After a few great days in Lexington, KY, where I got to check out both the University of Kentucky Wildcats and the USA-Swimming team Kentucky Aquatics, I drove up mostly north to Edinboro, PA, to visit a friend and former colleague of mine who’s working with the Edinboro University Swim Team.
This was my second visit to a D2 program during this trip, and it was interesting to see a lot of parallels between the Fighting Scots and what I had previously observed while on deck with William Jewell College, especially the set up with practices most mornings (4x/week), and then offering 2 different workouts in the afternoon, of which the swimmers are expected to make one, depending on their class schedules.
Another parallel I saw was the team atmosphere and unity. At the end of practices swimmers took the lead on a short pump-up speech, which was then followed by a team break. In this case, I also got to see how excited swimmers got about racing, as I was there for their first dual meet of the season – having both their Men and Women win their respective meets likely did help everyone’s enthusiasm!
Talking about that meet, it was pretty interesting to see how they were able to run a meet with very minimal personal – two officials, no timers, one person running the computer! While in this case they were far more interested in the races than times, and had no problems with bad touches on the pad, it did make me think (as I have before) if there isn’t some overkill on the number of people needed to run a USA-Swimming meet. Different needs and different realities between a college dual meet and any USA-S meet, but this was a perfectly fine meet, with only 3 people running it.
On the training side, the team has a specific out-of-water warm-up routine they go through prior to every practice and meet, including some active stretching, jump ropes, push-ups, etc. It is also swimmer-led, which means the coaching staff has done a great job teaching it in the past. During one of their dryland sessions, I also got to lead them on a few exercises and it was great to see how they were responsive and open to some new stuff.
all going on at the same time
During water workouts, it was interesting to see how both coaches – Head Coach Chris Rhodes and Assistant Coach Kelsey Reagan – divided up the group according to specialty areas, and in at least one workout then had each group subdivide to make use of power stations. On top of that, they seem to frequently make use of videos for additional feedback, which the swimmers were also eager to watch post practices.
While there were some contrasts with what I had seen at the SEC/D1 Kentucky Wildcats, it was really cool to see how many similarities also exist: swimmers working hard to improve, dedicated staff working on both helping the current swimmers and recruit the next class which can make the program even better, and all keeping in mind the ultimate goal for the kids during those years (getting an education and a college degree). It reminded me that, if a kid wants to swim in college, there absolutely is a great fit out there for him/her.
Towards the end of my visit, I was able to sit down and interview Kelsey for my upcoming podcast – in hindsight, really with I had also sat down with Chris, who’s one of the most easy-going Head Coaches I’ve ever met. Kelsey had previously work for/with me in Georgia, and it was a good chance for me to ask about things we had done right or wrong in her view (so a little like self-therapy). This is another interview I’ll be looking forward to release once I get the chance!
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