Swim Brief Team Up: What races are you most looking forward to at Trials?

Everyone has a race, or a few races, where they have wild predictions and they just can't wait to see how the rivalries pan out.  We have swimmers we believe will be surprise adds to the roster.  The Swim Brief Crew are gonna tell you why we are excited about a few of the specific races, and we would love to hear from you about the races you can't wait for.


VIKING!:  The race that has me most on edge is the Men's 400 IM.  Come on... no matter what side of the fence you are on about Michael Phelps motivation and training over the last four years, you have to be excited that he entered this-- and not because he is a lock like he was four years ago.  We have all seen the videos of Ryan Lochte picking up dump trucks and throwing them.  We know he is ready to rip it in half, but the reports for a large part of this Olympic cycle had been about Michael's inconsistent training while Lochte was training in full-bore bad-ass mode without ever letting up.  Phelps has avoided the 400 IM for a while, at one point even saying he was done with it forever, and now suddenly he has added it back to his schedule?!  Hmmm....   The questions: Why did Michael jump back into this event?  Can he still handle Lochte in an event this long? And is Phelps gonna be able to hold off Tyler Clary who has to be beyond sick of being stuck in third?  Think about what is at stake here... the meet is starting with an event that will give the media big reason to get behind Michael Phelps and talk about how he got back in the water just in time to train back to greatness, or to stick a fork in him and make us suffer through a week of coverage talking about how he is struggling and won't be able to carry the Americans to glory.  The entire media dialogue for the trials could be at stake, and it might cause the all the non-swimmers out there watching the national coverage to jump on the Lochte bandwagon from the first final on.  So do I want to see Michael get third in this one?  Nah... and I certainly hope he doesn't scratch it.  I just want to see how deep he can dig when the pressure is turned up on event #1 to make this Trials meet start off with an earth-shattering kaboom.  I am sure he understands that there is a lot more than another Olympic team spot at stake and I am glad he is not avoiding the challenge.  Plus, maybe if he does get third in this, the "motivation machine" will HULK OUT and go a 48 in the 100 fly for us.

The breaststroke leg of the 400 IM... it's kind of like adding a sack race to the triathlon.

DESANTIS!: It felt really strange bolding my name, putting it in italics, underlining it and then adding an exclamation point, but Viking did it so I felt pressured to follow. My most anticipated race is the women's 50 free. It's fascinating to me from a historical standpoint. If Dara Torres makes it there will be two huge angles to view it from. The first, and most important angle is that Dara will cement herself as a once in a lifetime athlete in the sport of swimming. Are we ever again going to see a 47 year old woman mixing it up in the sprints at a world class level again? The idea is cool but unlikely. The second angle is somewhat more pessimistic. It feels like we've almost lost a generation of female sprinters in this country. Dara's 25.1 entry time is incredibly impressive, but shouldn't our 20 somethings being blowing that away by now? Who knows, maybe one of them will. As my least favorite expression in swimming goes: "It's the 50, ANYTHING can happen".

DESANTIS!

GUS!: At the 2008 Olympic Trials, when Matt Grevers shocked the world, upset Ryan Lochte, and secured his Olympic roster spot in the men's 100m backstroke, I was running up and down the stairs high-fiving everyone I could see. It wasn't appropriate. I was there as "The Media." When you are part of The Media you are supposed to be Objective and Un-Biased. But since I was there to do "Chlorination" and bloggy types of columns and I was 25 years old I figured all of that exempted me from typical requirements of The Media. I ran backstage and hugged more people with the enthusiasm of a 13-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. I called friends and coaches and family members. But my favorite moment was when I talked to Northwestern coach (both coach of me and Grevers) Bob Groseth via cell phone when Bob was with Matt in the warm-down pool. It was just one of those special kinds of moments you share, one of those magical types of moments that can only happen at the Olympic Trials. I could hear him smiling. I could hear him winded. I could hear him excited. It was one of those transcendent moments... we had known this guy since he first arrived on Northwestern's campus, and now he was this mature adult upsetting the heavy-weight favorites. It was special. I remember backstage my face was flushed, so I sat down and wiped my forehead and my hands were still tingling, thinking, "One of our own just shocked the world... one of my friends just shocked the world..." It was the closest I'd ever gotten to something as magical and momentous as that, and I'll never forget it. I'm rambling. I'm getting maudlin. OK. Let's just say that my race that I'm most excited to see is that men's 100m backstroke.

I just thought Gus always acted like a 13 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert.  Maybe it's just when he's around me.

LISA!  What race am I looking forward to the most?  Well, as a swim fan it should surprise no one that it's the 400 IM.  I know I'm not the only one.  When the psych sheet was released my twitter feed blew up like I haven't seen since Michael Jackson died (in a perfect world big swim news would crash twitter as well.)  "He's gonna swim it!  Bob's making him!  His mother's making him!"  I don't care what the reason, he's going to swim it.  Whether he swims it at the Olympics we don't know but I can tell you this race; Phelps vs Lochte 400 IM is the equivalent of a Michigan vs Ohio State, USC vs UCLA, Mizzou vs KU all rolled into one.  This is the Bad Ass Event for the King's of Bad Ass.  

Runner Up- Women's 50 Free.  Why?  Dara Torres.  Age 47.  She has abs, I don't.  Fellow mom.  Queen of Bad Ass.  I hope she makes the team. 

Ritchie MP Cummins: Have you seen the new Subway commercial?

I can't believe how awesome this new Subway commercial is!  Not just because it's Michael and his acting is getting better and he is promoting healthy eating by endorsing Subway either... it is way more awesome because Michael's super-supportive mom Debbie was in it!

Debbie Phelps should guest star in more of Michael's ads!




Now it might seem a little weird that she was there at the edge of the pool ready to feed him a footlong sub right as he was diving in to start his warm up, but that is just the way they edited it I'm sure.  She probably only does that at the end of practice, but you never know.  He does eat 12,000 calories a day, so with Subway's "under 500 calorie" low fat meals he probably has to fit in 24 meals a day!  You can't accuse her of being a "helicopter mom" just because she waits at the end of his lane with a sandwich during his workouts.  That is just part of raising the best swimmer on the planet.  And I am sure Coach Bob doesn't mind!

My swim instructor at the Y gets annoyed when I have my mom bring me subs during my swim lessons, but now she has seen the ad and she gets it.  She even lets me take a time out to do the whole "mom, push me in like Debbie does to Michael thing!"  It's classic!  Everybody at the Y gets a kick out of it.  "What?!  Only one footlong?"  Ha-ha!

I am getting so excited for the Olympic Try-outs coming up in Omaha, Kansas!  I can't wait to see Michael set some more records and beat that Ryan Lockey guy and remind everyone why he's the best.  I got seats right behind the starting part of the pool.  I hope I am close enough to give him a high five! I wonder if he reads my blog.  Maybe he will recognize me!  I keep having this daydream that after he sees me he will ask if I want a private swim lesson.  That would be awesome!  He could probably teach me to breathe on the side in one day!

By the way, check out my new swim parka!  It's not the same as those waterproof ones the swim teamers wear but I sure look cool in it when take it off and reveal nothing but my speedo underneath!

Counterpoint: Too Big Trials? -Viking's Take.

I heard a coach the other day say that he refuses to take his athletes to the Olympic Trials.  He called it the "big lie"-- like 165 of the 170 athletes qualified in each event was being duped:  "Like they have a chance," he said.  "It's ridiculous.  We know who most of the Olympic Team is going to be before they ever hit the water.  It's all about the money."

This was out of the mouth of a coach whom I deeply respect and who has worked with athletes who have actually made the team.  I was taken back a little by this statement.  I knew that there were issues that come up with a large Trials, like the timeline and fitting in time trials, but it only seemed logical to me to make the trials a big event.  Especially when we see how the size of the crowd is so negatively affected by the athlete cap at the men's NCAA champs, it seems like a no-brainer that in swimming, even at the highest level, it is hard to fill the seats without the families of the swimmers in the meet there to watch. More swimmers does mean more tickets.  Is it bad to do what we can to fill the seats?  It's atmosphere, man!!


When I was swimming in college ('92-'96) you could still qualify for the Olympic Trials in the yard pool, and I believe the 200 breast cut was 1:57.99.  I didn't realize it until a couple of years later, as I hadn't started coaching yet, that after '96 the cuts were scaled back to around what the USA Nationals cuts were.  So, the breaststroke went to around 2:02.5 in SCY. (Since then they have stopped allowing q times in the yard pool, but they have kept the meet large.) I kind of felt ripped off when I heard about the change, and when I asked Coach Steck, he put it to me this way:  "I think it's the smartest grass-roots marketing USA Swimming has ever done.  Now, the small town papers get to promote swimming's local heroes.  There is gonna be a lot more interest in the sport now."

And he was right.  Do you want an example?  Take the one guy from my little tiny high school who went to trials but didn't make the team:  Derek Gibb.  He was legit in that he split 18.65 on Auburn's medley relay at NCAA's in a brief before anyone had ever broken 19 from a flat start.  In the months leading up to the 2004 Trials, Derek didn't just get an article in the local paper.  He was in the paper all over the state.  The average person was not talking about his splits at NCAA's.  They didn't know anything about how he ranked nationally unless they were into memorizing random stats from the paper.  They just knew that he was going to the Olympic Trials and swimming with the big boys.  Check out this article from the Juneau Empire. Google him and you will find even more.  Some articles were from California where he swam JUCO. This was a big deal.  He even found a fishing vessel to sponsor him so he could train!

The same thing happened here in the Joplin area during that same Olympic cycle.  A local kid (little tiny Pittsburg, KS) got just about last place in the 200 fly at the trials, but I guarantee he got about 500 local summer league families and more to tune in on tv or fill seats in the stands just to see the local guy compete in the big show.  Free advertising in local papers and on local tv?  You can't beat that.

I am sure they will make the cuts harder for the next cycle.  They probably need to... but be careful about hoping they take a big axe to those q times.  A large Trials meet has a lot of benefit, and that might outweigh the negatives.  Has there really been a loss in prestige for the big event?  Nah... the real prestige that we have to worry about is limited to the 52 who are left standing when the dust settles, and if they have a shot at that level, they can handle warming up in a crowded pool without their nerves getting rattled.

Hanging Out with David Arluck and Mel Stewart

That's it... Chris doesn't pay enough here.  I'm switching to SwimSwam.

Last Friday our team hosted a Fitter and Faster Clinic.  I can not say enough about what an awesome experience it was for our team.  I had never met Mel Stewart or David Arluck in person but I had an idea of what to expect.  They were just a lot of fun. The clinic was a blast and the kids are still talking about it every day at practice.  We also got to see how flexible Mel really is.

Seriously, Mel was in a brief and still taught half of the clinic in this position.  Try it.  The kids really pay attention, as do the team moms. 

I got the chance to chill with David and Mel afterwards.  I got to hear some great stories about other Olympians, Fitter and Faster, SwimSwam and lots of cool things about these guys you might not know just from what you see on the web.   Mel was even nice enough to pretend he follows The Swim Brief.  What a great guy.

Of course, it wouldn't be a day with the Viking without getting a camera shoved in your face, so I got a couple of videos to post.  Enjoy!

Mel took the chance to tell me a story on Pablo Morales:



At dinner after the clinic David got to talk a little about how he came to be so passionate about working with swimmers.  Sorry the sound isn't great, but please give it a listen all the way through.  I was very impressed with this man.  After hearing this you might want him to be your agent:



Thanks for a great event, guys!  I hope we get to hang out again some time.

Families Not Welcome

Yesterday, I talked about the discussion for NCAA qualifying, and seem to have found more than a few people's attention. Today, I want to talk about another issue that came up in San Antonio, different but no less important. Two of the speeches given at the talk were ostensibly about coaches who had just completed meteoric rises. Both sent a clear message: if you want to do this you better go it alone (and be a man).

One coach was more candid about it. In an otherwise cheery speech about starting a program from scratch and taking it to national prominence, everything turned dark for a few minutes as he discussed taking the job married and now being single. The other coach probably didn't even realize what he was saying, as he urged the audience to maintain strong relationships with his co-workers. Offering himself up as an example, he told us how he had eaten dinner every night with his head coach for a year. If you're married (and even if you're not) you know how impossible that scenario sounds.

I want to be clear: this post is not an attack on the single male coaches out there, of which there are many. It's more a call for help. So, rather than make this a long post telling most people what they already know, I want to hear from you. If you are reading this and you're a coach, male or female (even better), and you've had some success while not completely ignoring your family, send your story to swimbrief@gmail.com. Coaches need to hear your story and learn from it!

Fixing NCAA Qualification

One of the most vexing problems in college swimming is the NCAA qualification process. In a sport that otherwise operates on concrete time standards, this process rests on a two tiered system of cuts, alongside an algorithm that makes it impossible for all but the most dedicated to authentically determine who will make the meet. Add in a frenzy of last chance qualifiers and you have a recipe for frustration on many levels. At the CSCAA conference last week in San Antonio, Division 1 coaches sat down to try to fix the process, and failing that at least make it slightly better.


Before we get to what was newly proposed, let's talk about what we have now and how we got here. Coaches got an instructive history lesson on the formation of the "cap", now at the center of most people's complaints. For successive years in the 1980s the NCAA asked coaches for a recommendation on a cap figure. Coaches couldn't determine one, thus the NCAA decided for them: 235 men, and 322 women.

The women's "cap" figure works fairly well. This past year 15 relays were selected and 29-30 individuals.  A fair individual field for a national championship to be sure, although picking 15 relays when you score 16 has it's own issues. The men's cap was a disaster, this year resulting in 12 relays and as low as 17 individuals being selected. The reason, as has been much discussed by my colleague Shawn Klosterman, is relay only qualifiers.

This year's men's championship has 76 relay only qualifiers. These are swimmers that did not qualify individually but were part of a selected relay. They are allowed to attend the meet and swim any event they have a "B" cut in. Although less traditional "power" schools always get a few relay qualifiers, the process had become a way for the rich to get richer. If you were a Texas or California, you could qualify swimmers relay only without shaving or tapering them to get an individual cut.

In San Antonio, a proposal for radical change was developed and will be submitted to the NCAA for the coming season. In it, relay qualification as we know it will be totally scrapped. The cap of 235 (and 322) will be used to select individuals only, which this past qualification year would have resulted in 29-30 men's qualifiers in each event.

Rather than destroying the role of relays in the meet, relays will make the meet through an alternate process. A cut time will be set up based on the average of the 16th place time prior to the NCAA meet of the last three years. Teams with an individual qualifier would be enter a relay provided they had met this time, and bring relay only swimmers alongside their qualifier to make the relay. These relay only swimmers would be true relay only swimmers- they would simply be there to swim a relay (or more). They would also be paid for by the school, not the NCAA.

That last part was and will be the most controversial part of the proposal. Schools are naturally concerned about anything that may add to their budget. The idea of limiting relay only swimmers to the relays stung for many schools who have seen relay only swimmers be successful. Ultimately, it was determined that schools big and small could ultimately push budget figures around if it meant getting people to the NCAA meet, the ultimate goal of most programs.

The proposal is not perfect, not without flaws, but it will improve the NCAA meet and qualification in crucial ways. It will make the meet faster, both individually and relay, as well as resulting in more participation at the meet. That is a win for everybody.

Training in Traffic

Some kids just don't care if the lane is crowded.  Weaving through traffic at full speed is an under-appreciated swimmer skill.

We have all dealt with crowded lanes and made the most of it.  I have had to rearrange the order of swimmers sometimes to keep things running smoothly sometimes.  Just this week I had to start telling my age groupers to line up in order of their 100 free time just to keep them from fighting about who leads the lane.  It is not usually a big deal until coach gets out the watch and expects some race quality splits when you know people are gonna get run over.

I had a first last night-- something I had never seen, or at least never seen this executed so well...  I just have to brag on it.  It was impressive.  We were doing a set of 8x100 on 2:00 in the yard pool, best stroke (non-free) and I expected them to hold a pace that was in what we call "zone 3" which is calculated by taking half of their 200 time and adding 4-7 seconds to it.  It gets them right around VO2 max.  I let the kids take #7 easy so I could see how close they could get to race pace on #8.  This set is pretty typical for us although this was very short for this kind of set.


My breaststroker, who just finished his freshman year in high school, took off like a rocket on that last 100.  He was out FAST and I was excited to see what his time was gonna be.  Unfortunately he caught up to the last person in the lane just after the pull-out on the last 25.  He did about 5 or 6 strokes at her pace before he finally got impatient enough at the 15 meter mark to pass her...

but he couldn't pass down the middle as there was a butterflier in the way.  So this kid improvises:  he takes a breath, submerges and crosses under the lane rope without even interrupting his rhythm, and finishes in the next lane with a pretty incredible time.  I wish I had caught it on video.  His best time shaved in a meet is 59.4, and his best 200 is 2:07.  On this push 100 at the end of the set he went out in 29, and even with a half length stuck in traffic he finished in 1:03.  Not bad for a push! Of course, I worry a little about the day this kid finally gets his drivers license and I am glad I ain't the one teaching him how to drive!

I love coaching age group.  It's gonna be a fun summer.