Podcast Episode 5: Don Spellman (Iowa City Eels)

In this episode, I sat down with Don Spellman, who’s the Head Coach for the Iowa City Eels. Don has been a member of Iowa Swimming, as a swimmer and a coach, for many years, and has attended the USA-S Convention as a delegate over 10 times in a 20 year time spam – and, whenever he’s at Convention he runs the non-official Karaoke at Dive Bars Committee 😉

Those who know Don will tell you he’s known for not pulling any punches, and apologizing for nothing, and that is the case at times during this interview! Don has a deep passion for the sport of swimming, and doesn’t shy away from letting anyone know whenever he feels we could be doing things better in the sport.

I had a great time visiting Don, the Eels and Iowa City, and also sitting down with him for this long interview. This is another wide-ranging conversation which has a lot of lessons and tips I think could be of help to other coaches. It’s currently available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and directly with the player below.

Here are a few links to things we discussed in this episode:

• Iowa City Eels (ICE) website
• Swimming Technique Magazine
• American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) publications
• Swim Coaching Bible
• The Complete Book of Swimming (Doc Counsilman)
• Swimming Fastest (Ernest W. Maglischo)
• The 3 Styles of Freestyle DVD (Mike Bottom)
• Ritter Sports Performance Podcast
• Chris Desantis Podcast (pro-tip, read the Dad Stuff section!)

And again, many Thanks to my buddy Madu for the great soundtrack I choose for the podcast – check out his Instagram (@machete_bomb_madu) for a ton of great music! And also thanks to Zapslat for the sound effects.

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