Call me an old fashioned cynic, but Gary Hall's oh so exclusive "Race Club" seems to generate more amusement than intimidation. To review the bidding for those with real lives, Mr. Hall announced a few months ago his intent to form his own club dedicated to elite swimming. It has a fabulous location and training facility in the Florida Keys. It will cover travel, training and living expenses. (I'm tempted to ask who is fronting the money, but I won't denigrade Mr. Hall's ability to raise funds.) If you want to join them, send in a resume; don't call us; we'll call you. Let us look over your accoplishments and decide whether you are worthy.
Hmm, great facilities, don't have to share pool time with the non-world class members (i.e. 99%) of a Swim Club, just about all expenses paid. Unless you have your own lucrative endorsement deal, what swimmer wouldn't want to join this team?
Well, the initial members of the "Swim Club" were announced last week. www.swiminfo.com/.../6097.asp Eight Olympians sounds real impressive. But then you look at the list a little more closely. Eleven swimmers, and although I have not googled everyone of them, all of the ones I have googled are in their late 20's or older. Or in other words, 3 of the 11 swimmers are chronologically at the back end of their careers, and they have not yet made their nation's Olympic Team. Closer scrutiny reveals 10 of the 11 are men. Just about all of them swim the 50 free or 50 fly, and few of them seriously compete in anything other that the 50 or 100 free or fly. In contrast to the lack of age, gender and event diversity, the team does have members of many nationalities and ethic backgrounds. However, the most telling stat of all is that roughly half of the members I checked are not currently ranked in the World Top 20 Rankings, LCM or SCM, in any event.
Overall, the "Swim Club" sort of reminds me of the kind of team a rookie fantasy league coach would assemble--there are a lot of names you would recognize, but their most productive years may be behind them. To be fair, all of these folks are amazing, world-class swimmers. Their careers to date have been awesome, and they remain extraordinary today by any standard, except arguably World Rankings. In contrast, I am an opinionated loud mouth. I would be delighted to see them find new speed and light up the scoreboards next year with medals and records, and make a complete monkey of me. As of right now, I think may the "Swim Club's" gloss may have exceeded its actual capabilities.
Matt
Parents
Former Member
Yet I do not give any drills to my swimmer that I can't do myself. I often create new drills while swimming and then try them out on my swimmers. Some work, some don't. Some get modified by the swimmers input to become very good drills.
I do this and it works well. I also get in the pool and demonstrate on occasion. The biggest change in the attitude of my older swimmers came when i videotaped them and showed them the results..
Now they know what i see in the way they swim and they are working hard to improve it.
On the coaching thing, we had a big discussion about this at a conference. Do you have to have coached a world champion to be a "Great coach".
I don't think so. You can be an OK coach who gets lucky and has an exceptionaly talented athelete on your team. On the other hand a "Great coach" may be working with material that just is not going to get there, but he or she can maximise that potential to the greatest degree possible.
If like me, you live in a rural area, you will never be the principal coach of a world champion as you do not live in the city at the big club. In a small club like mine you teach the skills as well as you can, so they can excel at a bigger club when they move on.
That is OK with me, my family life is more important to me than coaching.
Wayne, we had Bill Pilczuk (now UK sprint coach) give a talk on swimming at the BSCTA conference. He is a big fan of the track start, saying that it consistently gains 0.5 sec by the 15m mark. What is your opinion on this.
BTW good to see you back on the forum. We need more level 5 coaches talking here. In fact in general we do not get enough info from the top coaches. They seem to be reluctant to share info with us "ordinary folks" !
Yet I do not give any drills to my swimmer that I can't do myself. I often create new drills while swimming and then try them out on my swimmers. Some work, some don't. Some get modified by the swimmers input to become very good drills.
I do this and it works well. I also get in the pool and demonstrate on occasion. The biggest change in the attitude of my older swimmers came when i videotaped them and showed them the results..
Now they know what i see in the way they swim and they are working hard to improve it.
On the coaching thing, we had a big discussion about this at a conference. Do you have to have coached a world champion to be a "Great coach".
I don't think so. You can be an OK coach who gets lucky and has an exceptionaly talented athelete on your team. On the other hand a "Great coach" may be working with material that just is not going to get there, but he or she can maximise that potential to the greatest degree possible.
If like me, you live in a rural area, you will never be the principal coach of a world champion as you do not live in the city at the big club. In a small club like mine you teach the skills as well as you can, so they can excel at a bigger club when they move on.
That is OK with me, my family life is more important to me than coaching.
Wayne, we had Bill Pilczuk (now UK sprint coach) give a talk on swimming at the BSCTA conference. He is a big fan of the track start, saying that it consistently gains 0.5 sec by the 15m mark. What is your opinion on this.
BTW good to see you back on the forum. We need more level 5 coaches talking here. In fact in general we do not get enough info from the top coaches. They seem to be reluctant to share info with us "ordinary folks" !
