately field officials to run the number of swim meets we already need. So, whither the future? In exploring this, I went to a man who doesn’t “ask to be asked”, the redoubtable John Wilson of Athens, Georgia, USA-Swimming Vice President and himself a world class elite meet official, who came up through the officiating ranks in Ohio, where, in those days, one just became “an official” and not all the fancy titles we have today. His reply to my question was immediate and fair. “how hard is it to officiate a novice meet?” Clearly, not too hard. Know the strokes. Know what is legal. Understand it. Watch the water. Be fair. Be reasonable. Be aware of the philosophical concept of “if its giving someone an advantage not allowed in the rules, it deserves a disqualification” So, John, we make it easier for parents to be officials? Well, not so fast. We have no evidence now that the “difficulty” of becoming an official is the key problem. It may be, because how long does the average parent officiate? Well, the average child is probably in USA Swimming for about four years....so the average parent probably officiates about 3 years, at best. Not enough time to climb the big meet pyramid. Or any pyramid. So, what’s the answer? Use a different population. Who, like Martians? No, worse. Or better. Teenagers. Huh? Teenagers? Yes, teenagers. In one of our fastest growing and most significant competitors, soccer, kids officiate for kids. Bigger kids for little kids. Teenagers officiate soccer matches between little kids. All the time. As a matter of course. They have energy, knowledge of the sport, a keen sense of fairness, and oh, did i mention....energy? Also, they are more familiar with the internet than most of us are with our own face. So an on-line course and test to certify teenage officials who have either left the sport on a daily basis, or are summer only swimmers, or “high school only swimmers”, make a GREAT source of new officials for our coming expansion. They know swimming. They love swimming. They already know most of the rules. (especially how to swim the strokes) and they do the concept of “Fair” a lot better than some adults. And, they need part time employment. Whether they volunteer at officiating novice and “B” level meets, or whether we pay them a minimum wage, they are the best possible help we can recruit to help fuel our growth. And it will put a young, fresh, “cool” face on our officiating at the entry level meets....not the very serious, very formal face of adult officials...and in case you haven’t noticed, the coolest “sports” for kids are skateboarding, wakeboarding, snowboarding, etc. where no parents are around, no parents know anything about the sport, and no parents interfere. Its a fantastic idea. I hope our USA Swimming Officials group will set about creating an entry level “swim official” test that we can use as we grow to our new “raise you 20%” goal. Its the way to go. Back to the future. Kudos to John Wilson. Our “out of the box thinking” award of the year.
Complete presentation available in PDF(Adobe Reader) format.
Let's
Keep the Tech Suits With The Senior Swimmers The last two weeks I have been at our LSC Junior Olympic Meet and our LSC “Division II” meet, which is a nice way of saying, “the last B meet where you can qualify for Junior Olympics”, without making any of our supposedly delicate children swoon upon hearing that they are in a “B” meet. (but that’s another story.) One of the most disturbing trends that I have seen is age group swimmers, particularly 12 and unders and 10 and unders, in the new hi-tech suits made by all the swimsuit companies, in prelims and finals of these local meets. First of all, congratulations to Speedo, and all the other swimsuit companies. Some have done real and very expensive research and come up with fabulous suits that clearly assist the swimmers in swimming faster...much faster. Others have simply done the “Burger King Thing”. (Burger King does little to no demographic or other studies when it locates its restaurants.....it lets McDonalds spend its money on those expensive studies and then Burger King just opens across the street from every new McDonalds....saves them a lot of money and they get there 3 months later....so what? Good bottom line approach. Trust your best competitor to do the heavy lifting.) Now, the old man coach in me sighs at the sight of the new suits on anyone, but lets face it, they are here, they are good and they work. When it comes to setting World Records, American Records, Ugandan Records, Finlandian records, and making Senior/International Cuts, you’d better have one of these suits on, because the people swimming the fast times and setting those standards for the meets, are wearing them. If you don’t wear them, you are out of it. Unfair for you if you’re NOT wearing one. Case in point, over 440 College Women have qualified for the NCAA Division I meet this year with the “A” cut..phenomenally fast. The biggest number in any prior year to make the NCAA Meet with BOTH “A” and “B” cuts has been 259. Every college conference meet in the country was incredibly fast....why???? .....The Suits. Again. Good for the companies, Good for the Senior/International Swimmers. Now, we get to the Division II Age Group Meet where the goal is to swim fast enough and well enough to qualify for the Junior Olympics. And low and behold, here are the high tech $150-$450.00 suits on 10 and unders and 11 and 12 year olds. “B”
Level 10 and unders and 11 and 12 year olds. But Mom and Dad want to “support” their child, and they are told that those $150-$450 suits “work” and will make their child faster. And good parents help their child swim faster, right? Right? Right? SO........”honey, get the American Express card out and lets get Clarence one of those fancy new suits, so he can beat ________.” Meanwhile, some of those same parents are objecting when the club wants to raise dues from $50 a month to $70 a month, because the club wants to pay their coach some more, so he can get rid of that 15 year old car, and actually drive to practice in something safe. He does the teaching of the swimmers. Some of those same parents don’t respond when the coach says “Clarence really would improve a lot faster if he came to practice 3 times a week instead of twice." Or, “Gee, if you could get Clarence to look up from his cell-phone and text messaging when I am trying to talk to him, I’m pretty sure he’d listen and learn better.” Or, “Please help me get Clarence to understand that hard work in practice is what will help him swim better and faster in the meets”. Or, “You said that you’d like Clarence to turn better and can I fix that? Yes, I can, but I need Clarence to pay attention to his turns when he’s practicing if he’s to improve, and not just slop his way through practice without attention to details like turns. I’m here to teach and I need him to be here to learn”. By buying the Tech Suit for Clarence, his parents are teaching him that you can buy the things you want in life. You don’t have to work for them. You can simply buy speed. You can fix anything that you lack with enough money. No need to work hard. No need to Pay Attention. No need to Learn. And, of course, reassuring themselves that they fully support their child in swimming....”you know what we did at the meet this weekend? We bought Clarence a $400 swimsuit? Can you imagine that? When I was a kid, i swam in my underwear and now my kid has a $400 suit! But boy, did it work! In his old suit, he hadn’t beaten “_______” in the 200 free all season, but with this new suit, he dusted that boy!” So Clarence, who all season has gone 2:25 in the 200 yard freestyle, puts on the suit, goes 2:18 and qualifies for the JO’s where he puts it on again and low and behold, drops ANOTHER 2 seconds and gets to 2:16. Hooray for Clarence! Mom is happy. Dad is happy. Clarence thinks its pretty cool...for about 10 minutes, until he gets out his $200 cell phone and goes back to texting his friends. Since he’s really more into that than the swim meet, or swim team, or practice. Now what happens? Well, there are a couple of scenarios. Lets say Clarence goes to a meet, (a regular, ordinary, one session age group meet) about two weeks later. Mom says, “oh honey, you did so well in your new suit, put that on again and lets see you GO!”. So Clarence does. and surprisingly, he just goes about the same time...and actually, it maybe took some more work to get there. And his next swim is worse. And the one after that is worse still.... Clarence is disappointed. Mom and Dad are disappointed. Coach walks over and says “let me see that suit. How many swims have you worn it for? Twelve? Well, these things wear out you know...they’re only good for just so many swims before they no longer do what they did do.” Now Dad is just a tad suspicious......... “what did you say?” “I said, these tech suits are not intended to be worn all the time. The material fatigues, wears out and you need a new suit if you wear it very often” At this point it dawns on Mom and Dad that another $400 suit is going to make this a pretty expensive swimming month. And they haven’t even paid their club dues yet. Or their entry fee escrow account. And they are $800 in the hole. Mom puts her foot down. “No more tech suit. Back to the jammer. We’ll buy you the tech suit for Championships only.” Good. Firm decision, reasonable for the family finances. Very fair. So two weeks later, Clarence goes back to his next age group meet, in his old jammer. And his 200 free slips back to 2:23. Long face on Clarence. Long face on Dad. Mom says, “maybe you’re just not cut out for this sport” “or maybe your coach just didn’t prepare you properly for this meet”. Or, “he’s not really a very good freestyle coach anyway, did you see Clarence’s stroke fall apart in that 2nd 100, honey?” NOOOOBODY IS HAPPY! Clarence says to himself (or maybe even out-loud) “I can’t swim fast without the suit.” What is lost in all this of course, is that the reason his parents got Clarence into swimming was to make him more “fit” and “healthy” and give him a chance to “compete” and “learn to work for things” and be part of a good group of hard-working, dedicated kids. What Clarence and his parents should have been doing is working to improve his practice attendence, his love of the sport itself, his ability to focus and learn, and his technical swimming skills...his strokes, his starts, his turns. His improvement should have been coming from “real stuff” and not a $400 swimsuit. Then when he dropped to 2:23 from 2:25, it would have been a real improvement and everyone could have been happy and he would have been ENCOURAGED to work harder, pay more attention, and focus on the tasks he needed to improve. Instead of relying on the “magic pill”of the suit. The solution to all this? Very simple. Ban the suit for age group competition. Nothing below the knee nor over the shoulder in any competition except Senior/International Swimming events. Keep age group athletes focused on improvement coming from hard work, more practice, more attention in practice and quality coaching of good strokes, starts and turns. The real stuff. The right stuff. The only stuff that matters. And make a rule to do this. Not just “an agreement among coaches”. We know there are always renegades who will do whatever a parent wants to get their kid to swim fast...whether a $400 suit or a hypodermic needle full of HGH. Its like the arms race....if Johnny has a $200 suit, then Clarence has to have a $400 suit. The problem is not with the suit manufacturers. They’re in business to make money. And by getting senior swimmers to do marvelous times, they do that. But lets not allow commercial considerations to DESTROY the purposes of age group swimming. Again, Applause to Speedo and the others for a job well done. Let the suits do their magic at the Senior/International Level of swimming. At the age group end, the magic is in the process of working and learning. Lets keep it there. John Leonard Postscript: Southern California swimming has had this rule in place since 2000. The Rule reads......”swimwear in age group competion...The swimsuits worn for all age group competition, shall conform to USA Swimming Rule 102.9 and shall not extend past the top of the shoulder (the acromial process of the scapula) nor further down the leg than the top of the kneecap (Patella).”
The
Doc Counsilman Memorial Lecture Fund Following the passing of legendary Coach James “Doc” Counsilman, the American Swimming Coaches Association asked a group of his closest colleagues to create fund to achieve one of Doc’s most well goals....the improvement of swimming by using ideas from well outside the sport of swimming. Doc always sought ideas from professionals and dedicated practicioners in other fields, in order to enhance his coaching, and encouraged the members of our profession to do likewise. The
Committee for the Counsilman Memorial Fund is chaired by Coach
Bob Groseth of Northwestern University. The purpose of the fund is to help afford the fees and expenses of “special speakers” whom we otherwise could not afford to fund to speak the Annual ASCA World Clinic. The first three of these speakers included Hobie Billingsly of Diving and IU, C.M. Newton of Basketball Hall of Fame, and Marcus O’Sullivan, the great Villanova Track Runner and now coach, and in 2007, Vern Gambetta, the world’s premier expert in dryland development for swimmers. To make a contribution to this fund, send a check to Bob Groseth at 2311 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL. 60208. If you prefer to use a credit card, contact John Leonard at ASCA, who will then write a check to the fund. (JLeonard@swimmingcoach.org.) The THANKS OF THE COMMITTEE GO OUT TO THOSE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED and CONTINUE TO CONTRIBUTE. Among
those organizations and individual who have made contributions
in more than one year are: For those too young to have benefitted directly from contact with Doc Counsilman, it is wise to recognize that we all, in the profession of coaching swimmers, stand on the shoulders of giants and owe them a huge debt. We pay that debt by honoring their memories and remembering their contributions to the great sport we have today. Doc Counsilman was one of the American Giants. John Leonard
A wonderful
line from Chuck Warner... "Once again, swim coaches know that "impossible" is just defining the difficulty of the task."
Practice Over
the Christmas Holidays, I re-read portions of “The Magic of
Thinking Big” by David Schwartz. I try to do that every year,
don’t always succeed. I do always know that when I re-read it,
I’m a better person when I am done.
Bartsch
enjoys life around the pool "Never coach." More than 40 years ago, Ed Bartsch received this advice from his coach at Michigan, Gus Stager.Now the assistant coach in charge of distance swimmers for the Penn State men's and women's swimming and diving teams, Bartsch has a colorful coaching past and has no regrets about his career choice. "I've been very, very fortunate that I've been able to work with really outstanding people everywhere I've been," he said. Bartsch's diverse coaching experience is difficult to match, but he also has a distinguished history as a swimmer. He captured both AAU and NCAA national titles and won the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke at the 1963 Pan American Games. But after collecting championships as a swimmer, Bartsch followed the advice of his coach and put aside his coaching dream to focus on a career in business. He earned a masters of business administration from Southern Methodist, did post-graduate work in finance at Oklahoma and went on to spend more than 20 years in the business world. However, in 1988, Southern California head coach and long-time friend Peter Daland offered him a coaching position, and Bartsch decided it was time to get back to doing what he loved. "He was looking for an assistant coach, and I just had made a decision that I wanted to sell my businesses," Bartsch said. "I got to do what I'd always wanted to do for 20 years." While working as the associate head coach at USC, Bartsch got involved in numerous other swimming programs, including clinics in foreign countries and coaching a Los Angeles-based club team, Team Trojan. Bartsch traveled to both Peru and India to teach swimmers and coaches, and while it was difficult adjusting to coaching people from other countries, he said he learned a lot from his experiences. "You get to know kids that are tremendously receptive," he said. "They want to learn and they're so enthusiastic that they do 90-percent of the interpretation. They were terrific, and we communicated very well even though it was a sign language more than a verbal one." But Bartsch said that his most memorable international experience stemmed from his success while coaching Team Trojan. Eighteen months before the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association asked Bartsch if he would coach their swimmers that had qualified for the Olympics. Bartsch agreed, and the Philippine swimmers moved to Los Angeles and joined Team Trojan. About one month before the Olympics, he was approached with an offer to be the head coach of the Philippine team at the Olympics. After initially refusing the offer out of respect for the coaches from the country, he accepted a second offer and went on to help the swimmers break eight Philippine national records in Barcelona. "It was a great honor, and they could not be nicer and more supportive," he said. "The athletes were just great. I had worked with them on a daily basis for 18 months, so I had gotten to know them quite well." The majority of Bartsch's coaching career has been spent at the college level. He left USC to take over as head coach at Villanova in 1994 and led the women's team to back-to-back Big East championships in 1995 and 1996 before leaving the program following the 1999-2000 season. In 2001, Penn State head coach Bill Dorenkott asked Bartsch if he would come to Penn State to oversee the distance swimmers. "One of the reasons we asked Ed to come over and be a part of our staff is because he brought a wealth of experience and knowledge," Dorenkott said. "That in itself is a unique element to what he brings to our program. There are a lot of times our athletes or our coaches will go to Ed and ask for advice just based on experience." Bartsch's wealth of experience makes him well-qualified as an assistant coach, and he said that he accepted a position as an assistant because Dorenkott was willing to give him a lot of independence as a coach. Dorenkott believes Bartsch's ability to practically relate experience to his athletes is a major advantage. "We've never had a stronger distance program than during the period of time while Ed's been here," Dorenkott said. "We've had a good distance swimmer here and there, but just our depth and our quality of distance swimming over the past seven years has been remarkable and that's attributable directly to Ed and his influence over our program." Bartsch's distance swimmers have taken over the Penn State record books. The top four women's swimmers in Penn State history in both the 1000 freestyle and 1650 freestyle all swam under his direction. As he stands on the pool deck watching practice, the different aspects of Bartsch's personality and coaching style are conveyed. Every swimmer who walks by en route to the locker room jokes with him. But when it comes down to instructing in practice, Bartsch is all business. While he is tough on his athletes, they trust him and know he truly cares about their success. "I swam my best times last week," sophomore Stephanie Roop said. "The first thing he said to me was, 'I'm proud of you,' and that means so much coming from him." Standing next to her, junior Sarah Baker was quick to agree that Bartsch genuinely cares about his athletes' performances. "It's not like just another coach being like 'Good, more points for the team,' " Baker said. "He really cares about how we're doing and that's why he's so intense in practice and on the pool deck." When asked about his proudest moment as a swimmer, Bartsch described the feeling of winning gold at the Pan American Games. He said the most emotional moment occurred when he stood on the podium afterward and listened as the national anthem was played. Forty-four years after earning Pan American gold, Bartsch prepares his swimmers to have similar moments in which the feeling of accomplishment becomes overwhelming. "When it comes down to it, when I step up on the block at Big Tens, I'm going to know that he's prepared me to be the best I can be," Baker said. "Hands down, I'm not going to doubt it at all." Bartsch was told that it is too difficult to make a living as a swim coach. But with so much enthusiasm and passion for the sport and a desire to help others succeed, it appears that he made the correct career choice. "I've never felt it was the place; it was always the people," he said. "Whether there was a language barrier or not, they were just great people to work with. And that's why I think I really look back on it and I say it was never the wrong decision. I've never been happier doing what I'm doing because of the young people I'm working with." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
