Coaches attitude on the deck

Young Coaches, love what you do and show it. Many coaches think that when you start you need to have this great knowledge of stroke technique and physiology. I picked all that stuff up along the way.

I began at 16 years old having my own group of swimmers by coaching a group of around forty 11 - 12 year old boys and girls for a small town summer league team. I knew very little about stroke technique and how to properly develop fast swimmers. I enjoyed myself at every practice, and had fun all the time; Swim Practice and Swim Meets. Those kids had a great time, as I ended coaching some of them in High School, and they informed me how fun it was. I figured out that if you demonstrated that you cared about their swimming, they enjoyed it and had fun with you.

I coached our Red Group this last Friday at CLU, and 2 of the kids were new to the team. They weren't very talkative at first, but by the end of the practice I had them talking and joking with me, while still listening and doing what I told them to do.

I am not what you call a fun coach, but my swimmers always enjoy swimming for me. I don't play a lot of games and do silly things with them very little. I run boring to the point workouts. Not hard all the time, but focused on the goal of the workout. I was this way even when I coached younger kids at RCA. The kids seemed to still enjoy it. My belief is that they enjoy it because they know that I care, and I demonstrate my desire to make them better in a light-hearted and patient way.

The way you coach can pour over to your swimmers. If a coach is always negative, I feel like you end up with negative swimmers. If you're optimistic, I feel like you end up with optimism in your swimmers. If you enjoy yourself every time you are on the pool deck, your swimmers end up enjoying themselves when they are at the pool. No, it doesn't work 100% of the time, but it works out more often than not.

I love what I do! I think my swimmers like to swim as well. I have seen kids join part way into it, but end up being very determined while I was their coach. I love to see that. It makes me continue to love this job, and look forward to seeing my swimmers the next day.

Coaching is full of a lot of stress, anxiety, and frustration (especially if you are part of the dry side of the team), so you have to love it. That love makes you block out all the hard parts, and always think of the great things that are part of coaching. The good out weighs the bad, and I have had my fair share of stress in my short career.

To the Coaches, Love it!