ASCA Newsletter American Swimming Coaches Association 2014 Edition | Issue 5 Winning AS a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy by William Barnett

ASCA Newsletter American Swimming Coaches Association 2014 edition | issue 5 Winning AS A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy By William Barnett

In This Issue: Mental Imagery / 05 Features of Excellence in Swimming / 10 Overcome 8 Barriers to Confidence / 20 Teen Bites Hand that Pampered Her / 22 Concept 2 Rowing Machine / 24 ASCA Reading Recommendations / 26 Age Group Swimming, Part IV / 29 Kicking Standards / 30 Code of Ethics Proposed Addition / 31

The maid-of-honor was consoling the bride, up, there in the bowsprit chair of a racing realization that he had been told the wrong desperately trying to keep her makeup boat was the photographer, Paul Barnett, time; a frantic cab ride to the marina, only to from liquefying. The yacht was perfect, snapping photos from a long telescopic see the yacht heading out to sea; a search of course, and most of the bridesmaids lens. James Bond with a camera. for a fast boat; a payoff to a nefarious bad were there as planned. So what was the guy; the last-second idea to shoot from the problem? No pictures. The photographer But of course! You don’t photograph the bow-sprit chair strapped in like a marlin was a no-show. Well, the bride would make wedding party on the yacht itself; too close fisherman. And then, of course, the usual sure that he never got another high-profile quarters. You shoot from a separate boat! self-assured act later on, as if to say, “All job. And to think, all the best families had What a genius. Everything turned out OK – part of the plan.” raved about his genius. spectacularly, really — in the end. Some people have a way of making things Two hours later, as they lay desolate on the But let me tell you the story from the go right, no matter how badly they seem to yacht’s sun deck in the warm tropical air, point-of-view of my brother Paul, the tardy be going wrong. Why do winners seem to they heard the roar of twin diesels. Looking but brilliant photographer: A desperate just keep winning?

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2 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Continued from Cover

Social scientists tell us that winners keep Social psychologists have been talking view gets confirmed yet again. winning for several reasons. First off, about these “positive illusions” for years in they may just be better. Quality aside, terms of mental health outcomes (see the The lesson for leadership is clear. We know we know that those with a reputation for work by Shelley Taylor and her colleagues). that a well-informed decision is one that past success tend to get disproportionate But when such views trigger the self- sees reality for what it is. But leadership credit for future wins – the “Matthew fulfilling prophecy, these illusions have the is so much more than correct calculation. effect” described by the sociologist Robert potential to increase chances of success. Especially in uncertain times, what the K. Merton. And of course the winners from As my colleague Andy Rachleff argues, leader believes to be true may end up so the past tend to be in the right place to winning helps a leader feel confident through the self-fulfilling prophecy. make things happen in the future, and in future contests, thereby increasing have the connections and resources to their chances of winning. Many, many make good on those opportunities. people have commented on Steve Jobs’s William Barnett is the Thomas M. Siebel “reality distortion field”; Jobs believed in But there may be another reason that possibilities even when others saw them as Professor of Business Leadership, winners keep winning, a reason that unthinkable. Of course, once he believed, Strategy, and Organizations at the is particularly useful to understand then others would too, making his vision Graduate School of Business, Stanford business leadership: Some people tend more likely to come true. University. His research focuses on to be unrealistically optimistic, a view that competition among organizations and sometimes makes itself come true. Paul Barnett could not accept that he would how organizations and industries evolve fail. So in a situation where others would globally. He is best known for his work The downside of such unrealistic optimism throw up their hands and admit defeat, he on “Red Queen Competition,” where is that it can lead you to be out of touch. kept scrambling. Not letting the facts get in firms learn from competition and so But the upside is that an unrealistically the way, the unrealistic optimist expends become stronger competitors over time. optimistic outlook might trigger what’s effort as if victory was within reach, which of Follow him on Twitter @BarnettTalks. A known as a self-fulfilling prophecy (another course makes that victory more likely. And version of this post originally appeared idea pioneered by Robert K. Merton). with every victory, the optimist’s unrealistic at www.barnetttalks.com.

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 3 4 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Mental Imagery & Excellence in Swimming Compiled by Coach Charlie Dragon

Bode Miller preparing to start a downhill run in a super combined training session at Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Athletes in many Olympic events use visualization or imagery as a training tool. CreditRuben Sprich/Reuters

Chambliss emphasizes that in swimming 2. The different levels of excellence in swimmers enjoy. What others see there really are discrete levels of swimming are like different worlds, with as boring - swimming back and forth excellence, because there are different different rules. People can move up or over a black line for two hours, say kinds of swimming competitions, each with down within a level by putting in more or - the best swimmers find peaceful, their own different ethos. Here are some of less effort, but going up a level requires even meditative, or challenging, or his other main points: something very different-see point one. therapeutic. They enjoy hard practices, look forward to difficult competitions, 1. Excellence comes from qualitative 3. Excellence is not the product of and try to set difficult goals. changes in behavior, not just socially deviant personalities. The best quantitative ones. More time practicing swimmers aren’t oddballs, nor are they 7. The best swimmers don’t spend a lot is not good enough. Nor is simply loners-kids who have given up “the of time dreaming about big goals like moving your arms faster! A low-level normal teenage life.” winning the Olympics. They concentrate breaststroke swimmer does very on small wins: clearly defined minor different things than a top-ranked one. 4. Excellence does not come from some achievements that can be rather easily The low-level swimmer tends to pull mystical inner quality of the athlete. done, but produce real effects. her arms far back beneath her, kick Rather, it comes from learning how to the legs out very wide without bringing 8. The best swimmers don’t “choke.” Faced do lots of things right. them together at the finish, lift herself with what seems to be a tremendous challenge or a strikingly unusual event high out of the water on the turn, and 5. The best swimmers are more such as the Olympic Games, they take fail to go underwater for a long ways disciplined. They’re more likely to it as a normal, manageable situation. after the turn. The top-ranked one be strict with their training, come to One way they do this is by sticking to sculls her arms out to the side and workouts on time, watch what they eat, the same routines. Chambliss calls this sweeps back in, kicks narrowly with sleep regular hours, do proper warmups the “mundanity of excellence.” the feet finishing together, stays low before a meet, and the like. on the turns, and goes underwater for - Charlie Dragon a long distance after the turn. They’re 6. Features of the sport that low-level completely different! swimmers find unpleasant, excellent

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 5 Mental Imagery & Excellence in Swimming Compiled by Coach Charlie Dragon

Olympians Use Imagery as MentaL Training Flying High While Still on the Ground

By Christopher Clarey

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — The “Visualization, for me, doesn’t take in all and ski jumping. The wind or weather Canadian bobsledder Lyndon Rush had the senses,” said Emily Cook, the veteran patterns may shift. The crowd noise may not yet arrived in Sochi. But he was already American aerialist. “You have to smell it. vary. But there is no direct competitor to on the Olympic sliding track as he sat in You have to hear it. You have to feel it, change the dynamic, and in contrast to a chair in the Munich airport several days everything.” Alpine skiing events, no setting of gates to before the Winter Olympics, his eyes wide change the geometry. open but his mind’s eye far away as he Imagery has seldom been more in traced a sinuous path through the air with evidence than in Sochi, where the starting But the most predictable Olympic his left hand. areas have been full of Olympians going environment is the sliding track. There are through the motions, figuratively or literally. limited training runs during the Olympics, “I just went from 7 to 14,” Rush said, “Oh, yeah, it’s ridiculous; we’re all up there but Rush said that before competing, he referring to the section of the track between flapping our arms,” Cook said. “It looks had mentally driven the Sochi course Curve 7 and Curve 14. insane, but it works.” hundreds of times from start house to finish.

Visualization has long been a part of elite From mountain cluster to coastal cluster, “I’ve tried to keep the track in my mind sports. Al Oerter, a four-time Olympic from slope to speedskating oval, athletes throughout the year,” he said. “I’ll be in discus champion, and the tennis star Billie are closing their eyes (or not) and seeing the shower or brushing my teeth. It just Jean King were among those using it in the near future. It is a vast parallel sporting takes a minute, so I do the whole thing or the 1960s. But the practice of mentally universe of hope and occasional misery. sometimes just the corners that are more simulating competition has become technical. You try to keep it fresh in your increasingly sophisticated, essential and “Sometimes their eyes go back a little so head, so when you do get there, you are elaborate, spilling over into realms like that their whites show, and it’s really kind of not just starting at square one. It’s amazing imagining the content of news conferences creepy,” Erin Hamlin, the American bronze how much you can do in your mind.” or the view from the bus window on the way medalist in the luge, said of her fellow to the downhill. competitors. “Some people get really into Leading Winter Olympic nations clearly it, and because we paddle to start, they’ll agree. The Canadian team came to “The more an athlete can image the entire paddle really hard on the bench and all Sochi with eight sports psychologists. The package, the better it’s going to be,” said of the sudden you’ll be sitting there really Norwegians came with three, including Nicole Detling, a sports psychologist with quiet and someone will hit the bench really Britt Tajet-Foxell, who has worked with the the United States Olympic team. hard, and it will kind of startle you.” cross-country star Marit Bjorgen as well as dancers at the Royal Ballet in London. This is, more than ever, a multisensory The Winter Olympics are full of events endeavor, which is why the term “imagery” that are contested in controlled, fairly The French Olympic team, perhaps is now often preferred to “visualization.” predictable environments. Consider aerials more inclined to self-analysis, came

6 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 with none, according to one of its press officers, although its athletes do work with sports psychologists based at the national high-performance institute in Paris. The United States brought nine sports psychologists, including five for its ski and snowboard program.

“The U.S. team has been engaged with sports psychology for a long time, and it’s really starting to get attention from other nations, so now you see they carry far more psychologists than they used to,” said Luke Bodensteiner, executive vice president at the United States Ski and Snowboard Association. “But for us it’s a pretty intense endeavor. We had 93 athletes here in our sports, and there’s no way one person can cover 93 athletes.” Top: South Korean short-track skaters Lee Han-bin, left, and The psychologist Detling, an assistant Sin Da-woon preparing for a 1,000-meter semifinal. Source: professor at the University of Utah, Ivan Sekretarev/AP. Bottom: US freestyle aerials Olympian worked with the aerialists here after Emily Cook goes beyond “visualization” in her training. “You have to smell it,” she said. “You have to hear it. You have to working with the short-track speedskating feel it, everything.” Clive Mason/Getty Images. team in 2010. Detling has collaborated Left: Kyle Tress getting ready for a practice run in skeleton. Source: Dita Alangkara/AP. with Cook since 2002, when Cook was recovering after a crash that left her with sport a better jumper and that she also consciousness before being transported broken bones in both feet. had used imagery to break the cycle of down the mountain, where she was treated Imagery has long been one of their focal negativity. Whenever fear surfaced, she for a concussion and released. points, and when Cook was in the midst of would picture herself pricking a big red an injury layoff that lasted more than two balloon with a pin. “In images, it’s absolutely crucial that you don’t fail,” Detling said. “You are training years, she and Detling first used imagery to see and feel her bones heal. “That sound and that immediate switch those muscles, and if you are training those would kind of snap me out of it,” she muscles to fail, that is not really where you They also created imagery scripts, highly said, adding, “The last couple years, I’ve want to be. So one of the things I’ll do is if detailed written accounts of the competition definitely gotten to a point where when I’m they fail in an image, we stop, rewind and process from “Point A to Point Z.” Each on the hill, it’s very quick for me to switch we replay again and again and again.” jump sequence lasts about 10 seconds from a negative thought to a positive one.” but packs a great deal of action into that Some sports are better suited to A-to-Z small window, particularly in the air with the Not all athletes have acquired the same imagery than others. How does an athlete flipping and spinning. But Cook broke it all faculty. Jacqueline Hernandez, an imagine a snowboard cross final or a down and then recorded the script. American Olympian in snowboard cross, short-track race, where the action is so said she had struggled with recurring dynamic and unpredictable? You do it by “I would say into the recorder: ‘I’m images of crashing after she fractured envisioning situations, Detling said. standing on the top of the hill. I can feel an upper-arm bone and ended up with the wind on the back of my neck. I can significant nerve damage. “I had one skater in Vancouver who hear the crowd,’ ” Cook said. “Kind of wanted to image every possible scenario, going through all those different senses “I’ll see myself fall because that will happen and you can’t imagine every possible and then actually going through what I in my visualization, and then I have to scenario in short track,” she said. “So wanted to do for the perfect jump. I turn make sure I clear that out before I go,” she we would do the obvious ones and then down the in-run. I stand up. I engage my said after arriving in Sochi. “It can be hard, maybe a couple of unexpected ones.” core. I look at the top of the jump. sometimes really hard.” The Canadian bobsledder Rush, now 33, “I was going through every little step of how Asked if she always succeeded, said he used to imagine himself driving I wanted that jump to turn out.” Hernandez paused before answering, a course by using his hands to simulate “Yeah, I mean, mostly.” holding the steering ropes. But he now Cook then played the recording back deploys only his left hand to simulate the as she relaxed, eyes closed, feeling her Several days later, Hernandez crashed path of the sled itself. muscles firing in response. She said that during her first qualifying run on the such mental work helped her return to the Rosa Khutor course, briefly losing “As I got older, I preferred to think about

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 7 8 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Mental Imagery (Continued)

Emily Cook, of the US freestyle ski team, visualizes each aerial jump as part of her training for the Olympics. Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse, Getty Images. the bob and its angles and its pitch,” he helps, but Mikaela Shiffrin, the American it, most find imagery both reassuring and said. “You can kind of create that feeling 18-year-old skier, said she had already empowering. in your hand.” mentally simulated many aspects of her first trip to the Olympics and thus did not “I don’t think I could possibly do a jump, or Alpine skiers, including Lindsey Vonn of feel as much like a rookie. She certainly did especially a new trick, without having this the United States, will use their hands to not ski like one on Friday, when she won imagery process,” said Cook, who finished simulate the path of their skis. Other skiers the slalom. She apparently has a gift for eighth in aerials here. “For me, this is so thrust both hands forward, often while visualizing race courses, too. very key to the athlete I have become.” gripping poles shortly before the start, and see themselves skiing the course through Shiffrin said she typically visualized a At 34, she has become an expert who their own eyes. course twice: once after inspection and includes imagery in her daily routine and once shortly before her run. her competition routine. Watching her This is called internal imagery. External simulate jumps away from the jumping hill imagery is seeing your race as if you are “Sometimes eyes closed, sometimes was an intense experience as she cast watching a video of yourself competing. eyes open, but I’m always kind of zoned her eyes downward, moved her limbs Both methods are valid, Detling said. But out,” Shiffrin said. with robotic precision and absorbed the technology and the advent of cameras that imagined impact of the landings. When Some Olympians, though, warn that too can be attached to a skier’s helmet and she finished a session that required only record a run from the skier’s perspective much projection can lead to paralysis by about two minutes to complete, she was analysis. are changing the game. flushed with the effort.

Video aids and video games are, for now, “You can get totally mad scientist about Only then did she re-establish contact with only out-of-competition tools. “When you it,” said Heather McPhie, an American the observers in the room. are at the actual performance, you’ve got moguls skier. “You can forget the passion, to be able to pull it from here,” Detling said, the reason for starting.” She added, “You guys,” she said, “just totally didn’t pointing to her head. Detling said research “Some of my best results have come exist.” had shown that athletes who were adept at when I’m crazy sick or there was some imaginary play as children — “imaginary really weird variable, because all of the friends, make believe, things like that” — sudden I had to simplify.” A version of this article appears in print were better at imagery. on February 23, 2014, on page SP1 of Still, even if a vast majority of athletes the New York edition with the headline: The consensus is also that experience envision the perfect run and never achieve Their Minds Have Seen the Glory.

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 9 Mental Imagery & Excellence in Swimming Compiled by Coach Charlie Dragon

The Mundanity of Excellence An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers

By Daniel F. Chambliss (1989)

Olympic sports and competitive swimming in the summer-time as a loosely run, Gaines, beginning in the sport when17 in particular provide an unusually clear mildly competitive league, with volunteer, years old, jumped from a country club opportunity for studying the nature of part-time coaches. Above that there are league to a world record in the 100 meter excellence. In other fields, it may be less teams that represent entire cities and freestyle event in only three years. This clear who are the outstanding performers: compete with other teams from other cities allows the researcher to conduct true the best painter or pianist, the best around the state or region; then a “Junior longitudinal research in a few short years. businessperson, the finest waitress or Nationals” level of competition, featuring the best father. But in sport (and this is the best younger (under 18 years old) This report draws on extended experience with swimmers at every level of ability, over one of its attractions) success is defined athletes; then the Senior Nationals level some half a dozen years. Observation more exactly, by success in competition. (any age, the best in the nation);and finally, There are medals and ribbons and we could speak of world- or Olympic-class has covered the span of careers, and I have had the chance to compare not just plaques for first place, second, and third; competitors. At each such level, we find, competitions are arranged for the head- predictably, certain people competing: one athletes within a certain level (the view to-head meeting of the best competitors in athlete swims in a summer league, never that most coaches have), but between the world; in swimming and track, times are seeing swimmers from another town; one the most discrepant levels as well. Thus electronically recorded to the hundredth of swimmer may consistently qualify for the these findings avoid the usual...problem a second; there are statistics published and Junior Nationals, but not for Seniors; a third of an observer’s being familiar mainly with rankings announced, every month or every may swim at the Olympics and never return athletes at one level.... week. By the end of the Olympic Games to Junior Nationals. The levels of the sport The Nature of Excellence every four years, it is completely clear who are remarkably distinct from one another. won and who lost, who made the finals, By “excellence” I mean “consistent who participated in the Games, and who Because success in swimming is so superiority of performance.” The excellent never participated in the sport at all. definable,...we can clearly see, by athlete regularly, even routinely, performs comparing levels and studying individuals better than his or her competitors. Within competitive swimming in particular, as they move between and within levels, Consistency of superior performances clear stratification exists not only between what exactly pro-duces excellence. In tells us that one athlete is indeed better individuals but also between defined levels addition, careers in swimming are relatively than another, and that the difference of the sport as well. At the lowest level, short; one can achieve tremendous between them is not merely the product we see the country club teams, operating success in a brief period of time. Rowdy of chance. This definition can apply at any

10 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 level of the sport, differentiating athletes. The superiority discussed here may be that of one swimmer over another, or of all athletes at one level (say, the Olympic class) over another. By this definition, we “... If their achievements result from need not judge performance against an a personality characteristic, that absolute criterion, but only against other performances. There are acknowledged characteristic is not obvious... leaders on every team, as well as teams ” widely recognized as dominant.

To introduce what are sources of excellence for Olympic athletes, I should first suggest saving the demonstration for later—what from other swimmers, not through not necessarily doing more. Qualitative does not produce excellence. quantitative increases in activity. . . . improvements involve doing different kinds 1. Excellence is not, I find, the product of things. . . . I should clarify what is meant here of socially deviant personalities. by “quantitative” and “qualitative.” By Now we can consider how qualitative These swimmers don’t appear to be quantity, we mean the number or amount differentiation is manifested: “oddballs,” nor are they loners (“kids of something. Quantitative improvement who have given up the normal teenage entails an increase in the number of Different levels of the sport are qualitatively life”). If their achievements result some one thing one does. An athlete who distinct. Olympic champions don’t just from a personality characteristic, that practices 2 hours a day and increases do much more of the same things that characteristic is not obvious. Perhaps it that activity to 4 hours a day has made a summer league country club swimmers is true, as the mythology of sports has quantitative change in behavior. Or, one do. They don’t just swim more hours, or it, that the best athletes are more self- who swims 5 miles and changes to 7 miles move their arms faster, or attend more confident (although that is debatable); has made a quantitative change. She workouts. What makes them faster cannot but such confidence could be an effect does more of the same thing; there is an be quantitatively compared with lower- of achievement, not the cause of it. increase in quantity. level swimmers, because while there may be quantitative differences—and certainly 2. Excellence does not result from Or again, a freestyle swimmer who, while there are, for instance in the number of quantitative changes in behavior. maintaining the same stroke technique, hours spent in workouts—these are not, I Increased training time, per se, does moves his arms at an increased number of think, the decisive factors at all. not make one swim fast; nor does strokes per minute has made a quantitative increased “psyching up,” nor does change in behavior. Quantitative Instead, they do things differently. Their moving the arms faster. Simply doing improvements, then, involve doing more of strokes are different, their attitudes are more of the same will not lead to the same thing. different, their groups of friends are different, moving up a level in the sport. their parents treat the sport differently, By quality, though, we mean the character the swimmers prepare differently for their 3. Excellence does not result from some or nature of the thing itself. A qualitative races, and they enter different kinds of special inner quality of the athlete. change involves modifying what is actually meets and events. “Talent” is one common name for this being done, not simply doing more of it. quality; sometimes we talk of a “gift,” For a swimmer doing the breaststroke, There are numerous discontinuities of or of “natural ability.” These terms are a qualitative change might be a change this sort between, say, the swimmer who generally used to mystify the essentially from pulling straight back with the arms competes in a local City League meet mundane processes of achievement to sculling them outwards, to the sides; and one who enters the Olympic Trials. in sports, keeping us away from a or from lifting oneself up out of the water Consider three dimensions of difference: realistic analysis of the actual factors at the turn to staying low near the water. creating superlative performances, 1. Technique: The styles of strokes, dives Other qualitative changes might include and protecting us from a sense of and turns are dramatically different at competing in a regional meet instead of responsibility for our own outcomes. different levels. A “C” (the lowest rank local meets; eating vegetables and complex in United States Swimming’s ranking So where does excellence—consistent carbohydrates rather than fats and sugars; system) breaststroke swimmer tends superiority of performance—come from? entering one’s weaker events instead of to pull her arms far back¬¬¬ beneath only one’s stronger events; learning to do her, kick the legs out very wide without I. Excellence Requires Qualitative a flip turn with freestyle, instead of merely Differentiation bringing them together at the finish, lift turning around and pushing off; or training herself high out of the water on the turn, at near competition levels of intensity, Excellence in competitive swimming is fail to take a long pull underwater after rather than casually. Each of these involves achieved through qualitative differentiation the turn, and touch at the finish with one doing things differently than before,

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12 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Excellence in Swimming (Continued)

hand, on her side.

By comparison, an “AAAA” (the highest rank) swimmer, sculls the arms out to the side and sweeps back in (never actually pulling backwards), kicks narrowly with the feet finishing together, stays low on the turns, takes a long underwater pull after the turn, and touches at the finish with both hands. Not only are the strokes different, they are so different that the “C” swimmer may be amazed to see how the “AAAA” swimmer looks when swimming. The appearance alone is dramatically different, as is the speed with which they swim. . . .

2. Discipline: The best swimmers are more likely to be strict with their training, coming to workouts on time, carefully doing the competitive strokes legally (i.e., without violating the technical do as sacrificial at all. They like it. of the sport. These include differences in rules of the sport), watch what they eat, attitude, discipline, and technique which in These qualitative differences are what sleep regular hours, do proper warm- turn lead to small but consistent quantitative distinguish levels of the sport. They are ups before a meet, and the like. Their differences in speed. Entire teams show very noticeable, while the quantitative energy is carefully channeled. Diver such differences in attitude, discipline, differences between levels, both in training Greg Louganis, who won two Olympic and technique, and consequently certain and in competition, may be surprisingly gold medals in 1984, practices only teams are easily seen to be “stuck” at small indeed. . . . Yet very small quantitative three hours each day—not a long time— certain levels. Some teams always do well differences in performance may be coupled divided into two or three sessions. But at the National Championships, others do with huge qualitative differences: In the during each session, he tries to do every well at the Regionals, others at the County dive perfectly. Louganis is never sloppy finals of the men’s 100-meter freestyle Meet. And certainly swimmers typically swimming event at the 1984 Olympics, in practice, and so is never sloppy in remain within a certain level for most of meets. Rowdy Gaines, the gold medalist, finished their careers, maintaining throughout their ahead of second-place Mark Stockwell careers the habits with which they began. 3. Attitude: At the higher levels of by .44 seconds, a gap of only 8/10 of 1%. competitive swimming, something like Within levels, competitive improvements Between Gaines and the 8th place finisher for such swimmers are typically marginal, an inversion of attitude takes place. (a virtual unknown named Dirk Korthals, reflecting only differential growth rates The very features of the sport that the from West Germany), there was only a (early onset of puberty, for instance) or the “C” swimmer finds unpleasant, the top 2.2% difference in time. Indeed, between jockeying for position within the relatively level swimmer enjoys. What others see Rowdy Gaines, the fastest swimmer in the limited sphere of their own level. . . . as boring—swimming back and forth world that year, and a respectable 10-year- over a black line for two hours, say— old, the quantitative difference in speed . . . Athletes move up to the top ranks they find peaceful, even meditative, would only be about 30%. through qualitative jumps: noticeable often challenging, or therapeutic. They changes in their techniques, discipline, Yet here, as in many cases, a rather enjoy hard practices, look forward to and attitude, accomplished usually small quantitative difference produces an difficult competitions, try to set difficult through a change in settings (e.g., joining enormous qualitative difference: Gaines goals. Coming into the 5:30 A.M. a new team with a new coach, new was consistently a winner in major practices at Mission Viejo, many of friends, etc.) who work at a higher level. international meets, holder of the world the swimmers were lively, laughing, Without such qualitative jumps, no major record, and the Olympic Gold Medalist in talking, enjoying themselves, perhaps improvements (movements through three events. appreciating the fact that most people levels) will take place. . . . would positively hate doing it. It is Stratification in the sport is discrete, not incorrect to believe that top athletes This is really several worlds, each with its continuous. There are significant, qualitative suffer great sacrifices to achieve their own patterns of conduct. . . . If, as I have breaks—discontinuities—between levels goals. Often, they don’t see what they suggested, there really are qualitative

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 13 Excellence in Swimming (Continued) breaks between levels of the sport, and if coaches are very powerful, parents seen declines, they may be said to have “wasted people really don’t “work their way up” in only occasionally (and never on the pool their talent.” We believe it is that talent, any simple additive sense, perhaps our deck), swimmers travel thousands of conceived as a substance behind the very conception of a single swimming world miles to attend meets, they swim 6 days a surface reality of performance, which finally is inaccurate. I have spoken of the “top” of week for years at a time, and the fastest distinguishes the best among our athletes. the sport, and of “levels” within the sport. among them are objects of respect and But talent fails as an explanation for But these words suggest that all swimmers praise. The big event of the season may athletic success, on conceptual grounds. It are, so to speak, climbing a single ladder, be the National Championships, where aiming towards the same goals, sharing the athletes may spend much time—sitting mystifies excellence, subsuming a complex set of discrete actions behind a single the same values, swimming the same under huge tents, playing cards, reading, undifferentiated concept. To understand strokes, all looking upwards towards an listening to music and gossiping. Olympic gold medal. But they aren’t. Some these actions and the excellence which want gold medals, some want to make Each such world has its own distinctive types they constitute, then, we should first debunk the team, some want to exercise, or have of powerful people and dominant athletes, this concept of talent and see where it fails. fun with friends, or be out in the sunshine and being prominent in one world is no On at least three points, I believe, “talent” and water. Some are trying to escape their guarantee of being prominent in another. At is inadequate. Factors other than talent parents. The images of the “top” and the lower levels, the parents of swimmers are explain athletic success more precisely. “levels” of swimming which I have used until in charge; at the higher levels, the coaches; We can, with a little effort, see what these perhaps in the Masters teams which are factors are in swimming: now may simply reflect the dominance of a made up only of swimmers over 25 years certain faction of swimmers and coaches geographical location, particularly living in old, the swimmers themselves. Each world, in the sport: top is what they regard as the southern California where the sun shines too, has its distinctive goals: going to the top, and their definitions of success have year round and everybody swims; fairly high Olympics, doing well at the National Junior the broadest political currency in United family income, which allows for the travel to Olympics, winning the City Meet, having a States Swimming. Fast swimmers take meets and payments of the fees entailed good time for a few weeks. In each world as given that faster is better—instead of, in the sport, not to mention sheer access the techniques are at least somewhat say, that more beautiful is better; or that to swimming pools when one is young; distinct (as with the breaststroke, discussed parental involvement is better; or that one’s height, weight, and proportions; the above), and certain demands are made on “well-rounded” children (whatever that may luck or choice of having a good coach, family and friends. In all of these ways, mean) are better... who can teach the skills required; inherited and many more, each so-called “level” muscle structure—it certainly helps to be So we should envision not a swimming of competitive swimming is qualitatively world, but multiple worlds (see Shibutani, different than others. The differences are both strong and flexible; parents who are interested in sports. Some swimmers, 1962; Blumer, 1969) (and changing worlds not simply quantifiable steps along a one- too, enjoy more the physical pleasures of is a major step toward excellence), a dimensional path leading to the Olympic swimming; some have better coordination; horizontal rather than vertical differentiation Games. Goals are varied, participants have some even have a higher percentage of of the sport. competing commitments, and techniques are jumbled. fast-twitch muscle fiber. Such factors are What I have called “levels” are better clearly definable, and their effects can be described as “worlds” or “spheres.” In one II.Why “Talent” Doesn’t Lead to Excellence clearly demonstrated. To subsume all of such world, parents are loosely in charge, them, willy nilly, under the rubric of “talent” . . . “Talent” is perhaps the most pervasive coaches are teenagers employed as obscures rather than illuminates the lay explanation we have for athletic lifeguards, practices are held a few times a sources of athletic excellence. . . . success. Great athletes, we seem to week, competitions are scheduled perhaps believe, are born with a special gift, almost a week in advance, the season lasts for a The concept of talent hinders a clear a “thing” inside of them, denied to the few weeks in the summertime, and athletes understanding of excellence. By providing rest of us—perhaps physical, genetic, who are much faster than the others may a quick “explanation” of athletic success, psychological, or physiological. Some be discouraged by social pressure even it satisfies our casual curiosity while have “it,” and some don’t. Some are from competing, for they take the fun out requiring neither an empirical analysis “natural athletes,” and some aren’t. While of it. The big event of the season is the nor a critical questioning of our tacit an athlete, we acknowledge, may require City Championship, when children from assumptions about top athletes. At best, many years of training and dedication to the metropolitan area will spend two days it is an easy way of admitting that we develop and use that talent, it is always “in racing each other in many events, and don’t know the answer. But the attempt there,” only waiting for an opportunity to the rest of the time sitting under huge at explanation fails. Through the notion come out. When children perform well, they tents playing cards, reading, listening to of talent, we transform particular actions are said to “have” talent; if performance music, and gossiping. In another world, that a human being does into an object

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ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 15 SWIM | WATCH | SHARE

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possessed, held in trust for the day when of such little things—even if some of them began doing all of her turns, during those it will be revealed for all to see. are done unwittingly or by others, and practices, correctly, in strict accordance thus called “luck.” with the competitive rules. Most swimmers III.The Mundanity of Excellence don’t do this; they turn rather casually, and So the “little things” really do count. We “People don’t know how ordinary success tend to touch with one hand instead of two have already seen how a very small (in is,” said Mary T.Meagher, winner of 3 gold (in the butterfly, Meagher’s stroke). This, quantitative terms) difference can produce medals in the Los Angeles Olympics, when she says, accustomed her to doing things a noticeable success. Even apparent flukes asked what the public least understands one step better than those around her— can lead to gold medal performances: about her sport. She then spoke of starting always. her career in a summer league country club In the 100-Meter Freestyle event in Los Those are the two major changes she team, of working her way to AAU meets, to Angeles, Rowdy Gaines, knowing that made in her training, as she remembers faster and faster competitions, of learning the starter for the race tended to fire the it. Meagher made two quite mundane new techniques, practicing new habits, gun fast, anticipated the start; while not changes in her habits, either one of which meeting new challenges (see Chambliss, actually jumping the gun, it seems from anyone could do, if he or she wanted. 1988). What Meagher said—that success video replays of the race that Gaines knew Within a year Meagher had broken the is ordinary—in some sense applies, I exactly when to go, and others were left on world record in the butterfly. . . . believe, to other fields of endeavor as well: the blocks as he took off. But the starter to business, to politics, to professions of all turned his back, and the protests filed Motivation is mundane, too. Swimmers go kinds, including academics. In what follows afterwards by competitors were ignored. to practice to see their friends, to exercise, I will try to elaborate on this point, drawing to feel strong afterwards, to impress the Gaines had spent years watching starters, some examples from the swimming coach, to work towards bettering a time and had talked with his coach (Richard research, and some from other fields, to they swam in the last meet. Sometimes, Quick) before the race about this starter indicate the scope of this conception. the older ones, with a longer view of the in particular. (Field notes; see Chambliss, future, will aim towards a meet that is still Excellence is mundane. Superlative 1988, for full description.) several months away. But even given the performance is really a confluence of longer-term goals, the daily satisfactions dozens of small skills or activities, each one Gaines was not noticeably faster than need to be there. The mundane social learned or stumbled upon, which have been several of the other swimmers in the race, but with this one extra tactic, he gained rewards really are crucial (see Chambliss, carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted 1988, Chapter 6). By comparison, the big, together in a synthesized whole. There is enough of an advantage to win the race. dramatic motivations—winning an Olympic nothing extraordinary or superhuman in And he seemed in almost all of his races gold medal, setting a world record—seem to any one of those actions; only the fact that to find such an advantage; hence the gold be ineffective unless translated into shorter- they are done consistently and correctly, medal. Looking at such subtleties, we term tasks. Viewing “Rocky” or “Chariots and all together, produce excellence. When can say that not only are the little things important; in some ways, the little things of Fire” may inspire one for several days, a swimmer learns a proper flip turn in the but the excitement stirred by a film wears freestyle races, she will swim the race a are the only things. . . . off rather quickly when confronted with the bit faster; then a streamlined push off from In swimming, or elsewhere, these practices day-to-day reality of climbing out of bed to the wall, with the arms squeezed together might at first glance seem very minimal go and jump in cold water. If, on the other over the head, and a little faster; then how indeed: hand, that day-to-day reality is itself fun, to place the hands in the water so no air rewarding, challenging; if the water is nice is cupped in them; then how to lift them When Mary T. Meagher was 13 years and friends are supportive, the longer-term over the water; then how to lift weights old and had qualified for the National goals may well be achieved almost in spite to properly build strength, and how to eat Championships, she decided to try to break of themselves. Again, Mary T. Meagher: the right foods, and to wear the best suits the world record in the 200-Meter Butterfly for racing, and on and on (see Maglischo, race. She made two immediate qualitative I never looked beyond the next year, and 1982; Troup and Reese, 1983). changes in her routine: first, she began I never looked beyond the next level. I coming on time to all practices. She recalls never thought about the Olympics when I Each of those tasks seems small in now, years later, being picked up at school was ten; at that time I was thinking about itself, but each allows the athlete to swim by her mother and driving (rather quickly) the State Championships. When I made a bit faster .And having learned and through the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, cuts for Regionals [the next higher level consistently practiced all of them together, trying desperately to make it to the pool on of competition], I started thinking about and many more besides, the swimmer time. That habit, that discipline, she now Regionals; when I made cuts for National may compete in the Olympic Games. The says, gave her the sense that every minute Junior Olympics, I started thinking about winning of a gold medal is nothing more of practice time counted. And second, she National Junior Olympics . . . I can’t even than the synthesis of a countless number

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 17 Excellence in Swimming (Continued) think about the [1988] Olympics right now. are ways of importing one’s daily habits into But of course there is no secret; there is . . . Things can overwhelm you if you think the novel situation, to make it as normal an only the doing of all those little things, each too far ahead. event as possible. one done correctly, time and again, until excellence in every detail becomes a firmly This statement was echoed by many of Swimmers like Lundquist, who train at ingrained habit, an ordinary part of one’s the swimmers I interviewed. While many competition-level intensity, therefore have everyday life. of them were working towards the Olympic an advantage: arriving at a meet, they Games, they divided the work along the are already accustomed to doing turns Conclusions way into achievable steps, no one of which correctly, taking legal starts, doing a proper The foregoing analysis suggests that was too big. They found their challenges warm-up, and being aggressive from the we have overlooked a fundamental fact in small things: working on a better start outset of the competition. If each day of the about Olympic class athletes; and the this week, polishing up their backstroke season is approached with a seriousness argument may apply far more widely technique next week, focusing on better of purpose, then the big meet will not than swimming, or sports. I suggest that sleep habits, planning how to pace their come as a shock. The athlete will believe “I it applies to success in business, politics, swim. . . . belong here, this is my world”—and not be and academics, in dentistry, bookkeeping, paralyzed by fear or self-consciousness. . . . Many top swimmers are accustomed food service, speechmaking, electrical The task then is to have training closely to winning races in practice, day after day. engineering, selling insurance (when the approximate competition conditions. . . . clients are upset, you climb in the car and Steve Lundquist, who won two gold go out there to talk with them), and perhaps The mundanity of excellence is typically medals in Los Angeles, sees his success even in the arts. unrecognized. I think the reason is fairly as resulting from an early decision that simple. Usually we see great athletes Consider again the major points: he wanted to win every swim, every day, only after they have become great—after in every practice. That was the immediate the years of learning the new methods, 1. Excellence is a qualitative goal he faced at workouts; just try to win gaining the habits of competitiveness and phenomenon. Doing more does not every swim, every lap, in every stroke, no consistency, after becoming comfortable equal doing better. High performers matter what. Lundquist gained a reputation in their world. They have long since focus on qualitative, not quantitative, in swimming for being a ferocious workout perfected the myriad of techniques that improvements; it is qualitative swimmer, one who competed all the time, together constitute excellence. Ignorant improvements which produce significant even in the warm-up. He became so changes in level of achievement; of all of the specific steps that have led to accustomed to winning that he entered different levels of achievement really meets knowing that he could beat these the performance and to the confidence, we think that somehow excellence sprang full are distinct, and in fact reflect vastly people—he had developed the habit, grown from this person, and we say he or different habits, values, and goals. every day, of never losing. The short-term she “has talent” or “is gifted.” Even when goal of winning this swim, in this workout, 2. Talent is a useless concept. Varying seen close up, the Mundanity of excellence translated into his ability to win bigger and conceptions of natural ability (“talent,” is often not believed: bigger races. Competition, when the day e.g.) tend to mystify excellence, treating arrived for a meet, was not a shock to him, it as the inherent possession of a few; Every week at the Mission Viejo training nothing at all out of the ordinary. they mask the concrete actions that pool, where the National Champion create outstanding performance; they Nadadores team practiced, coaches from This leads to a third and final point. avoid the work of empirical analysis and around the world would be on the deck In the pursuit of excellence, maintaining visiting, watching as the team did their logical explanations (clear definitions, separable independent and dependent mundanity is the key psychological workouts, swimming back and forth for variables, and at least an attempt at challenge. In common parlance, winners hours. The visiting coaches would be establishing the temporal priority of the don’t choke. Faced with what seems to excited at first, just to be here; then soon— be a tremendous challenge or a strikingly within an hour or so usually—they grew cause); and finally, such conceptions perpetuate the sense of innate unusual event, such as the Olympic Games, bored, walking back and forth looking at the psychological differences between high the better athletes take it as a normal, deck, glancing around at the hills around performers and other people. manageable situation (“It’s just another the town, reading the bulletin boards, swim meet,” is a phrase sometimes used glancing down at their watches, wondering, 3. Excellence is mundane. Excellence by top swimmers at a major event such as after the long flight out to California, when is accomplished through the doing the Games) and do what is necessary to something dramatic was going to happen. of actions, ordinary in themselves, deal with it. Standard rituals (such as the “They all have to come to Mecca, and see performed consistently and carefully, warm-up, the psych, the visualization of the what we do,” coach Mark Schubert said. habitualized, compounded together, race, the taking off of sweats, and the like) “They think we have some big secret.”

18 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 added up over time. While these fast. It is all very mundane. actions are “qualitatively different” from those of performers at other When my friend said that they weren’t levels, these differences are neither exciting, my best answer could only be, unmanageable nor, taken one step simply put: That’s the point. at a time, terribly difficult. Mary T. Meagher came to practice on time; REFERENCES some writers always work for three ☐ Blumer, Herbert. ‘69. Symbolic Interactionism. hours each morning, before beginning ☐ Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. anything else; a businessperson may go ahead and make that tough phone ☐☐ Chambliss, Daniel F. 1988. Champions: The call; a job applicant writes one more Making of Olympic Swimmers. New York: Morrow. letter; a runner decides, against the odds, to enter the race; a county ☐☐ Maglischo, Ernest W. 1982. Swimming commissioner submits a petition to Faster. Palo Alto: Mayfield. run for Congress; a teenager asks ☐☐ Shibutani, T. “Reference Groups and Social for a date; an actor attends one Control,” in Rose, Arnold M. 1962. Human more audition. Every time a decision Behavior and Social Process. Boston: comes up, the qualitatively “correct” Houghton Mifflin, pp. 128–147. choice will be made. The action, in ☐☐ Troup, John and Reese, Randy. 1983. itself, is nothing special; the care and A Scientific Approach to the Sport of consistency with which it is made is. Swimming. Gainesville, FL: Scientific Sports.

Howard Becker has presented a similar THINKING ABOUT THE READING argument about the ordinariness of Why does Chambliss feel that “talent” is apparently unusual people in his book TM a useless concept in explaining success Outsiders (1961). But where he speaks among world-class swimmers? Where, of deviance, I would speak of excellence. instead, does he think that athletic Becker says, and I concur: excellence comes from? Why do you We ought not to view it as something suppose we have such a strong tendency special, as depraved or in some magical to focus on “talent” or “natural ability” in way better than other kinds of behavior. explaining superior performances? If We ought to see it simply as a kind of it’s true, as Chambliss suggests, that behavior some disapprove of and others factors such as geographical location, value, studying the processes by which high family income and interest, and either or both perspectives are built up the luck of having a good coach can all and maintained. Perhaps the best surety play an important role in creating world- against either extreme is close contact with class swimmers, then there are probably the people we study. (Becker, p. 176) many potentially successful athletes who don’t have the opportunity to excel After three years of field work with world- in certain sports because of their social class swimmers, having the kind of close circumstances. contact that Becker recommends, I wrote a draft of some book chapters, full of Relatively few inner-city kids grow up stories about swimmers, and I showed to succeed in “wealthy” sports like it to a friend. “You need to jazz it up,” he swimming, tennis, and golf. On the other said. “You need to make these people hand, the inner city produces many of the more interesting. The analysis is nice, but world’s best basketball, football, and track except for the fact that these are good stars. What sorts of social circumstances swimmers, there isn’t much else exciting encourage success in these sports? Can to say about them as individuals.” He you identify other areas of life (other than was right, of course. What these athletes sports, that is) where achievement might do was rather interesting, but the people similarly be affected by the kinds of social themselves were only fast swimmers, who circumstances described in this article? did the particular things one does to swim

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 19 Overcome the 8 Barriers to Confidence By Rosabeth Moss Katner

To get a more confident You in the new year — or a more confident company, community, family, or team — first know what gets in the way. The best resolutions will go nowhere without the confidence to stick with them.

Confidence is an expectation of a positive outcome. It is not a personality trait; it is an assessment of a situation that sparks motivation. If you have confidence, you’re motivated to put in the effort, to invest the time and resources, and to persist in reaching the goal. It’s not confidence itself that produces success; it’s the investment and the effort. Without enough confidence, it’s too easy to give up prematurely or not get started at all. Hopelessness and despair prevent positive action. Goals that are too big or too distant. I know was coming off a 9-year losing streak (yes, how often leaders say they want to tackle 9 years!). After winning the first game in To muster the confidence to work toward BHAGs — “big hairy audacious goals.” nearly a decade, a team member shouted your goals, avoid these eight traps: But having only enormous goals can that now we’ll win the championship. First, actually undermine confidence. The gap of course, they had to win the next game — Self-defeating assumptions. You think between a giant goal and today’s reality which they didn’t. Step-by-step discipline you can’t, so you don’t. A British Olympic can be depressing and demotivating. runner is so rattled by a misstep that cost her builds confidence. Confidence comes from small wins that a contest that she dropped out of the next. occur repeatedly, with each small step A company team decides that a popular Do-it-yourself-ing. It’s a trap to think you moving you closer to the big goal. But the can go it alone, without a support system world leader is so far out of their league small steps must be valued and turned and without supporting others. Losing that they don’t issue an invitation to speak into goals themselves. Winners think teams have stars, but they focus on their at their customer event. Talented women small as well as big. sometimes “leave before they leave,” as own records, not how well the whole Sheryl Sandberg puts it, assuming that they Declaring victory too soon. This is the team does; the resulting resentments won’t be promoted (or succeed when they dieter’s dilemma: lose the first few pounds, and inequalities provoke internal battles have children) so they start behaving like and feel so good that you reward yourself that drag everyone down. To build your they’re departing years before departure, with chocolate cake, and when the pounds confidence, think about building the thus foreclosing their options. It’s one thing go back on, you feel so discouraged that confidence of others and creating a to be realistic, it’s another to behave like a you have more cake to feel better. I saw culture in which everyone is more likely to loser before entering the game. this pattern in a college football team that succeed, whether through mentoring them

20 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 or recognizing their strengths. Giving to Neglecting to anticipate setbacks. and blindness to the forces of change — a others boosts happiness and self-esteem, Confidence involves a dose of reality. It is trap for companies as well as individuals. as numerous research studies show. not blind optimism, thinking that everything Sure enough, like the old proverb that Supporting them makes it easier to ensure will be fine no matter what. Confidence “pride goeth before a fall,” the slide into a that they support you. stems from knowing that there will be losing streak often begins with a winning mistakes, problems, and small losses en streak. A little humility goes a long way to Blaming someone else. Confidence route to big wins. After all, even winning moderate arrogance and keep just the right rests on taking responsibility for one’s own sports teams are often behind at some point amount of confidence. behavior. Even in difficult circumstances, in the game. Confidence grows when you we have choices about how to respond look at what can go wrong, think through Remember, it’s not enough just to feel to adversity. Whining about past harms alternatives, and feel you are prepared for confident. You have to do the work. But with reduces confidence about future whatever might happen. an expectation of success, you can try new possibilities. When the blame game is things, form new partnerships, contribute carried out within companies, everyone Over-confidence. Confidence is a sweet to shared success, and revel in small wins loses confidence, including external spot between despair and arrogance. Don’t that move you toward bigger goals. stakeholders. Confidence is the art of let confidence slip over into the arrogant moving on. end. Over-confidence is the bane of economies (e.g., the irrational exuberance ROSABETH MOSS KANTER Defensiveness. It’s one thing to listen and that preceded the global financial crisis), Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor respond to critics; it’s another to answer corrupt leaders (who assume they’re so at Harvard Business School and the them before they’ve done anything. Don’t necessary that they won’t get into trouble author of Confidence and SuperCorp. defend yourself if you’re not being attacked. for a small expense account fudge), Her 2011 HBR article, “How Great Apologize for your mistakes, but don’t or individuals who swagger and feel Companies Think Differently,” won apologize for who or what you are. Instead, entitled to success rather than working a McKinsey Award for best article. take pride in where you’ve come from and for it. Arrogance and complacency lead to Connect with her on Facebook or at lead with your strengths. neglect of the basics, deaf ears to critics, Twitter.com/RosabethKanter.

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 21 Teen Bites the Hand That Pampered Her

Rachel Canning was denied her request for private school tuition and living By RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR, Syndicated Columnist expenses in a lawsuit against her parents. John O’Boyle / Associated Press

Mexicans have a graphic saying that “I’m a liberal, liberal parent,” Sean told told the Post. “She’s our pride and joy. should serve as a warning to today’s the New York Post. “I wish I could have The door is wide open. We want her to parents, not only south of the border grown up in my house.” come home.” but also in the United States. It loosely translates as: “If you raise crows, they’ll You have to wonder if the chief has That’s another mistake. Rachel made her scratch out your eyes.” figured out that, with young people, being choice, and now she has to live with the too lenient often does more harm than consequences. Believe it. Just ask Sean and Elizabeth being too strict. From media reports, it Canning of Lincoln Park, N.J. Their seems that the Cannings wanted to raise a Recently, a Superior Court judge denied 18-year-old daughter, Rachel, is now child with a lot of self-esteem. the request for private school tuition and perhaps the most famous spoiled brat in living expenses. Another hearing will America. She is also the epitome of what is Mission accomplished. When you sue be held in April to decide whether the referred to as the Millennial generation but your own parents, you’re no shrinking Cannings have to pay for college. violet. The trouble is, what Rachel Canning really ought to be rebranded “Generation Let this be a cautionary tale. Too many E” — for entitlement. has is what psychologists call “cheap” self-esteem. The real thing comes from parents are lost. They set out to care for The Cannings seem to have been in denial striving, failing, persevering and eventually their children and wind up coddling them, that they had raised a crow until they got succeeding — not from having your which only makes their offspring whiny and served with legal papers. parents clear a path for you. weak. Before long, the kid is convinced that the adults — parents, teachers, ministers, Rachel is suing her parents for support. When the Cannings finally demanded that coaches, etc. — are nothing more than a Having left home (either because she Rachel do chores and adhere to a midnight fleet of personal assistants whose only job ran away or because she was kicked out, curfew, she rebelled. is to ensure that the precious little darling depending on whose version you believe), experiences a constant state of bliss. she asked a court to declare that she is Of course. You set rules and expectations “unemanicipated” and order her parents for your kids when they’re 8, not when Too many parents today seem to be to pay tuition for her private high school, they’re 18. By then, they’re accustomed to traumatized by how strict their own cover her living expenses until she can doing what they want. parents were, and they’re determined to do the opposite. They obsess over support herself and spring for her college Rachel got the money to file the lawsuit — whether their kids are happy, indulge education. She also wants mom and dad $12,000 — from the parents of a friend. every whim and strive to be their child’s to cover her legal bills. You know, the ones John and Amy Inglesino say they’re footing “BFF.” Before long, the kid loses respect she incurred by suing them. the bill, and letting Rachel stay in their for them and pushes them around. Every home, because they want to see the young Maybe Rachel’s parents do owe some day, at Little League games or school woman realize her potential. restitution — not to her but to the rest of events, I see parents bullied by their kids. society. They seem to have helped her If there is an unspoken code between A few are being outright terrorized. get off course. parents, the Inglesinos have demolished it. And you know the rules. You don’t Sean Canning, a former police chief, At this point, the Cannings claim that they negotiate with terrorists. admits that he was better at laying just want to put their family back together. down the law with the officers under his command than with his own daughter. “We love our daughter,” Sean Canning

22 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 STRAPLESS

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 23 The Use of the Concept 2 Rowing Machine In Swimming Training!

By Jack Simon, ASCA Hall of Fame member, Past President of ASCA

Let me start by thanking Coach John Jalisco went on to win several national doing extremely well. An example of that Mason for introducing me to Concept 2 championships and national games would be 10 pulls at 25 spm at 2:10 pace. Rowing way back in 1990. Off and on, (Olimpiada) during my tenure and I credit at If you can do that, imagine what the athlete where the opportunity presented itself I least some of that to our training on the C2. learns about feel and pace. found I really loved this form of exercise. Equipment: Your body, your mind and a However, not until I moved to Jalisco, Years later I went to Jiangsu province to pair of gloves!! Much cheaper than golf!! Mexico to take over their state program take over their Institute of Sport swimming did I find the opportunity to have my program and one of the stipulations I Go online to concept2.com/indoor-rowers/ swimming athletes take this up. Not long made was I needed at least three C2 training/muscles-used and you can see the after arrival one of my assistants informed rowers. We started our rowing program, description and pictures. me that there was a Concept2 Gym in 3 days a week, right after my arrival. Guadalajara designed for only rowing. We Again, registered all with Concept2 and How you train on the C2, just as in the quickly made arrangements for my group we quickly found the same result, this time water, will determine what heart rate of 19 swimmers (there were 19 rowing all our swimmers were in the top 10 in the zone you are in. I’ve found that most of machines) to use the gym 3 times a week world within their age group. Several of the athletes will stay in the 150 HR range for one hour. Day 1 was working in the EN2 these athletes ended up top 15 in the world when doing a long row, 30 minutes plus. However, if you want to really get your HR zone (ie) 10 x 5 min. row with 1 min. rest. in their swimming events. up, here are a few sets: Day 2 working in EN3 zone (ie) 12 x 3 min. Now, you may ask, OK, but what does this rows with 2 min. rest. Day 3 was a power have to do with swimming. I’ll explain more For your sprint people, try this one, 10 x day (ie) 5 x 500 meters with 4 minutes rest. about the physiology part of rowing later, 1 minute row with 2 minutes rest and stay All times, distances were logged. but for now let’s stick with the technical part. at 38 to 42 SPM They will be begging for more rest after 3 or 4 and their heart rates So that everyone understand, the C2 is the will be very close to maximum. Here’s machine that all the top rowers in the world Rowing does the following: teaches an an EN3 type set, 3 x 1000 meters with 3 train on during cold weather. So, you are early catch, teaches hand speed, teaches minutes rest. Total work load will be about competing against the best! My experience feel, teaches a relaxed recovery, teaches 13 to 15 minutes. Naturally using a Heart is--- swimmers will do very well. pace at various speeds, and it teaches negative splitting. I think you’ll agree that Rate monitor will help determine what you After 3 weeks we tested a 5000 meter row sounds a little bit like swimming! One of the are doing. With a new D model and PM4 which we did on Day 3. All our swimmers great challenges on the C2 is trying to go (the computer) you will receive a Garmin were registered with Concept2 and I found 10 pulls at the same stroke rate and hold Chest belt and have wireless heart rate almost all our athletes were in the top 10 in the same 500 meter pace time. I have yet monitoring. Also, I would suggest that each the world in their age group. Several went to see anyone, including myself get beyond swimmer have a log card. You can get this on to lead the world in both 5K and 10K. 8 pulls. In fact, if you can stay +/- one you’re from any C2 distributor.

24 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 On concept2.com, you will find a video to at almost 50 years of age. Her best 2000 surprised that after rowing three days a show correct technique. Overall, pretty meters is 7:05. week for three weeks that you would not good, but one thing I would suggest that is see a real improvement in the pool. Below I have listed for both lightweight contrary to the video is to keep the recovery Some other workout suggestions: 10 x on the same line as you pull. The rowers and heavyweight the first and tenth times in the world for a 5000 meter row as of 500 with 1 minute rest, but the total time will dip their hands on the recovery to this writing. You can find the weight rules must be at least one minute faster than a simulate bringing the oars over the water. onconcept2.com. Very easy registration, straight 5K row. Do a one hour row, coming As we are not training for rowing, I think you can also register your team to row down each 5 minutes. 20 x 2 minutes w/30 by staying on the same line you will get a in various competitions. There is no seconds rest. Row a 10000 for time. You better and earlier catch. cost involved. The rankings are great can create hundreds of different variables, Early on in your training I would recommend motivation for the athletes. Just like so let your imagination run wild! placing the great sets on your bulletin a lot of fartlek (speed play in Swedish) board, keep the rankings and how your Best of luck and feel free to let me training. Example might be 5 minutes of swimmer are doing in front of them. While know how you’re doing on the C2 at: warm up, then 3 minutes fast row at 30 I’m not into guaranteeing, I would be very [email protected]. strokes per minute, 2 minutes moderate row at 23/24 strokes per minute for say one half hour. Always try to bring the 500 SPM = strokes per minute BBM = beats below maximum pace down (negative splitting) as you go through the set. Example might be 2:25 at 13 to 18 MALE LIGHTWEIGHT 13 to 18 FEMALE LIGHTWEIGHT the beginning and bring that down to 1:50 1 17:26.2 1 21:12.8 by the end of the bout. 10 18:15.0 10 22:40.9

A set that Shannon McIntyre likes (former 13 to 18 MALE HEAVYWEIGHT 13 to 18 FEMALE HEAVYWEIGHT swimmer and national breaststroke finalist 1 17:09.1 1 18:28.0 back in 1982 and now married to one of our 10 17:43.1 10 20:30.4 great coaches Ray Woods) is an hour of 19 to 29 MALE LIGHTWEIGHT 19 to 29 FEMALE LIGHTWEIGHT power. Row hard until you reach maximum 1 17:37.3 1 20:46.7 heart rate, then slow down until your heart rate reaches 40 bbm, then start over again. 10 17:58.4 10 22:07.7 Count and log how many strokes it takes 19 to 29 MALE HEAVYWEIGHT 19 to 29 FEMALE HEAVYWEIGHT for your HR to come down to the prescribed 1 16:39.8 1 19:44.0 level. Continue that for one hour. Shannon 10 16:57.3 10 20:31.0 is now one of the top rowers in the nation

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 25

Reading Recommendations From the ASCA Board & Fellows

George Block is both common to his cohort of businesses it down to: “It is not our surroundings that I am going to put Flying Lessons at the top and to every great American swimming club. determine our outcome, it is the expectations. of my list. It’s a book I wish I had when I was There are some explicit challenges to the The expectations that others place on us first starting out. It is a great “tool kit” book. structure of American swimming. In order help us form our expectations of ourselves.” Dr. Gregg Steinberg wrote Flying Lessons as to be great, the Small Giants had to attain For Wes the people that set his expectations a handbook for parents, so they could work or maintain control of their business by were his mother, grandparents, teachers and productively with their athletic children. It is privately owning it. Greatness and ownership of course his coaches. a book of exercises that can be done in any by an outside board were incompatible, but order to help middle and high school age that is the norm in American swimming. Coach Michael O’Connor athletes understand mental training concepts. Burlingham found 7 commonalities that all I read a lot and I have read a ton of books this This is something that should be on every the Small Giants shared that can serve as year but here are a few awesome ones. coach’s desk. I remember coming home the roadmap for any coach who wants to from World Clinics having picked up great develop a small giant of their own. How to build and Sustain a Championship information from the sport psychologist who Culture - Jeff Janssen. “It is a great book My third choice for the year would be There spoke that year, but having no idea how to outlining a system of ways to improve your is an I in Team. It is a sports book written transmit that to my kids. Flying Lessons is teams culture. it has a 10 step blueprint for a business audience. It could also be a the way to transmit those concepts. Flying that includes the 6 components of the teacher’s book written for administrators. Lessons is a toolbox full of mental training championship culture as well as having There is an I in Team reinforces what every exercises that any coach can use with his a vision, using core values and helping coach and parent already knows: kids are or her team in a meeting setting, or an your athletes become committed. I highly all unique and that having a great team or individual athlete in a one-on-one counseling recommend this for high school and college family depends not on making everyone the session. They would also be great for parent teams especially but also for club teams.” same, but on blending the unique gifts that meetings. The coach could explain one of each person brings to the table. Every great How to Develop Relentless Competitors these exercises in each meeting, so that organization is really a small organization. - Jeff Janssen. “This book is one of the parents could actively support the coach’s By definition, the larger an organization gets, best books I have ever read for coaching. It efforts. Just as easily, Flying Lessons could the more (statistically) it approaches average. outlines a specific Pyramid for a Competitor be translated into swimming and become a That is true in investing (the best funds are the where you start out with competitive motives, regular part of parent newsletters. I think Dr. smallest ones) and it is true in swimming. But then to the competitive mindset, and taking Steinberg might be someone you would want we all know that there are tremendous social action with competitive actions that lead to to try out in a regional clinic. Flying Lessons and bureaucratic pressures to conformity. Dr. becoming a competitor. This is a must read is straight-forward and practical. I’d imagine Mark de Rond points out that the best teams for anyone that wants great competitors - that his public speaking would be the same. are not make out of identical parts, but are a which I know all us coaches do.” My second recommendation would be jig-saw puzzle where every piece is different, Pretty much anything from Jeff Janssen is Small Giants. Small Giants is a business but essential, to completing the whole. great, including Championship Team Building, book. The author, Bo Burlingham, felt Captains Leadership Manual as well. that business literature had focused too Coach Joel Shinofield much on large, publicly-held corporations, I recommend The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Coach Brian King while ignoring the majority of American Moore. Tremendous story about two kids who businesses: small businesses. Small Giants grow up in Baltimore with the same name If you haven’t put it on the list yet, look up The is about the very best small businesses that and in similar circumstances. One goes on to Sports Gene by David Epstein. Must read. were so successful they could have gone become a Rhodes Scholar and the other ends An interesting perspective on many things. “big,” but made a conscious choice to stay up in prison for armed robbery and murder. small - and be great. This is a common The book delves into the myriad of reasons BILL ROBERTS, US NAVAL ACADEMY question among swimming coaches, “Do I why two boys from the same neighborhood, The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose, page 440-441, have to have a mega-club in order to be a who both ran into trouble with the police at a Excellent story on LTC Shifty Shofner on great team?” Small Giants obviously says young age, ended up in very different places his WWII survival to his football coach Bob No and it offers a roadmap to greatness that as adults. The Rhode Scholar Wes boils Neyland from UT, “I just did like you said we

26 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 should do.” Neyland looked astonished at COACH DON HEIDARY helping others “borrow” from you, by showing this. Shifty continued. “You always told us The Way of the Seal, Mark Divine your work, and perhaps “getting discovered” to make our breaks on the field and when A truly powerful and life-changing book; one in that way. Both books are very open about we forced a break, to score… your words that walks you through a holistic life plan, from sharing ideas. Fun and helpful reads. kept me alive.” Everyone should know what meditation and visualization, to goal setting, The Energy Bus, Ken Blanchard. Quick, Shofner was able to orchestrate as a POW - fortitude, and action. Relevant to coaches and predictable in the Ken Blanchard story line just an incredible lesson on what the human Senior athletes. spirit is cable of enduring. Most would have style, this is still a nice read, with a strong, and memorable emphasis on optimism left the service; he remained on. Coach Tim Welsh, Notre Dame and Positivity. There are days on which we I Had a Hammer, Henry Aaron with Lonnie The Underwater Window, Dan Stephenson definitely need this message. Wheeler pages 226-228 could be perhaps Reviewed by you already in an ASCA some of the best writing in a baseball book publication – a good swimming novel with This is Water, David Foster Wallace. is that I have read. On those three pages is an a nice story. The swimming reflections that philosophical and wonderful graduation incredible comparison between Babe Ruth begin each chapter are excellent. Worth address to Kenyon College in 2005. This and Henry Aaron. Also, Aaron talks about reading for those reflections alone. is fun to read and a huge challenge to live stats that he is most proud of that; Major by…recognize your day to day environment; The Heart and the Fist, Eric Greitens. league record for home runs by two team recognize your default settings; avoid them; Lengthy review published (thank you) by mates (Henry Aaron & Eddie Matthews,) total recognize/utilize your freedom: “the really ASCA – an autobiographical account of a bases (formally held by Stan Musial), that he important kind of freedom involves attention, Navy Seal, and a Humanitarian which leads and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and felt was a better reflection of a baseball player one to do a lot of thinking, re-thinking about versus the home run and home runs with one being able truly to care about other people coaching, commitment, training, performance, organization (Aaron with the Braves.) All of and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in a excellence; etc. A very powerful read. this of course taking place during the early myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day”(p. 120). Coaching can be like that. days of integration in Major League Baseball. Extreme Pursuit, John Davis. Written by ASCA’s 2013 Counsilman Lecture Top Dog, Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman. A KATHLEEN K. PRINDLE speaker as a parenting book, this book is serious look at the nature of competition and I just finishedClearing Hurdles; The Quest also - and not accidentally - an excellent of winning that starts with an historical base, to be the World’s Greatest Athlete, by book on coaching and “relating” to students and expands to fields including and well Dan O’Brian. Here’s why I loved it: At the (especially young men). beyond athletics. A thought provoking read. outset it seemed to be another standard ‘Olympic journey’ story - athlete with humble Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build your Drive, Daniel Pink. beginnings who struggles for greatness. But Routine, Find your Focus & Sharpen Your A psychological, careful, and very readable it was a nice illumination into the world of Creative Mind, edited by Jocelyn K Glei. In look at what “drives” people to achieve and track and field (decathlon) as well as a great a series of short pieces organized around even to excel. Personally, I am almost at the illustration about how sometimes people large themes by a long list of very successful point of saying: “if Daniel Pink writes it, read STUMBLE into their own path/destiny. people, this book is not a “how to” book; rather it.” This book helps us understand how to it is a book that stimulates a lot of thinking and work with/coach in the 21st century. Towards the end of the book, the inevitable planning on ways to do things better. race toward Olympic gold was heart- The Rise of Superman, Steven Kotler. stopping and I shed several about the result! Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon This book is just out, and I am just starting it The best was the wisdom the author shares This short book with its funny title and but if it is as good as its introduction, this will at the end, about the JOURNEY being the playful appearance is all about creativity, be a valuable contribution to understanding best part of his experience. He also speaks and generating ideas, (even new ideas) by how to create, even duplicate the “flow” honestly about what happens AFTER “drawing” on a wide variety of sources, and state of consciousness that can lead to you achieve a major life’s goal, and how trusting your instincts. This book is about “ultimate human performance.” His subtitle sometimes a gold medal isn’t enough. One “borrowing” from others; his sequel to it says: “Decoding the Science of Ultimate of the better athlete books I have read! (Show Your Work, just out in 2014) is about Human Performance.”

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 27 Reading Recommendations (Continued)

Coach Jim Tierney the high performance competitive mentality. Sources of Power, Gary Klein. One that I read and had my team read this This book should be entitled, “How We Make Nurture Shock, Po Bronson & Ashley year was the Energy Bus by Jon Gordon Decisions”, because that is the real subject; Merryman. A book about bringing up kids (recommended by Jeanne Fleck). I found it is a nice counterpoint to Kahneman’s work according to the new scientific and social the message very powerful for my athletes. above: they disagree, so the reader has to scientific research, much of which runs Simply, to fins success and or happiness think through the arguments. counter to American child-raising, and much in life, one needs to create a vision, fuel of which is applicable to coaching swimmers. The Gold Mine Effect, Rasmus Ankersen. the vision with a purpose, focus on it, and A work parallel to Daniel Coyle’s Talent Code, jump aboard with both feet! It is written like The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman it looks at ‘talent hotbeds’ like Jamaican a story book that teaches lessons along Doidge. A book about brain plasticity and sprinting, East African distance running, the way. For one’s team, it can so simple neuroscience, interesting for itself and for South Korean women’s golfing, Brazilian to tie together their quest for success to steering me to the primary work it is based soccer, etc., trying to figure out what factors the “rules” or guidelines in the book. Most on. Several parts impinge on coaching, such result in the flourishing of talent. Not that well athletes will be able to relate the struggles as the work on short and long term memory. written, but he lets the coaches speak for with the character in the book to their own themselves with long quotations. journey with their teammates. Practice Perfect, Doug Lemov et al. This book for teachers and coaches discusses Piano Lessons, Anna Goldsworthy. Coach Michael Brooks how to make classroom-time and practice- A book about the development of musical Challenging Beliefs, Tim Noakes. Wonderful time more effective, by the author of Teach talent, and about effective practicing over book about iconoclast and physiologist; he Like a Champion, which is also very good. time, and about what depths of understanding will make you rethink what you think you know one can reach with years of practicing. about every subject he touches on. Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. This 800-page bestseller by a Nobel Prize- In Search of Memory, Eric Kandel. Once A Runner, John L. Parker. winning researcher is a very well written and A Nobel Prize-winner’s memoir of a life in Recommended by my friends at Sarasota Y, fascinating look at how we make decisions, neuroscience. Beautifully written, fascinating this running book is the best illustration of whether well or badly. from start to finish.

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28 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Age Group Swimming & Coaching, Part IV

By John Leonard

If you want to be a successful swimming a lot of Coach Schubert’s wisdom, this was 13. People believe what FRIENDS coach, spend your time talking with your underappreciated at the time, very much tell them. FRIENDS. FRIENDS. athletes. Pretty simple, huh? respected now. Sometimes a message (Testamonials.) takes a while to hit home. Also devastatingly accurate. You won’t 14. Feel, Felt, Found. “I understand how create change and improvement without So with that in mind, here are some you feel, I felt that way also, and since the direct buy-in of your athletes to your recommendations from the “communication then I have found that...” plans. They won’t buy in to what you want expert,” Mr. Zig Ziglar. They are all thing us 15. Do you like it? Do you want it? Are to have them do, until you “sell” them on Age Group Coaches need to have in mind. you willing to pay the price? WHEN it. The ONLY way to do this is through do you want to start? 1. ASK, don’t Tell. conversation. 16. To get attention, Lower your voice, 2. Convince, don’t Argue. So get your head out of your notebook, don’t RAISE it. 3. Many people do not know what they I-pad, I-phone, etc. and TALK. Eyeball to 17. Nothing good ever happens until you want, because they do not know what eyeball. COMMIT. exists. 18. The younger the person, the more Computers never made faster or better 4. A Sale is something you do FOR athletes. Coaches talking to athletes do. they want to know what’s in it for someone. They benefit. Every minute you invest in talking to your them (selfish). The older the person 5. NO means they don’t know enough to athletes, before, during and after practice, typically the more selfless. make a decision. is time well invested. Every minute with 19. Sell with emotion, confirm with your head stuck in some device….is a 6. Selling is essentially a transfer of REASONS and FACTS. waste of time. And Please don’t tell me feeling. And all you do as a coach is 20. If you’re not real, neither is anything that you are communicating with them via SELL, all day, every day. you say. Twitter, etc. Most of what you are doing 7. We never like to be told, we always I hope those thoughts help everyone there is MIS-COMMUNICATING with them. need to be reminded. concentrate on talking with your athletes. Real communication is face to face, eyeball 8. Security is the ability to produce. That’s to eyeball, with all emotions and feelings on true for you and true for the athlete. All the Best, display. If you don’t have the stomach for John Leonard that, better find another line of work. No 9. Compliments improve Competence. significant change ever happened without 10. ASK for the commitment you want. FACE TO FACE talk. The Great Mark Schubert once told me, ”John, all REAL 11. Respond, don’t react. change takes place on the pool deck.” Like 12. People believe what they SEE.

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 29 Kicking Standards to Better Develop Beginners

By Steve Collard, M.Ed.

I recently read the brainstorming session Whole body kicking enables the swimmer’s the logical base of fast swimming, and not our leaders at ASCA reported in one of body to balance and creates a motor that teaching the stroke technique until a strong the issues last year, and wanted to add a is “encased” within the swimmer’s profile, efficient body kick is established will result perspective that could help our sport, and which can drive an efficient streamline in better athletic development, instead of table it for discussion. fast through the water. When the poor resulting in a continuous cycle of breaking “knee-kicker” swimmer raises his heel up bad training techniques and learning new. I’ve always begun teaching beginners by from the knee, the water first feels kicking Let’s have them become fast kickers before referencing Newton’s Laws of Motion and force vectors in opposite directions from we make them faster swimmers. Avogadro’s Theorems for displacement which the body desires moving; then, as it Kicking standards and competition “kick and buoyancy, and would use a bucket pauses for its down-strike kick, the water meets” to advance the sport will need to be and toy floats of varying mass and sees a calf that looks lost from its mamma buoyancy as demonstrative aids. I have so it slows the swimmer a bit, and then developed. I think if we train them first to always taught the kicks first. the powerful downburst that has only a swim like fish with body-kicking propulsion, the quality of our future elite swimmers will few force vectors in the right direction is I would lead groups of kids on the “Stick be more advanced, and, considering the delivered, as the other calf raises its heel to Man” walk around the pool, emphasizing numerous career-ending shoulder injury repeat the inefficient process. that we are going to learn to kick like the issues, we should have fewer of those and stick man walks. Then, they would get I think too much emphasis is applied trying make even more elite athletes. in the water and would kick from on their to teach strokes concurrently with teaching Kicking races in my groups were always stomachs to their side, and then to their the kicks, and the swimmers’ development more fun mixed-gender, because the little back and last to the other side, sometimes is hindered. Furthermore, I’ve had to ones who had the kick mastered could even in a fun-filled spiral, but my goal was deal with teaching advanced swimmers usually beat the older and more advanced always to teach a driving kick and I would how to kick, and it isn’t fun telling them “club-level” athletes. use all the tools so each could accomplish that if they invest in a proper kick, they learning it. will always be able to improve, but if they An age group kicking event for the flutter don’t a ceiling is hovering close, because kick and dolphin kick could have swimmers Frequently at first, swimmers would go elite athletes will eat their lunch, if they are on stomachs, sides or backs. No strokes backwards, their bodies unable to figure even able to get that far. DUH! But, try or propulsion except for kicking would be out the forces, timing and technique. It is telling a fast swimmer he has to slow down allowed (plus start and turn propulsion), more difficult than beginning with fins, but and learn to kick, and he will find a coach but one could imagine the younger kickers the results are worth it. who doesn’t care. The funny thing though, watching the elite kickers on streamline for I tell my swimmers it is difficult to learn is that many of them who do get into a fifteen meters underwater and flip-turning! something new and master technique. collegiate swimming program are forced That would be inspirational. Remember when you learned how to by the coach at that level to re-learn how Breaststroke kicking could easily be walk? None do – HA! I tell them, “You to properly kick, and they wish they hadn’t waited for that level to realize it. raced with the kickers on their backs on started crawling first, then tried pulling streamline. The visual component to a up to a standing position then leaned Fins for beginners or for that matter, fins beginner would appear magical as the forward to get to mother’s colorful candy on any level swimmer who displays a poor elite breaststroke kicker slides a body dish and smashed face-first into the floor. kick technique creates a “flick-kick”, which length with ease, with an added bonus of Your folks eventually held your hands is generated from the knee kick but is able having the mechanics of the kick revealed over your head and taught you to feel to use the bending action of the flipper from the topside perspective. balance between your eyes and ears and “flap” for added propulsion. The swimmers guided you through a wobbly gait. They In closing, this is an issue I am asking meeting the fin-kicker description cannot set you free, and you kept trying and kept fellow coaches and ASCA leadership for kick strong enough without their fins on falling, occasionally bumping and bruising comment. It could be that I am just on streamline to side kick, or rotate kicking everywhere on your bodies! Now all of a soapbox and my observations aren’t from back to stomach and vice versa you are professional walkers practically. without using upper body propulsion. shared, but let’s find out if our college My kicking technique is like what your coaches are working overtime trying to parents did to help you walk, by letting My thoughts on kicking lead me to believe remedy the knee-kickers technique, and if your bodies figure it out the right way and that kicking standards would improve the so, lets make our sport better! then making it stronger.” sport of swimming. Teaching technique for

30 ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 Proposed Addition to the ASCA Code of Ethics

By John Leonard, ASCA Executive Director

Dear ASCA Members, it is clearly not the centerpiece of what we Proposed Addition: do; we coach. We teach swimming and life I would propose that we make the Since 1988, ASCA has had, in its code skills and the improvement of each. following addition to the ASCA Code of of ethics, the strongest statements in the Ethics. This would require a vote at the industry against any form of coach/athlete In this discussion, one thing is abundantly ASCA Business Meeting for members in sexual interaction (with athletes of any clear. Where there is a situation where Sept. 2014 at the World Clinic. age.) With the recent emphasis on this no visual privacy is available in a coach/ athlete interaction, there is very little topic, it is important to continually evaluate Code of Ethics – Section C: chance of sexual abuse. Hence, a “best what else we can do to help protect not Coach to Athlete. practice” is to simply hold all interactions only young athletes, but coaches from with our athletes, in a visually public false accusations. After listening, reading, Article 5 – As a matter of best practice, space. No “rule” or “law” can cover every discussing ad nauseam this topic, I am coaches should conduct personal eventuality. I will continue to drive the child of the firm belief that the best defense communication with an athlete in a home in my car when they are stranded in against any form of sexual abuse is visually public place. (No Privacy) a rainstorm - and so will most of you. simply this: parents need to do their job. Thank you for your consideration of this. Proper parental supervision, oversight Other exceptions abound. But as a “Best and decision making, especially regarding Practice,” NO PRIVACY makes sense. All the best, teenagers, is essential to child safety. In January of 2014, I sent the following recommendation to our Board of Directors, Because we coach children, our profession who have accepted it and we will have will attract the same number of sexual this addition to our Code of Ethics below, predators as any other activity where available for a vote as an item at our children are the centerpiece. No more, no Business Meeting in Jacksonville at the John Leonard less. It is important to all of us to prevent World Clinic in September. child sexual abuse and I know of no coach that disagrees with that. At the same time, I ask your support and vote for this addition.

ASCA NEWSLETTER | 2014 EDITION 5 31 NONPROFIT ORG. ASCA American Sswimming Coaches AssociationCouncil for Ssport Ddevelopment U.S. POSTAGE Council51017KH$PHULFDQ6ZLPPLQJ&RDFKHV NnW for 21st Ssport Ave., Ddevelopment Ssuite 200 NONPROFITPAID ORG. American Swimming Coaches Council for Sport Development U.S. POSTAGE 5101Fort Lauderdale, NnW 21st Ave., FL 33309Ssuite 200 NONPROFITNEW121352),725*U.S. BRUNSWICK, POSTAGE ORG. NJ American5101&RXQFLOIRU6SRUW'HYHORSPHQW NW Swimming 21st Ave., Coaches Suite 200530 Council for Sport Development PAID Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 U.S.863267$*(PERMIT POSTAGEPAID #1 5101Fort NW Lauderdale, 21st Ave, FLSuiteFL 3330933309 530 UNION,3$,' NJ 1:VW$YH6XLWH UNION,PAID3$,' NJ Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 1(:%5816:,&.1-PERMIT #298 )RUW/DXGHUGDOH)/ UNION, NJ )RUW/DXGHUGDOH)/ PERMIT3(50,7 #298

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