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Welcome to the SwimIntel Spotlight. I'm Jamie Bailey and today we have one of the absolute

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best coaches in all of swimming, Coach Bill Dorenkott, Director of Swimming and Diving

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at The Ohio State University. Coach Dorenkott is a five-time Big Ten Coach of the Year,

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backing up seven Big Ten team titles, nine top 20 NCAA team finishes, 82 individual Big

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Ten Conference Champions, over 400 NCAA qualifiers, and coached multiple Olympians, including

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a gold medalist as well as a world record holder. Coach, it's awesome to have you here.

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Thank you for coming on. Jamie, I appreciate the opportunity to share and look forward

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to our conversation. Alright, so you're at Ohio State, one of the top programs in the

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country. You've got to have hundreds, maybe thousands of kids just dreaming of swimming

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for you. Obviously, not everybody's going to make the cut. So just outside of raw times,

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what's your process for figuring out who's a good fit for your team? Well, there's so

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much more to it than just times. And I think, you know, I've been coaching collegially for

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34 years, and I've never gone to a program that was a high achiever when we got there.

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So we always took over dogs, but it's kind of like buying the worst house on the best

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street in the neighborhood, right? And so the house had good bones. So whether it's

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Ohio State or I was at Penn State, or in fact Ashland before that. And so, you know, we

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built a strong foundation. We took our time. We were purposeful. But because we took over

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programs that didn't have a high degree of success, we weren't getting the pick of the

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litter in terms of recruits. So we really had to have a system that worked for us. And

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so there's two things that I think we've done really well historically, and that is one,

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found kids are a good fit for our program and institution, and two, developed the heck

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out of them. And so I think that times and rankings can be a little bit misleading because

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they don't tell the whole tale. I'll use as an example, one of our seniors this year,

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Daniel Baltis. Daniel was a three sport athlete coming out of high school, never swum a long

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course meet or meet in his life, was from Minnesota, great student, great family, obviously

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very athletic. And he came recommended from a close friend of mine said, you know, you

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really should give this kid a chance. You know, and here we are four years later, and

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you know, Daniel semi to the Olympic trials in the 50 free. He's, he's an anchor on our

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relays. And so, you know, that just speaks to, it isn't just times, it's athleticism,

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it's how far into your swimming career are you, it's technique, it's recommendations,

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it's human qualities, it's everything. So, you know, how important is it for you to actually

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see a recruit either swim in person or on video before you decide this is somebody I

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want on my team?

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Really have to see it. And I'll use Maggie McNeil as an example. So Maggie was, she's

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from, from Canada. And in fact, just up across the lake from, from Cleveland, Ohio, and

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a small club team. And she was a good swimmer on a high school, you know, so before she

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broke out of the world stage. And my assistant and I drove up there and we knew we liked

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her a lot just as a person. And within five minutes of watching her practice, we offered

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her a full ride and just that movement underwater, you couldn't coach it. And sure enough, she

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proved us wrong. Unfortunately, it wasn't at Ohio State, but that's a great example,

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right?

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Yeah.

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So I was checking out your roster and it looks like your women's team has a lot of sprinters,

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you know, more majority sprinters than anything else. But, you know, especially this year,

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your men's team is leaning more toward distance. Do you plan that out intentionally? Or, or

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does it kind of just happen based on the recruits you get, the recruits you see? And do you,

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do you actually search out for versatility or are you more about finding those specialists?

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Well when we, when we combine the program eight years ago, so I've been at Ohio State

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for 17 years. I've been with the women for 17, the men for eight. When we combine the

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program eight years ago, on the men's side, we're very purposeful that we're going to

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build a championship caliber program around sprinting, relays, and diving. And that's

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exactly what we did. We had some staff turnover and as a function, some of our sprinters were

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graduating and we were left with a hole. And at that time, really the distance kids were

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the ones we were able to get. So we're a little top heavy on the men's side in distance right

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now. And so we have to fix that so that our relays get stronger at both the conference

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and the national level. On the women's side, historically, when I say historically, really

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over the past eight years, our strength has really come in the relays and in the sprint

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events. And so we've attracted a lot of kids that, that are, you know, want to be a part

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of that.

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Yeah. All right. So let's, let's talk about the Grant House Settlement and, you know,

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all these changes that are happening across college sports. Power Four teams really appear

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to be, you know, affected the most by these changes. So what, what adjustments are you

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seeing coming in terms of roster size, available scholarships, resources, or, or other areas

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of your particular program?

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Well, I think it's going to vary one conference to conference and two institution to institution.

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So the settlement said that in the sports of swimming and diving, that we can have a

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roster cap of 30 athletes. Historically at Ohio State, we've carried 40 athletes. We've

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carried 34 swimmers and six divers. And I was able to negotiate that in part because

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we believe in developing athletes. So we'll have some kids that maybe as sophomores or

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freshmen can't help us, but by the time they become a junior, they can crack our scoring

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roster or they can make a relay. And it was a pretty hard sell just to get to 34 and six

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because the national average was around 28. And so my boss had said, look, we want you

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to carry 28 athletes. That's what the average is nationally. And I said, well, correct me

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if I'm wrong, but if I'm average, you're going to fire me. And he said, no, that's probably

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right. And I said, well, if you look at the top five teams in the country, we've benchmarked

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with Florida and Texas and Indiana, and they always, they carried big rosters, especially

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on the men's side. And so we did the same. So this settlement was, was coming to fruition

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over the summer. And we're hearing all kinds of rumors. We're hearing 22 on the guys side

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and we're hearing 30. And sure enough, it sounds like they agreed that 30 was the right

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number. So at Ohio state, we've made the decision we're going to carry 25 swimmers and five

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divers. Five divers is probably more than a lot of teams will carry, but historically

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diving at Ohio state has been a real strength and we want it to continue to be a strength.

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We've heard, and I certainly can't speak for other leagues that, that the SEC on the men's

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side is going to be 22. And you can kind of project out and look and say, you could guess,

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all right, they're probably going to carry this many swimmers and this many divers. And

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then you can look at their roster and you can say, are they have this many seniors graduating?

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They've got this, these many kids committed, you know, they're going to be 12 over their

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cap. And so those kids have to go somewhere, but every school in the country is doing that

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same math. And so what we're seeing is that the roster spot in some cases is more valuable

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than the scholarship, because at the end of the day, a lot of kids just want the opportunity.

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And with the way swimming has been in the past, where the most of college could give

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was 9.9 scholarships on the guy's side, 14 on the women's side, most kids weren't getting

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a full ride anyway. They were paying at least part of the freight to go to a respective

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university. And so those roster spots have become gold. I can only share what we're doing

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and what I'm hearing. And I won't go too much to the rumor part of it. We're going to get

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a little bit more than 9.9. We're going to get a little bit more than 14. I'm not going

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to tell you how much because I still want to have a competitive advantage. We won't

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be close to 30 scholarships on either side, men's or the women's. We'll have a little

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bit more on the women's side than on the men's. And that speaks to Title IX or gender equity.

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And so that only makes sense. And so we'll continue to exist where we give out partial

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scholarships. And sometimes we're able to add meridate onto it or we're able to add

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maybe a military discount or some other form where we can package money to make it more

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affordable for a kid to look at the school. What we're hearing even within the Big Ten

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is some schools will be below what they were before. So they'll be below 9.9 or below 14.

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Some will stay the same. And then I would assume there'll be a handful that'll move

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up a little bit. What my idea is shared with us is to look at a school's annual revenue.

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And that really tells the tale. Now at Ohio State, we're blessed. We have an annual revenue

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of $290 million. However, we have 36 sports. You need 18 sports is the minimum you need

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to be a Division I school. And so when you have other schools that have big annual revenues

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but have smaller number of programs, they're able to have a little bit more in the way

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of scholarships. And so one of the things that transpired, and I apologize for monopolizing

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our conversation here, one of the things that transpired was with 36 sports, there's not

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an appetite on behalf of athletic directors or presidents to cut sports. What you saw

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happen during COVID was those presidents and ADs that cut sports, a lot of them lost their

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jobs because there was such a public outcry on those institutional campuses to say no.

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So our people were really opposed to that. And thank goodness they've come up with a

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plan to keep all 36 sports. The other thing I think you're going to see is, and it'll

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probably take three or four years to play out is, one, I'm not sure every athletic department

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has a plan. Two, I'm not sure that every department has made that plan public. I'm not sure that

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coaches always know the plan. And I'm not sure that coaches will actually share it for

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fear of losing out on recruits, competitive equity, whatever you want to call it. So we're

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pretty well positioned within the Big Ten. I don't know how we'll stack up nationally

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in terms of our scholarship allotments, but I feel pretty good moving forward, at least

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from an Ohio State perspective, that we'll continue to be able to put a good team in

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the pool.

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If the SEC does indeed go to a roster limit of 22, there is no room for error in that

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roster when you get into NCAA's conference. Do you think the Big Ten is going to have

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a significant advantage having a roster limit of 30 versus 22?

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Well, I don't know because there's a chance some of those schools in the SEC will go to

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22 full scholarships. And so that's absolutely an advantage. But the ability to develop eight

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extra athletes, that for sure helps. You know, it's not just going to be opportunities person

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for person. It's also going to be events. So if you look at NCAA track and field, most

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programs in track and field have to choose, are we going to be a sprint program, are we

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going to be a hurdle program, are we going to be a field program? And I think that you're

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going to see not just less opportunities for men, I think you're going to see less opportunities

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for distance swimmers and 200 flyers and 400 IMers because most programs are probably going

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to stack their roster with sprinters to field great relays.

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Oh, that's really interesting. So what do you think happens to some of the smaller,

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less funded programs that opt into the settlement, you know, when all of this shakes out?

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Well, you know, everybody thinks that there's going to be a trickle down effect. Now, it's

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a little bit like musical chairs. There aren't going to be enough chairs when the music stops.

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But the question becomes, can you be creative in terms of what you offer? And so I'll give

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you an example. My sense is that some programs, and certainly we're considering this, are

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looking at something that would be the equivalent of a JV program. And so what that would be,

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it would be a club on your college campus and it would be an elite club. It would be

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a club for some of the top athletes in the country. And so there'd be two things there.

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One is when you get to a level that you're competitive at a Big Ten and or an NCAA level,

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that's the first piece. Or the second is maybe you're a one event guy. And so for us, we

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have three goals annually. The first is to compete for a Big Ten title. The second is

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to be consistently in the top ten in the country. And the third is to put kids on their respective

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countries, national and international teams. And so if we do that year over year, my boss

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is going to be pretty happy. Our kids are going to be happy. And we're going to have

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a really good product in the pool. A lot of kids coming out of high school don't have

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a second event or a third event. To compete for a conference title or to compete at the

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national level, you need to develop those second and those third events. And so sometimes

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that just takes time. And so one of the things that we're proposing is putting a program

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together for those kids to be able to develop.

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Yeah. You know, you mentioned the backlash that happened during COVID when ADs cut programs.

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We saw a lot of those programs come back. They didn't stay cut for very long. Do you

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think given that history and these changes, do you think Olympic sports in college are

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in danger across the board?

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I don't want to go that far yet. I think we're heading that way. And I think if we don't

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come up with a better model, we will be in trouble. And I've seen different data, but

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anywhere between 65 to 80% of the Summer Olympics, Summer Olympians were developed on college

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campuses. So we are a big part of that model. And we want to continue to be a big part of

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the model into the future. And if we don't come up with a better mousetrap, for lack

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of a better word, we're going to become a little bit irrelevant. And so I think we need

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to be purposeful. I think we need to be proactive. And I think we need to be the best stewards

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of our own sport.

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You know, even outside of swimming, we talk about football and other college sports. I've

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heard a lot of coaches talk about how they're going to leverage the transfer portal a lot

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more moving forward. You know, obviously in sports like football, there is a win right

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now or else kind of atmosphere. Do you plan on leveraging the transfer portal more going

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forward? Or do you prefer to get your recruits out of high school so you can develop them

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kind of from the start of their collegiate career?

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Well, it's interesting. This is a good question. And one of the reasons I'm a subscriber to

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your product is because, you know, anecdotally, I always felt a certain way, but I actually

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wanted to see if it was true. And so our program, if you're to look at it, it takes anywhere

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between six and 18 months to kind of adapt to what we do and how we do it. And so in

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my opinion, it's always better if you can get somebody who has four years of runway

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to work with. At a minimum, it's got to be two years. So I'm not a one and done type

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of guy. And then just a historical perspective, you know, the transfer, you've been able to

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transfer for a long, long time. Transfers as a rule are a 50-50 proposition. Half the

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time they work out and half the time they don't. And so I think, you know, as people

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go that route, boy, you better do your due diligence on just, is it a good fit? Right?

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Because there's a reason that people transfer. And sometimes those are valid reasons and

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sometimes not so much. I'm always amazed that, you know, we've been pretty fortunate here.

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We haven't had a lot of kids transfer, but when we have, the programs they've gone to

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haven't called and asked. And, you know, I'm going to be kind, but I'm also going to be

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honest. And so, you know, I think again, back to that idea of due diligence.

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Yeah. You know, that's obviously one of our main goals at Swim and Tell is if we're going

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to help an athlete find their college fit, we don't want to see them transfer. I mean,

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I think we will have failed if we see them transfer. I don't like seeing redshirts either.

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You know, I really think it's swimming in particular is a difficult sport to have to

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persevere through, especially if you have to put all the yards in and you don't even

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get to race. Right. So I hate seeing the transfers. I hate seeing the redshirts. I love seeing

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when athletes go to a college and thrive. And you've had some really good success with

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that over your career.

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You know, I'm proud of it. And my hope is, is one, we've done our due diligence. But

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I think the flip side of that is we've been brutally honest in the recruiting process.

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Like, we don't pull any punches. It's not a sales, you know, it really is matchmaking.

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So we're going out and we're being genuine. The gap is always the gap between theory and

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testimony. So it's hard. You know, a kid comes to Ohio State, they go to a football game,

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and they get some free meals. Man, this is the greatest. You say, no, no, no, this is

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really hard. What we do is really hard. And then they get to their sophomore year, like,

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man, what did I sign on for? Right. And that's a bad thing because that means I did a poor

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job of explaining what it was really, really going to be like. But no, my, you know, my

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two favorite days of the year, our last home dual meet when we honor our seniors and then

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our team banquet. And we, you know, we graduate big class, we graduate 20 kids between the

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men, the women, swimming and diving. That means you're doing something right. Yeah.

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Okay. So if you grade out your recruiting class the last few years and just strictly

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by time, just high school times, you actually come in fifth in the big 10 for both your

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men's and your women's classes. Yet your women's team has won the big 10, four out of the last

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five years. And your men's team has been second four out of the last five years. You're doing

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this with development. You've had huge time drops for both your men's and your women's

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teams. Some of the best progressions of any team across all of college swimming, any division

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halfway through this season, your men are sitting at an average drop of over 4% from

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high school, which puts you right there at the top of swimming right now, of all the

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college swimming right now. How do you get elite development out of swimmers that are

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already elite when they come into Ohio State as freshmen?

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All right, Jamie. So I wonder if the skill of identifying kids who we know are going

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to be good, I wonder if I'd gone to Wall Street, do you think I could have had that kind of

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success? In all seriousness though, I kind of wear it like a badge of honor. I think

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too many people get wrapped up in five star recruits and swim, swam, best of the rest

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and everything else. And it just means nothing to me. And when kids come on a visit, my assistants

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always get nervous because I meet with every recruit and a meeting will finish up and they'll

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say, well, how'd it go? And I'll say, well, I offered her a full ride. And they'll be

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like, you what? I'm like, trust me, dude, she's going to be good. And sure enough, a

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couple of years later, like, all right, I get it. But there isn't necessarily a rhyme

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or reason. Some of it's intuition, but some of it's just experience and reps. And no,

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I love that. I love that. And quite frankly, my hope is this. I try to kind of fly under

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the radar with some of our recruiting or letting other people know who we're interested in

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because I think the word's getting out a little bit that we have a pretty good eye for what

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we do. And we're able to find some kids in unusual places.

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Well, if SwimIntel is successful, the word will get out because you're always at the

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top. So it's really awesome to see that. So do you approach training men different than

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women? I know your background. I think you were the women's coach at Penn State for a

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while before you became Ohio State coach. Is it a different training methodology between

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the two?

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All right. So this is pre SwimIntel. You know, I was really good. You get recruits come in

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and I could get them fast as freshmen. I could get kids fast right out of the gate. And then

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they didn't improve a lot over four years. And I used to think it was them. It wasn't

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them. It was me. It was our program. And so I made a pivot about halfway through my coaching

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career and really kind of made a deal with myself that I wanted kids going lifetime best

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as seniors, men and women. Your data as I looked, you know, I subscribed last year and

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as I looked through the data, our women were best in the conference as freshmen, also best

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in the conference as seniors. Our men were best in the conference as seniors, but they

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were not very good as freshmen. And so we've made a little bit of a purposeful pivot this

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year in some of the training that we're offering to the men because they weren't adapting at

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the rate we needed them to. I still feel the same. I want our kids going their best stuff

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as seniors. However, I don't want to lag my peers. And probably, you know, I had to be

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a little bit demoralizing for the guys, just relative one comparing themselves to girls,

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which is a mistake, but also comparing themselves to their peers, you know, who were getting

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faster earlier on in their career. So I'm not sure if I answered your question or not.

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No, no, no. That makes sense. So let's say you weren't coaching at Ohio State. Let's

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say you were at a mid-major or you're at a D2 or D3. Would your training be any different

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than it is at Ohio State? Well, you know, I didn't start swimming till my senior year

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of high school. And I went to college, I swam in college, and my first job was a little

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Division II school about an hour north of here, Ashland University. And I'm an Ohio

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guy, you know, born and raised. And I didn't have much background in the sport. But at

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that time, I read a book and it was a lot about Mark Schubert and how he had been winning

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national titles. And he did it with underappreciated athletes, so 200 fly, 400 IM mile. So I thought,

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man, we're going to do that as well. So we just recruited a lot of kids that weren't

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getting as much love at a high level. And we ended up, you know, having a lot of success

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in a pretty short period of time. And then, you know, I went to Penn State as a men's

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assistant. And we really, you know, that team went from ninth to sixth to third to first

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in the big 10 of our four-year period. And we really did it with sprints, relays and

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diving, although we had some good kids in the other events. And so it's run the gamut.

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What I'd probably do is reverse engineer it. I'd look at the league, you know, and I'll

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use a great example, the guy at Akron has done a great job, right? Historically, I've

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been in this, I've been in the Midwest forever. And the Mac's always been a good conference

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and it's had some phenomenal, some of the best coaches in history, you know, Peter Lin,

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you could go through it. So you just, you know, you see what the league allows, you

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see where the weaknesses are, and then you attack those weaknesses.

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Yeah. The Mac is really strong. Yes. Akron, Ball State, there's some great swimming, great

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coaching, great recruiting in the Mac. It is a high end mid-major. Absolutely. No question.

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Yeah, no question. Okay. So when you're looking, let's go back to recruiting. So when you're

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looking at recruits, do you ever think about their current environment, like, you know,

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their club coaches or how they're being trained? Is that something that helps you figure out

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if they're going to thrive with you or do you just focus on the swimmer?

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Oh, no, the club absolutely plays a role. So just who's coaching the club, historical

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development, how they train, you know, what's left in the tank. And so, you know, there's

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some clubs that a kid has really been trained at a high, high level, in some cases higher

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than a collegiate level. And then once you figure that out, you know, I'll use a distance

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swimmer as an example, a distance swimmer who doesn't like distance, but is being recruited

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as a distance swimmer, but thinks they're going to get to college and it's going to

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be fun, different, or they're going to become a sprinter. That's like a recipe for disaster.

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Meaning now, you know, and that's where it just kind of goes back to that process. You

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just really have to be honest. You know, one of the most interesting metrics of your database

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is the corollary between the club they come from and the program they're looking at. And

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I haven't done a deep enough dive, but just initially looking at it, I think it's probably

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pretty close to correct, right? If you look at like the top five, the bottom five, and

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there are some look, and I'm not certainly not going to name names, but there's clubs

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where kids go to college and get faster. And then there's some that they don't.

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Yeah, you know, it's, it is, it's burnout. You know, we see kids coming out of these

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clubs and they've been swimming 10,000, 10,000 yards a day since they were 13 years old.

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They're done. They're done. When they get there, we see injuries, you know, where, where

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their shoulders are shredded by the time they get to college and, and they don't want to

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do it anymore. So, you know, when you're, when you're looking at these clubs, do you

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ever look for or have a preference for clubs that are high yardage environments, low yardage

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environments or, or a particular training style that you feel like really kind of molds

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well blends well with what you do?

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Well, you know, so, so I'll, I'll, I'll name three guys that, and this goes back to our

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conversation about the, the house case that I don't know today. I'd be able to give them

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a spot on our team. You know, one is Charlie Clark, right? Charlie's been on the U S national

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team now for four years. I don't think he was state champ coming out of high school

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before 26, five and a free was his top event. But what I loved about Charlie's every time

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I looked at the results, he swam every single event at a meet. He never scratched finals.

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So, you know, in basketball, they talked about gym rats. Charlie was a swim rat. He just

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loved the sport. You know, use, use Hunter Armstrong. Hunter was a junior national qualifier

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out of high school. I think I offered him 10%. His brother went to West Virginia. He followed

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his brother and you know, after freshman year, he called us up, wanted to transfer and certainly

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came up here and the rest is kind of history. And then Daniel Baltus, who we talked about

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before, right? Who's just a late bloomer. You know, I see it a lot that the kid who

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was second or third in the state, a lot of times will pass the kid who was first because

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they're still hungry. Yeah. Okay. So you talked about swimming fast all the time and talked

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about, you know, swimming, you know, enjoying those meets. What's your take on dual meets?

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You know, some, some coaches that they're all about hyping them up, making them more

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exciting for fans. Others just kind of see them as a distraction from the end of season

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grind. You know, our dual meets, are they a big part of your strategy or are you more

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like, yeah, let's just get through them. I got to get to the end. I may have to rethink

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our philosophy on dual meets and I can just share a historical perspective. So always

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coaching in the Midwest or a little bit East in Pennsylvania, we've been blessed that there's

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so many programs within a bus ride away. And so you could save some money by just, you

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know, taking a bus out and then coming back. And when I was at Penn State, we didn't have

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a great facility. So we had to travel a lot. But again, we're fortunate that within a three,

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four hour drive, there were a ton of teams we could race. What I believe is, is one,

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there's not a lot of learning that goes on in a straight up dual meet. So you drive somewhere,

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you swim two hours, you get back in the bus, you come back and then the kids forget about

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it until two weeks later when they swim their next dual meet. So I like a multi session

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or multi day meet because there's learning and there's coaching and there's teaching

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and there's adjustments that can happen. Second, is it cost effective? So we're going to go

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out to Notre Dame the third weekend of January. And I love that meet. It's a two day, three

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session meet. We get a ton of bang for our buck and it's really, really hard. Meaning

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you guys have a lot of events in a short period of time. It's kind of a finisher. It matches

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up with our training well to prep us for the big 10 meet that's going to be two, three,

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four weeks after that. That being said, if I take two teams out there, I stay two nights,

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I've got to feed them hotel, it's going to cost my program $50,000, $50,000 a ton of

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money. And so when you talk about programs, you know, getting cut, again, I think we have

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to be great stewards of our resources. And so where do we get the most bang for our buck?

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You know, if it's competition, whatever it might be. Now at Ohio State, we're blessed.

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People love to come to this facility because it's such a great facility. So we don't have

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to travel as much. We're able to save a little bit of money there. But I probably in terms

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of promotion or self promotion, we probably have to spice it up a little bit in terms

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of dual meets. You know, so I'll pitch you right now. I think we should swim Teton and

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you know, Teton is that team up north. We should swim Teton the Friday after Thanksgiving

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annually. The next day is the football game. We could get it on the Big Ten network, make

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it a made for TV deal, suit both teams up. It would be electric and be great for both

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of our programs. That would be awesome. I would love that. That would be awesome. Yeah.

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Okay, so you said suit up. So this is a big debate in swimming. You know, do you like

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having your team suit up and go absolutely all out and dual meets, maybe a drop taper

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or do you save the big performances for championships? Like in other words, does racing fast in

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season help you in your strategy in your development or are you just burning matches when you do

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that? Well, I am of the belief that you only have so many bullets in the gun, right? And

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actually my good friend Ray Lewis said you can only go to the well so many times. And

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so I think you need to be judicious with with just because you can do something doesn't

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mean that you should do something. I'm certainly not opposed to it, but it's not just physiological.

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It's also psychological. And so I want our kids peaking. I want our best performances

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to be in February and in March. And then there's a second piece to this. And the piece is,

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are you using the suits to augment performance or using them as a crutch to kind of cover

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over things that you didn't do or haven't gotten done or haven't developed? And that

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can't be the case. You can put a suit on any time in practice. I personally think second

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half of the year, I want to put a suit on at least once every other week. So whether

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it's in a meet or whether it's in practice doesn't really matter. The last piece is this

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is we're not going to do it. There's going to be no gamesmanship. So I'm never going

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to let a team get get an advantage at my expense, and I'm not going to do it to the other team.

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So we're gonna have a conversation with the coach and say, is this something that that

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makes sense? It works well with your plan. If so, let's let's do it. And if it doesn't,

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then that's okay as well. Yeah, I like the balance because the one thing that that I've

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I've always hated about the sport were coaches that basically we're going to train through

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every meet, you're never going to swim fast. But, you know, we're going to taper you and

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you're going to swim great that one time that year. And oh, let's just hope you don't get

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sick. Let's just hope I don't screw your taper up. Because if I do, then you're gonna have

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to wait an entire next year to know where you really stand in your training. And that

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that I hate. I think there's a balance between that and putting on a suit every meet.

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Jamie, I used to be that coach, right? Like if anything, it was like it was like medieval,

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right? Like anything you just beat the heck out of kids all season long. And then you'd

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rest them and they'd swim faster and you thought you had a good taper like you didn't. And

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so that's you know, when I look at year over year improvement, and then and then where

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do you stack up nationally against your peers? I think those are better benchmarks for for

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maybe a successful plant well planned program and adaptation. And then then they just beat

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somebody up so bad that they they couldn't get out of their own way.

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Well, and I think it also probably this is anecdotal. I think it can help with retention.

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You know, I know being around swimmers, you know, the the excitement when they see that

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progression, you know, they see that that time on the board and it feels like okay,

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you know, I put the last eight weeks I have I have killed myself, but look, I'm seeing

387
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the results. And I think, you know, you can get a lot of burnout if you don't kind of

388
00:33:53,840 --> 00:34:00,680
give them those wins as they lead up to those championship meets. You know, retention isn't

389
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:05,320
great in the sport. We lose one out of six swimmers as freshmen before they go to the

390
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:09,720
sophomore year at the D1 level. And that's that's a pretty that's a pretty good chunk.

391
00:34:09,720 --> 00:34:15,440
And it's evenly distributed between, you know, power fours, mid majors across the board.

392
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,040
And so I think anything that helps with that retention could potentially, you know, help

393
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,960
the sport as well.

394
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:29,120
The sport and what it takes to be good at this sport is is just it's it's so so difficult.

395
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:34,120
Right. And so I have I have an unbelievable appreciation. I don't care if you're the fastest

396
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:40,960
or the slowest kid on the team, your willingness to commit to that process. And, you know,

397
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:46,760
and Eddie Reese used to say it so well, but just just if you got better, it's a win. Right.

398
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:51,200
Like, and you've got better year over year over year. Man, that's a big win. And so,

399
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:56,800
you know, I'm with you. I get really and, you know, having kids go faster is a motivator

400
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,840
for everybody. So, you know, we started the conversation talking about picking a big 10

401
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,280
team. Now, that's only a December pick. We're going to do it again in February and then

402
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:10,640
we'll do it for real. And we'll do it in January. Then we'll do it for real in February. But

403
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:15,600
but some of the things that we look at is who do you want on that team that's going

404
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,560
to make everybody around them better. And it's not always the kid who wins the event.

405
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:26,800
Sometimes it's the kid who moves from, you know, 48 up to 16. You know, sometimes it's

406
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:32,080
the kid who never scored before and makes a B final as a sophomore or a junior. And

407
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,680
so, no, there's the wins behind the wins.

408
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:39,840
When you get together with your coaching staff, are you guys writing down what you think is

409
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:46,760
going to happen at Big 10s? And do you go back and kind of grade against your predictions?

410
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:52,960
We absolutely do. And I would divide my staff into optimists, realists and pessimists. And

411
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:59,040
I consider myself a realist, but I've got some some true optimists on my on my staff.

412
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:03,440
And you know, we'll just put we'll put, you know, two A's and a B or two B's and a C.

413
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:08,080
And, you know, you kind of take it with a grain of salt, depending on who's who's giving

414
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:09,080
the information.

415
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:14,800
That's great. All right. Last question. What do swimmers and coaches do for fun on campus

416
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:19,640
besides winning big big 10 titles in swimming and football?

417
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:25,420
You know, our kids, we've got and I'm not just saying this, we have a really, really

418
00:36:25,420 --> 00:36:31,360
good group of kids. Right. And so it could be something as silly as in the spring when

419
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:36,720
the season's over. The athletes have a swimmer formal. Right. And they all get dressed up

420
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:42,680
and they rent someplace out and they all go down there, which I think is pretty creative.

421
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,840
You know, they have they have quite a bit of fun around Halloween and hopefully it's

422
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:50,680
wholesome, healthy fun. You know, our kids are here year round. Right. We're blessed

423
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:54,720
in that we can keep our kids here all year round. Summer is a ton of fun. We get a lot

424
00:36:54,720 --> 00:37:00,320
done. But they really get to explore Ohio and see all four seasons. And then, you know,

425
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,560
we've a pretty diverse team. We have kids from not just all over the country, but all

426
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:09,360
over the world. And so it's, you know, just it's a it's a cool place to be a young person.

427
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:14,440
Right. It's pretty hip, hip city and, you know, good, good foodie town as well.

428
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,200
Yeah. Yeah. I've been on campus. It's awesome. It's a great it's a great environment. It

429
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:25,400
is a great college environment to just every sport is fun there. So when recruits come

430
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,000
out and their parents join and their parents are a little bit envious, they're like, college

431
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:35,600
wasn't like this when I when I went to school. You know, my wife and I said this a lot when

432
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:41,440
we were touring for my daughter. We said over and over again, can we can we redo college?

433
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:47,860
Because this looks so much more fun than what I did. Oh, there's no question. Yeah. Coach,

434
00:37:47,860 --> 00:37:53,340
thank you for coming on. I really appreciate the thoughts, the insights. I'm really excited

435
00:37:53,340 --> 00:37:58,680
to see where your data ends up. You know, at the end of the year, I'm excited to see,

436
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:02,560
you know, you had new additions to the to the Big Ten Conference. So conference championships

437
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:07,240
are going to be wild across all the realignment conferences is going to be wild. I can't wait

438
00:38:07,240 --> 00:38:12,520
to see that the swimming is insane in the Big Ten. So good luck. Can't wait to see the

439
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:16,360
data. And again, thank you for coming on. Well, Jamie, thank you for being a fan of

440
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:21,360
the sport. And thank you for the service that you do for athletes and coaches and recruits

441
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:37,320
with SwimIntel. All right. Thanks, coach. All right. Bye bye. Bye.