Swimming: 6 Congrats to Asca Member Coaches: First Athlete at Culture Matters the Olympic Trials
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AMERICAN SWIMMING COACHES ASSOCIATION A Publication of the American Swimming Coaches Council for Sport Development 2012 EDITION ISSUE 08 Newsletter INSIDE THIS ISSUE SWIMMING: 6 CONGRATS TO ASCA MemBER COACHES: FIRST ATHLETE AT CULTURE MATTERS THE OLYMPIC TRIALS BY ALAN ABRAHAMSON 8 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES 3 WIRE SPORTS 10 THANK YOU: ADVOCACY 11 INCREASE YOUR OMAHA – Matt Grevers had just come off a dominating win in the COACHING POWER 100 backstroke here at the U.S. swim Trials. It was late at night. He By Tim Elson was walking across the bridge that connects CenturyLink Arena to the Hilton Omaha and he was walking slowly, very slowly, because about every 10 feet a gaggle of girls was asking for autographs and photos. 12 BLUEGRASS MOUNTAIN CONFERENCE He was signing and posing and he could not have been more LAUNCHES WEBSITE gracious, even when the girls gave way to a grown man who asked if he would pose for a photo with a glued to a popsicle-stick of his 13 2012 OLYMPIC TEAM LIST hometown orthodontist, apparently a swim dad. Whatever. Grevers posed for the photo and the guy gushed, 15 A FIELD GUIDE TO “Matt, you just saved me two-thousand bucks!” THE MIDDLE-CLASS U.S. FAMILY “It’s a big family,” Grevers would say later. By Shirley S. Wang “Everyone wants everyone to do well.” Every sport has its culture. A reason, perhaps the key 18 OLYMPIC GAMES QUOTES reason, for USA Swimming’s ongoing success at the Summer Olympics – and why the team that’s being put together 25 A CHANCE TO BE here at the Trials is expected to continue that run in just A HERO EVERYDAY a few weeks in London – is its underlying culture. By John Leonard It’s no accident. It starts early, when kids start at their clubs in their towns, and it carries all the way 26 WISE WORDS FROM through and to the national and Olympic teams. NEW ZEALAND By Horst Miehe Just one example of swim culture, and how it contrasts with track and field, which of course will be one of the other 27 BeING ON THE TEAM marquee sports in just a few weeks at the Games: VS. BEING A TEAMMATE By Joe Ehrmann ASCA Newsletter Official ASCA Sponsors Published for the American Swimming Coaches Association by the American Swimming Coaches Council for Sport Development. Board of Directors PRESIDENT Richard Shoulberg VICE-PRESIDENTS Mark Hesse, Tim Murphy MEMBERS Jack Bauerle, Mary Anne Gerzanick-Liebowitz, Ira Klein, Matthew Kredich, David Marsh, Eddie Reese, Mark Schubert, Gregg Troy, Chuck Warner, Tim Welsh EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Steve Morsilli, Jennifer Gibson ASCA Staff EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND EDITOR John Leonard CLINICS AND JOB SERVICES Guy Edson TM FINANCE AND SALES Dianne Sgrignoli SwimAmerica Sponsors MEMBERSHIP SERVICES Melanie Wigren CERTIFICATION Kim Witherington TECHNICAL SERVICES AND WSCA Matt Hooper WEBMASTER Hiley Schulte PUBLICATIONS DIRECTOR Jen Johnson ADMINISTRATION Stepha Echard, Laura Hineman SWIMAMERICATM AND ALTST Lori Klatt, Julie Nitti VOLUNTEER PROOFREADER Buddy Baarcke [email protected] GENERAL COUNSEL Richard J. Foster The Newsletter for Professional Swimming Coaches A Publication of the American Swimming Coaches Council for Sport Development, American Swimming Magazine (ISSN: 0747-6000) is published by the American Swimming Coaches Association. Membership/subscription price is $70.00 per year (US). International $100.00. Disseminating swimming knowledge to swimming coaches since 1958. Postmaster: Send address changes to: American Swimming Coaches Association 5101 NW 21st Avenue, Suite 200 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 954.563.4930 I Toll Free 1.800.356.2722 I Fax 954.563.9813 swimmingcoach.org I [email protected] © 2012 American Swimming Coaches Association. 2 ASCA NEWSLETTER I 2012 EDITION ISSUE 08 SWIMMING: CULTURE MATTERS In the women’s 200-meter now in wide circulation through stimulus? Plus, the only way to breaststroke heats here Friday a program launched by the U.S. get better is to work harder.” morning, 14-year-old Allie Mint in 1999 – they’re no good. Szekely and 20-year-old Gisselle On top of which, as everyone Kohoyda tied for 17th in 2:30.28. Chuck Wielgus, executive in the sport’s elite echelons director of USA Swimming, understand well, the best way to A marked element of the said he believes it’s his No. 1 produce Olympic-caliber stars is swim culture is that swimmers priority – more than fund- to develop an aerobic base in a are expected to be tough. About raising, organizational charts, young athlete before he or she hits an hour later, after the heats anything – to work at culture. puberty – the best example being of the men’s 200 individual Michael Phelps, who was essentially medley, they held a swim-off On the blocks, swimming a miler as a youngster in Baltimore to determine who would be the is the most important thing. before he started sprinting. first alternate for Friday night’s Off – no. It’s understood that semifinals in the women’s 200 there’s a distinct difference The thing is, as young swimmers breaststroke; with the crowd between who the person is as a grow up in the sport, they are roaring, Allie won, in 2:30.03. swimmer and who he or she is as inevitably on clubs or teams. And a person. Moreover, the culture there’s a lot of waiting around To be clear: she went in USA Swimming is to embrace together at meets for heats or faster in the swim-off than accountability and responsibility finals. That builds camaraderie. she had in the heat itself. and, whether winning or losing, to be humble and gracious. That group sense thoroughly Afterward, she signed informs the national autographs and said it No one is perfect, of course, and Olympic teams. was “awesome.” and there are obviously expectations and mistakes. Call it corny but there Compare: in track and field, But that’s the culture. are rookie skits and karaoke the dead-heat in the women’s 100 and team-building exercises meters last Saturday in Eugene, “You can’t manufacture that everyone buys into. Ore., is still a dead-heat. it,” Wielgus said. “It has to be ingrained.” At the world championships The two athletes involved in the last year in Shanghai, Frank Busch, 100-meter tie at the track Trials, He also said, “At the very end, the national team director, was Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh, it can be that extra little shot a rookie. He had for the prior are also competing in the 200 of energy, that extra hundredth 22 years been the coach at the meters. After competing through of a second that can make a University of Arizona. But he the early rounds of the 200, both difference. This, all of it – it’s was new to the national team have been escorted through what’s more than just about you.” post and therefore a rookie. called the “mixed zone,” where athletes meet reporters, with no It’s all the more remarkable that Culture is culture. At the pre- comment. Both have declined to it is ingrained because, obviously, Shanghai training camp, he got speak with television crews as well. swimming is an individual thing. up before the team and belted out But what USA Swimming has done his version of Bon Jovi’s “Liven’ The track dead-heat has is make it a team thing, too. on a Prayer.” At the time, he dissolved into something of a was 60 years old and, as he said farce. While the protocol that has Swimming is hard. Not to with a laugh, “They looked at me been instituted since the tie calls say other sports aren’t. But, as like I was from outer space.” for either a run-off or a coin-flip, Eddie Reese, the longtime coach the coin-flip rules demand that at the University of Texas, said, Missy Franklin, the 17-year-old the 25-cent piece to be used must “Nobody in their right mind picks Colorado sensation who is expected feature George Washington on one this. How exciting is it to do two to be a breakout star in London, side and an “Eagle” on the other. to four hours a day following a not only sang, she danced so well So the commemorative quarters black line at the bottom of a pool that, Busch said, “The kids on the honoring each of the 50 states, with no outside information or team, they were pulling their jaw which are of course legal tender and off the ground watching her.” 2012 EDITION ISSUE 08 I ASCA NEWSLETTER 3 SWIMMING: CULTURE MATTERS Because Franklin will be an The way this also works In 2009, Phelps happened to Olympic rookie, she will have to is that the older athletes not be on vacation in Hawaii. The do something all over again at only are expected to give junior Pan Pacific championships the team’s training camp before back – they want to do so. were going on at the same time. London. Culture is culture. Phelps called Jack Roach, the Arianna Kukors, the 2009 world junior team national director, Besides the fun, there is a championship gold medalist in the and said, what can I do? serious element to it as well, which women’s 200 IM who qualified here everyone involved calls “the code.” to swim the event in London, said Roach said, please come on On international trips, there’s a she vividly remembers Summer over. Phelps did, and talked to the curfew, typically 10 or 11 p.m. No Sanders, who won four swimming teens at length about the honor of girls in boys’ rooms or vice-versa.