ASCAOnline- Your Coaching Resource

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.

This year, one word stood out to me. Practice.

Its in the vocabulary of coaches practically every hour of our lives. It has a multitude of meanings of course, but I wanted to be simple and just think of what things I want to practice more, in order to be a better coach, better friend, just....better. Here’s my list for the new year. When I got done, I realized that like most practice, there wasn’t anything new, but there were a lot of skills I’d used less than I should.

Here’s my list for Practice:

1. Practice appreciation. I want to focus more on saying thanks. From the guys who pick up the garbage in front of our house on Christmas Day (now there is job that needs appreciation) to my swimmers, to my professional friends, to people who do good things and don’t ask for anything in return. Just more appreciation expressed.

2. Practice Real Compliments. When I see something good, I’m going to comment on it more. More positive feedback to everyone around us is a good thing. But it has to be real. Some people around me think I am hard to please. They’re right. So I don’t pass ‘em out like penny candy, but when I DO see something that I think is a plus, I’m going to say it more.

3. Practice Calling People by their name. Its the sweetest sound. I’m going to use it more. Especially at swim team practice.

4. Practice Spreading the Glory. Any accomplishment has multiple authors and contributors. From a good day at training, to a good day at the office. I want to practice making sure everyone feels the warm glow of accomplishment. (everyone who deserves it!)

5. Practice Raising People Up, Not cutting them down. Actually, I am pretty good at this already, so what I am going to practice, is educating the teenagers around me on how important this is. Teenage humor today is incredibly destructive. Maybe it always has been. Its unnecessary. I’ll practice my speech on changing this behavior.

6. Practice Remembering that Praise is Power.

Hey, praise has huge influence. Catch someone doing something right. Make ‘em feel good about themselves and there is no telling what they will achieve. Thanks to Coach Jack Nelson of FLST and 76 Head Olympic Coach for a lifetime of education on this one. He’s the best ever at this.

7. Practice Putting Service First. All Else Flows From That.

My Dad used to say “Make yourself useful, Son”. I believe that. Its hard to live it every hour sometimes. But if you practice, you will see more opportunities to serve others well. A smart salesperson by the name of Zig Zigler (the best who every lived at this) says “you can get anything you want in life, by simply making sure you help others get what they want in life.” A great practice!

8. Practice Remembering that No One is Perfect.

Least of all me. So tolerance within limits is a skill to learn and practice. Of course in training everyday, its important to remind the athletes that just because we’re not perfect does not mean we shouldn’t TRY to be perfect at our swim skills everyday.

9. Practice Remembering that everyone has a right to be different.

Or, as our friend Steven Covey would say “Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties”. As long as the individual commits to and lives and enhances the central tenat of a group, allow all the little individualisms that make that person unique. Encourage them even.
Advances come from people who think and act “outside the box”.

10. Practice Courtesy all the time. It makes you and everyone around you feel better. And it allows for creative differences and civilized conduct of disputes. And Civilized Conduct of Disputes allows for progress to be made on stalemated issues.

11. Practice Remembering that How You Think When You Lose Determines How Long It Will Be Until You Win.

And we all lose at something fairly regularly. Our reaction to that failure is the key to overcoming and triumphing over the difficulty.

Bartsch enjoys life around the pool
Posted: December 27, 2007
By Matt Brown
For the Collegian

"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."

Listen closely; Hurry slowly
Posted: December 13, 2007
By George Block

Yesterday I got an email asking for ideas. “I am interested in getting a swim program off the ground with our Elementary/ Middle schools and quiet frankly don't know how to get the ball rolling.”

It is getting more and more difficult to have programs like that, because laws like No Child Left Behind (along with the various state adaptations) mandate "seat time", so taking even very young kids out of class is difficult.

On the other hand, AFTER SCHOOL activities are now REQUIRED by the Federal Government, especially fitness programs that reduce obesity. This might be the best approach.

When you are developing any new product or service offering, my recommendation is to spend 6 months doing "research". Talk – individually - to your potential customers (in this case it is school board members, principals, administrators). See what THEY need (not what you want to do or sell). See what their obstacles are. Then spend the next 6 months coming up with a menu of different ways you can get around their obstacles and meet their needs. See if you can get them to pick one and try a pilot program.

They might need to get a grant to do a pilot, but obesity-related grants are out there. It could take some time to research, develop a menu of ideas, get (administrative) buy-off on one, get grant funding, etc.

Most people fail in developing a new product or service because (a) they to sell a product instead of meet a need; and (b) they aren't patient enough to deal with organizational inertia. Every organization has inertia from a small family, to a huge, overly-regulated bureaucracy. If you can listen closely, and be patient enough to hurry slowly, you can grow a family or school district into a long-term customer.

Mike and Amy Parratto inducted into Dover Sports HoF
Dover Hall Honors Six
By MARK QUIRK - Fosters Staff Sports Writer

DOVER - After the 2007 Dover Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Paul LeSieur had a gift for Jim Dunn.

It was a picture of a frog bench-pressing some weights as a coach encouraged it on. Twenty-one years earlier Dunn had hung the picture on LeSieur's locker at Dover High School. Written under the picture was "I've got my money on you LeSieur" and it was autographed by Dunn.

The picture LeSieur, one of the night's honorees, gave to Dunn, another one of the inductees, brought a huge smile to Dunn's face. It was just a small token of thanks LeSieur could give to Dunn, who has touched the lives of so many Dover athletes.

"I was excited to see Paul because I don't get a chance to see him all the time," Dunn said. "It's a good time, and everyone is still young enough to enjoy it."

Dunn was one of six people inducted into the Hall of Fame. LeSieur was another, and there were also Jahn (Tibbett) Janetos, Mike and Amy Parratto and Chris McKenney. Dunn and the Parrattos went in as contributors and Janetos, McKenney and LeSieur were all inducted as athletes.

Dunn was recognized for his 39 years of coaching football, most of which have been spent at Dover. The Parrattos are longtime coaches of Seacoast Swimming Association, one of the most successful swimming programs in the Northeast that produced swimmers such as Olympic gold medalist Jenny Thompson, who was at the ceremony. Janetos excelled in both track and football at Dover and the University of New Hampshire. LeSieur played both football and baseball for the Green Wave and went on to play in the minor leagues for the New York Yankees' organization. McKenney was a football standout who played at Springfield College and is now the head coach at Maine Maritime.

The room at the Dover Lodge of Elks was filled with some of Dover's greatest athletes of all time. Dunn wanted to be the first one there for one reason. Not to get a good parking space so he could quickly get to his car after the ceremony to listen to the University of New Hampshire football game on the radio, and not to get a good seat - they were reserved.

"I had to get here early because I didn't want to miss anybody," Dunn said. "I didn't want to do that."

There was somebody at almost every table that had either coached with or played for Dunn, and there were just more than 200 people at the ceremony. It became obvious how many lives he has touched when he asked them all to stand.

Thompson is the most notable of the swimmers SSA has produced, but there are many others that the Parrattos have helped get into college or win state championships. They moved from the Boston area to coach in Dover, and now they are in the city's Sports Hall of Fame.

"They basically made me," said Thompson, who is the most decorated U.S. Olympian of all time with eight gold medals, three silvers and one bronze in four different Olympic Games. "Swimming wasn't the only thing. It's also their support, their coaching and teaching me the ways of the world."

The first team the Parrattos coached when they moved to Dover was the Seacoast Stingrays, which lost the first seven races in its first duel meet. Now they are churning out Olympic gold medalists and college swimmers.

"It's pretty incredible," Mike Parratto said. "That's the satisfying thing, to see people go on and be successful."

After he was done with sports, Janetos made a career out of flying in the Air Force, National Guard and Continental Airlines.

"I'm very proud to be selected to this," Janetos said. "All I have to say is thank you to my coaches and my teammates that made me look good."

LeSieur currently lives in Raleigh, N.C., where he is the director of finance of the North Carolina Department of Education.

McKenney still holds the high jump record at Dover. His brother Doug is also a member of the Hall of Fame.

"This is a special night for me and a great honor," Chris McKenney said. "Being inducted with so many great athletes means a lot to me."

There are now 92 people in the Hall of Fame, which began in 1979. Inductees have to be nominated. The nominations are reviewed by a nine-person committee and voted upon. It takes a majority vote to get in.

Committee Chairman Marty Riordan said there were about 40 applications this year. The committee tries to keep the nominations to about "four or five" people every ceremony, which now takes place every two years.

"This is great," Riordan said. "It's almost an extension of Thanksgiving. It's family. This is a Dover sports family."

Complaints in the In-Box
Posted: November 21, 2007
By George Block, Technical Vice-President, USA Swimming

After less than a year of serving as Technical Vice-President for USA Swimming, the most common (by far!) complaint that landed in my email inbox was about “Zones”. So at last fall’s USA Swimming convention, I used the early-morning coaches’ caucus for a “town meeting” on Zones. What I heard surprised me.

The standard complaints were brought forward, but I got to hear “the other side” as well. Coaches who used the Zone meet as the high point of their summer season. Coaches who had attended the last 13-18 consecutive Zone meets. Age Group coaches who use Zones as the bridge to senior swimming. All were completely happy with their historic Zone meet.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized that the coaches who were using the Zone Championships were involved in the design, format and scheduling of the meets, and the meets met their needs – well. The frustration I was hearing was from those for whom the Zone Championship did not meet their team’s needs. They wanted the Zone Championship to fill that void.

That “void” seemed to be 3-dimensional. It was a geographic void. Some areas of the country had a much greater void than others. It was a calendar void – primarily (although not exclusively) late summer. And it was a time standard void. There are a significant number of swimmers who fall somewhere between the Sectional level and the Junior National level that need a “Championship Meet”.

The Zone frustration was felt by those coaches who were trying to fill those voids with the existing Zone Championships. The problem isn’t with the Zone meets. The problem is that we aren’t meeting the needs of a significant number of developing swimmers and their coaches.

The problem was most commonly defined as “the old Junior National group”. Under the current Junior National format, the gap between Nationals and Juniors has been reduced by 50% (from about 4% to about 2%), while the gap between Juniors and Sectionals increased by 50% (from 4% to 6%).

Below is a one-event sample that demonstrates the “gap” I was hearing about. The current Sectional standard from one, successful Section is about 8% slower than Seniors. The “old” Junior meets split that in half and were about 4% slower than Seniors. The new (current) Junior standards are only 2% slower than Seniors, leaving a 6% gap between Juniors and Sectionals.

Women’s 200 free    Nationals   Juniors     2000 Jrs.     Southern Zone/Western Section
LC Time Standard        2:03.69     2:06.49     2:09.09                   2:13.59
Time in seconds           123.69      126.49      129.09                     133.59
%-age of Nationals        1.00         1.02          1.04                        1.08

Additionally, as many of the Sections have migrated to mid-July to become National qualifiers rather than end-of-season championships, this “calendar gap” compounds the “time standard gap”. This effect becomes most profound in areas where the school year is “late” (i.e. late starting and/or late ending) causing a “geographic gap”.

Shooting from the hip, I think we need a “Zone Junior Championship” (in most Zones), late in the summer (late-July/early August). Since I like to think with facts rather than impressions, I am going to request the actual data on numbers of swimmers that fall into these gaps. In the meantime, if you have ideas or comments, please send them to asca@swimmingcoach.org . We will try to publish the most interesting ideas.

In 2008 in Beijing, the world's athletes will be faced with the need to swim fast in the morning.....since that is when the Olympic Gold Medals will be won, thanks to the commercial need to put the Games on TV in USA Prime Viewing Time.

Likely you've all followed that discussion over the past 12 months. The world is unhappy about it, and have added it to their list of unending reasons to be pissed off with the USA. The statement (totally illogical, but hey!.........) is that somehow the USA swimmers and coaches maneuvered this to provide us with an advantage.

Now why the USA Swimmers would find contesting finals in the AM to be an advantage is over my head...but.....its good for those who love to bash the USA.

Many of us, with more mortal athletes, have been concerned with how to swim fast in the morning for a long time, because if our normal athletes don't, they don't get to swim at night in championship meets. Actually a lot of the world has had to learn how to swim fast in the morning much before any of this Beijing stuff.

During a recent USA-Swimming meeting, i decided to ask the ASCA Coach of the Year, who coaches a young man named Michael Phelps, what they had experimented with this year to learn how to swim fast in the AM. Here's Bob's responses:

1. "Wake up Three Hours Before You Swim" (at least.)
2. Take a WARM shower.
3. Immediately dress in warm clothes, including cap, socks and gloves or mitts.
4. Provide the athlete with a longer and more intense warmup than you would otherwise do in the AM.

The Key Point, according to Coach Bowman? "its raising the core temperature of the body and keeping it there. That's the major physical difference between AM and PM swimming."

Thanks for the advice Coach Bob. It may be useful for our slow people trying to make finals in our local meets, as well as for the fast people going after Olympic Medals in Beijing. Good luck to both groups!

Give athletics credit, literally
Posted: October 8, 2007
By Gary Walters, Princeton University
NCAA News

The following was presented as a speech to the Princeton University Varsity Club in May.

As director of athletics, let me share with you what amounts to my athletics commencement address. I hope my theme isn’t too sobering, considering the festive nature of this banquet.

At past PVC banquets, a common refrain from many of our speakers and recipients has been that the athletics experience at Princeton is inherently co-curricular. Most, if not all, student-athletes and past participants feel in their collective souls that the athletics experience was every bit as educational as the classroom experience.

Jon Veach, a starting tailback and captain on our football team who graduated in 2005, wrote a paper for Professor Hal Feiveson, in which he stated:

“The reason athletes put so much time and dedication into athletics is because the athletes do not view varsity athletics as simply an extracurricular activity but rather a vital part of their life and an intense learning experience. I have been an athlete since I was 8 years old, and I can honestly say that the summation of my athletics experiences to this point has prepared me for the hard times of my life better than any other experience. Varsity athletics are imbedded with an abundant number of life lessons, values and striking comparisons to the real world. I believe so strongly in these values that I feel varsity athletes should be given some type of academic credit for the countless hours of training and learning.”

Jon’s comments provoke the question: Is it time for the educational-athletics experience on our playing fields to be accorded the same educational and academic respect as the arts? Isn’t it, as I believe, a co-curricular activity, too?

On January 20, 2006, President Shirley Tilghman proudly presented to the board of trustees the President’s Arts Initiative, a vision for Princeton that includes an arts neighborhood, expanded programs in the creative and performing arts, and a commitment to integrating those offerings into a broader liberal education.

The president stated that Princeton “fully embraces the creative and performing arts as an essential part of the educational mission.” The president further pointed out that “by participating in the arts, our students develop cognitive abilities and forms of intelligence that complement training in other disciplines, and in some cases they discover and develop talents and interests that will shape their careers and principal avocations.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon has been appointed by President Tilghman as the new chair of the arts initiative. As Princeton’s own Poet Laureate, Professor Muldoon commented that:

“We’ve come to understand more widely at Princeton that the arts may be central to the experience here — not necessarily overshadowing any of the other areas that a student might pursue — but that there’s something about the way in which the arts make us understand who we are and what we’re doing that I think has become...more central to the university’s idea of itself.

“We will be attempting to make it clear that the arts are central to the life of an educated person, whether she or he might be majoring in chemical engineering or computer science or whatever it might be. One of the delights of Princeton has to do with the curriculum that allows computer science and chemical engineering and comparative literature majors to write poetry and produce plays.”

Who among us would not agree with President Tilghman’s and Professor Muldoon’s compelling assessment of the arts and the significant role they play in contributing to a broad liberal arts education? But also, who among us does not believe that athletics at Princeton is itself a discipline that tests our physical and cognitive abilities? Athletics competition nourishes our collective souls and contributes to the holistic education of the total person in the same manner as the arts.

In his recent book, “Excellence Without a Soul,” Harvard’s former Dean of the College and professor of computer science Harry Lewis courageously points out the mission drift at Harvard and other research universities from their respective commitments to undergraduate education and teaching. He criticizes the growing academic-educational divide and he also argues for a different professorial rewards system that places a greater value on teaching.

But in his book, Lewis didn’t limit his commentary to Harvard’s role in the academic cosmos. As a former faculty representative to the Ivy Policy Committee on Athletics, Lewis, too, is a proponent of intercollegiate athletics as practiced in the Ivy League and heartily endorses its contributions to the individual and collective soul of a university. He concludes:

“Like scholarship or mathematics or music, athletics at their best operate in a glorious parallel universe in which the lucky and the skilled can temporarily dwell and excel, detached from the banality of ordinary life. Competitive ambitions and financial rewards need not corrupt sports, no more than awards debase the value and purpose of learning or of art. The pursuit of excellence in any area can be more than entertainment — it can be a thing of beauty that brings profound satisfaction to the human spirit.”

In a very real sense, student-athletes are also engaging in a form of the creative and performing arts, but what differentiates us is that we do so in a competitive, collaborative and cooperative way — and like great theater, the anticipated outcomes of our games remain in doubt.

Bill Coplin, professor of public policy at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, professes that “intercollegiate athletics may be the single-most important educational activity available to undergraduates who see college as a way to prepare for a professionally rewarding career, regardless of the field.”

Professor Coplin observes that intercollegiate athletics is almost unique in its ability to help participants develop professional competencies such as critical thinking, time management, teamwork, goal-oriented behavior, competitiveness, confidence, persistence/endurance, loyalty, discipline, taking criticism, dealing with setbacks, leadership, flexibility and adaptability.

If we accept what Coplin affirms, and if we believe that intercollegiate athletics contributes to the development of core competencies and analytical thinking, why is it considered a distant cousin to the arts when it seeks academic legitimacy, even though the vast majority of its participants view it as having educational legitimacy?
No less noteworthy an alumnus than Michael Spence (class of 1966, Nobel Prize-winning economist and a former hockey player at Princeton) said at this very banquet three years ago that the “physical, mental, emotional and social components” of playing hockey at Princeton were a crucial part of his undergraduate education.

To continue on the same theme, George Santayana, the distinguished Harvard philosopher, observed in his 1894 essay etitled “Philosophy on the Bleachers” that:
“Real loss would come (to the academy) if a merely scientific and technical training were to pass for a human one, and a liberal education were conceived to be possible without leisure, or a generous life without any of those fruits of leisure of which athletics are one.... (In athletics, there) is a drama in which all moral and emotional interests are...involved.”

Which brings me back to the original question: Why isn’t the educational-athletics experience in the academy considered to be as worthy of co-curricular respect as the arts? Or even more confounding, why do so many academicians question the legitimacy of the hyphen between “educational” and “athletics” when they evaluate the intercollegiate athletics experience? To the contrary, “Isn’t athletics,” as Trinity College professor Drew Hyland hypothesized, “the sweatiest of the liberal arts?”
You be the judge.

Gary Walters is director of athletics at Princeton University. He is completing his term this month as a member and chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee