You will be aware that much thought and emotional energy has recently gone into evaluating a coach’s fitness to do the job. This is as it should be. Day after day coaches stand there, inflicting pain. They should expect and should receive very critical appraisal.

However, in the interests of justice, it is only fair that we offer the other side of the coin. Are there circumstances where a coach, no matter how awful he/she might be, should sack a swimmer? We think there are. Here is a list of twenty examples for your guidance.

1. They admit to filling Gatorade bottles with vodka to get them through flights home.

2. They admit to filling Gatorade bottles with vodka to get them through practice.

3. They joke about the first two crimes on international websites.

4. They “deck change” so badly the rest of the team should be paying to watch.

5. They eat their kick-boards or suck their goggle straps.

6. They think the ten in 10×100 comes just after six.

7. They think it’s okay to swim three backstroke strokes before each turn when completing backstroke “kick” sets.

8. They get seen drinking martinis before the national championships.

9. They fail to realize that martinis drunk before the national championships should be sipped, not gulped.

10. They wear mini skirts, high heels or lip gloss to prelims; especially if they are on your men’s team.

11. They think, “Looking for my goggles” is a good excuse for coming out of someone else’s room at three in the morning.

12. They insist on being entered in the 50m breaststroke instead of the 800 free even though they’re supposed to be a long-distance freestyler.

13. They are certain an 800 is twenty-two laps and swim all twenty-two in order to prove it.

14. Every day, just as practice starts, they remember they left their inhaler and suit at home.

15. They become too skilled at missing a well thrown pull buoy.

16. They know lane lines are put there to help them through the backstroke lengths.

17. They know 200 fly is best swum with one arm.

18. They have seven different ways of saying, “Sorry, I’m late” and use all seven, every week. If one of them is, “My alarm didn’t work” they’re out.

19. They think the 60 on a pace clock comes right after 55.
    

20. They come from New Zealand (I had to repeat this one…)

The best swim coaches association is the American one. Their certification process, information, clinics, magazine, service and recognition are light years ahead of anything else. If you happen to live in Outer Mongolia and are interested in swim coaching, do the ASCA certification process. That way you will be properly trained and the rest of the world will know what your qualifications mean.

ASCA should be made responsible for coaches training and certification around the world. The coaching trade is now so international it could do with some standardization. When he’s not being nagged to death by Jan Cameron a very good Pom called Rushton runs things in New Zealand. Sweetenham, an Australian, is in the UK. The Australian Institute of Sport has had its share of imports and there are even a few of us aliens in the United States.

But all of that is not the subject of this article. What I’m on about is a piece published in the most recent issue of the ASCA magazine. Have you seen it? It’s called “Old School”.

Before talking about that, and I promise this will be the last diversion, the same issue has a short piece by John Leonard called, “Rethinking the Womens’ 200 Freestyle” (Incidentally, the apostrophe should be before the s.) It’s a good piece and highlights aspects of women’s 200 swimming that have long required greater emphasis.

I disagree with one point. Leonard says, “Train children from an early age to take it out and go for it.” That’s a bit different from the Lydiard adage, “The advice to just keep up with the leaders has lost more races than anything else.” I agree with Lydiard. What should be done is to train children from an early age so that taking it out fast is physiologically easy. The trick is not going out fast; the trick is aerobically conditioning athletes so that what was fast is now slow, what was anaerobic is now aerobic, fifty-five for the first one hundred that was once an all out sprint is now just a firm swim.

You will recall it almost killed an aerobically unfit Roger Bannister to run four minutes for one mile. Today aerobically fit Kenyans can run twice that distance at the same speed. The difference? Aerobic conditioning.

And so back to the “Old School” article by Chris Davies. It’s great stuff. Just listen to this.

“Amanda (Weir) gained her speed through endurance training. If you want to go fast in the 50, 100 or 200 you do it through a concern about doing enough yardage to get the job done. Without background I am not convinced one can achieve the ultimate level. I stated it earlier and I think it bears repeating: the common denominator for fast swimming at any distance is hard work”.

Isn’t that just perfect? A guy who has the perception to see through the noise; none of that fancy stuff about 10×50 being a tough day’s work. Have you ever noticed how the phrase “training smarter” always begins a conversation that tries to justify being bloody lazy?

I see why Amanda Weir swam that American record. She was well trained. She earned it.

There are however two things I’d like to question.

If I’ve added up the mileage properly it comes to about 60,000 meters per week. Coincidentally that’s the same figure Sweetenham insisted UK coaches have their teams swim when he became their National Coach. In that case I thought his intentions were righteous enough but never understood the 60,000 meters. There are a million and one exceptions but it seems clear that if the purpose is to maximize aerobic development, then that occurs best at around 100,000 meters per week. If improving the aerobic cardio-vascular system, if increasing the density of capillaries is the goal, then that is best achieved by swimming 100,000 meters and for a long time, at least ten weeks every six months. Swimming 60,000 is better than the aerobic walk along the River Thames that Banister used to do, but it is not the physiological equivalent of the 100 to 120 miles per week of aerobic running done by those fast Kenyans.

Secondly, who came up with the title “Old School”? It’s bloody insulting to call it that. The training proposed by Chris Davis is not old school. It’s at the vanguard of where international swimming is moving. A few elite coaches, like Touretski, have had their athletes train 100,000 meters. The majority however beaver away at 30,000 to 40,000 meters mixing aerobic, anaerobic, sprint and every other category of training known to man. Physiologically their efforts bear no relationship to the aerobic work and development of those Kenyan runners. When we do follow their example then, Phelps and Hall’s times will join Roger Bannister’s. The good thing about the Chris Davies article is that it shines a light towards where we should go and that’s not old school.

PS – It has nothing to do with this article but I just got an email from seven year old Manuela:

Hi coach,

I am just writing to you because I am bord. In such little time I am going to Argentina. It happend so quickly and I am happier than I ever was before. I am going to have so much fun and the good thing is I can still do swimming there. I feel like the hapiese child on earth. Well I have to go bye bye Manuela!

Makes it all worth while, don’t you think?

One of the comments made after the recent “Morals” article was particularly kind. It said;
“Haven’t commented before, but have enjoyed many of your posts, especially the one about growing up swimming in the river. Looking forward to many more!”

There are aspects of life at Te Reinga that are different from the western city version of life. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Maori people’s recognition of death. Nowhere is that more observable than at Te Reinga, my home village. Here is a description of a Te Reinga funeral for a fictitious woman raised with city material values. While the deceased is fictitious the events described are all real.

The funeral, the Maori word is tangi, was the following Monday. It was a wonderful experience. We flew to the nearest airport in the coastal town of Gisborne. Te Reinga is a further forty mile drive into the mountains and ranges of New Zealand’s east coast. I expected it to be isolated but nothing like this. The nearest shop and hotel were twenty five miles from the small cluster of shanty homes, a school and a livestock trucking company. Te Reinga is set at the point where the Hangaroa and Ruakaturi Rivers merge and spill over bleached white bluffs to create the imposing Te Reinga Falls.

Transcending its isolation is an omnipresent aura of haunted mortality. The rising mist of the falls, the crowding granite cliffs and scrub covered hills – Te Reinga is an appropriate “place of departed spirits.” We parked the car one hundred yards from the meeting house; the Maori word is marae, where Whetu’s body lay in state. The old Maori ladies sitting around Whetu’s open coffin began a haunted cry of greeting. The sound reached our ears only after it had echoed off a dozen cliffs. I swear that sound is the closest thing on this earth to the torment of purgatory. I was physically afraid. We moved towards the gates of the marae and slowly walked up to the veranda with its body and waiting mourners. A few feet from the veranda we stopped and bowed our heads. The wailing cries were a blanket of sound rising and falling around us.

Our group moved forward to the verandah. I could see Whetu’s face, her head hidden under white satin. She may have preferred a city cathedral funeral but this was a community burying one of its own. We shook the hand of each of the mourners and stepped back down from the verandah. Pat said quietly, “Come around here.” At the side of the meeting house Pat washed his hands with water from a bottle.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It’s a Maori custom to wash away evil spirits,” Pat explained. Alison and I washed our hands too and I felt better.

Thirty minutes later the Church of England funeral service began. It was like no other Christian service I had ever attended. We sat outside, in front of the verandah. Four young girls dressed as angels hovered around the coffin. The oratory of Cannon Rangi Ehu and the Maori tribal elders was eloquent, gentle and strong. Although I did not understand their language, the tributes were just as poignant. With skilled and beautiful timing; a sentence followed by a pause and several thoughtful steps before the next sentence. The words were irrelevant to the meaning. It was more than Whetu deserved. It was certainly more than she would have got in her inner city cathedral. Pat spoke and adeptly employed the same skills to eulogize his fellow administrator and, he said, friend.

For me though the most defining moment was still to come. As Whetu’s ex-husband and her son put the lid on the coffin and screwed it down the congregation sang an ancient Maori hymn. It had the rhythm of a slow waltz. Without even knowing the words the sound carried all the acceptance of grief and the commitment of offering this tupapaku, body, to what ever came next. In this place and sung with the soft, mournful deepness that the Polynesians do best; the compassion was more than I could bear.

The final act of burial took place in the sacred, tapu burial ground behind the marae. Pat had warned us that because of the tapu no one went on to boot-hill, as the locals irreverently called it, without a body to bury. There was no pre-prepared grave; the hole would be dug when we got to the end of the track. There were no head stones or burial mounds. It was just a scrub covered hill. On “boot-hill” we must take nothing with us and bring nothing back. To do so could cause a form of mild insanity, the locals called Maori sickness.

We followed the coffin down a track, across a small stream and into the cemetery. The pall bearers struggled to lift the considerable weight of Whetu up the steep unkempt track. Eventually we reached the shovels that signaled the site of the last grave. I was surprised at the speed Whetu’s grave was prepared and her coffin lifted into the hole. Pat had told us that Maori tradition required the deceased person’s personal effects be buried with the body. I had to smile though as Whetu’s skis were dropped into the hole beside her.

We filed back down the track and prepared to cross the stream. Two Maori ladies dressed in black including matching black gum boots stood in the stream. They used willow branches to splash water on each mourner. “What’s this about?” I asked Pat.
“The water washes away evil spirits. It’s looked on as an important cleansing process,” explained Pat.

I accepted my sprinkling and sat on the other side putting my shoes back on. I noticed Canon Rangi Ehu about to set out on the crossing. He had come prepared. He held a blue and white golf umbrella, carefully positioned to turn aside any drops of the sacred water.
The day concluded with an enormous feast prepared in a traditional Maori hangi. Large stones were heated in a fire and sprayed with water to produce steam. The food was placed on the stones and covered with earth and left to cook. The result was fantastic. Over 200 people were fed with more than they could ever eat. I was introduced to the distinctive flavors of wild pork, venison, puha, and native eel.

Whetu may have preferred a cathedral service followed by tea and cup cakes on the lawn of their Remuera home. My guess was she never knew, “rank is but the guinea’s stamp, the man’s the gowd for a’ that.” She was fortunate that in the end honest people “tho’ e’er sae poor” had marked her passing with sincerity and compassion. I knew of no occasion that better defined this celebration of the past, comfort for the present and hope for the future. I had a feeling though that Whetu was at the gates of heaven demanding to know, “How much did it cost?”

The question of changing coaches became more strident this week with the news that Laure Manaudou has decided back her bags and leave the coach who has guided her to become the world’s best female swimmer. Her destination it appears is to Coach Penso, 53, Director General of LaPresse Nuoto club in Turin, Italy.

It’s a big change and is unlikely to work. Already her new coach is telling the world Manaudou swam 5×400 meters this week under 4.40. I coached two swimmers in New Zealand capable of that effort and neither was a 200/400 freestyler. On Wednesday last week Rhi Jeffrey swam 12×500 meters on that sort of pace through the 400s and until Penso’s comment neither of us would have thought it merited mention on international swimming news. This morning Rhi concluded a set of 70×100 meters on 1.30 with a 1.06 100 meters fly. I’d have thought that was better than 4.40 for 5x400s.

Manaudou’s old coach, Philippe Lucas is quoted as saying he thinks Manaudou can’t stand the thought of another year of the distance he gives her – seventeen kilometers a day. That makes sense to me. I’ve had swimmers leave for the same reason. However, it highlights the ethics involved in changing coaches. Is a change being made for positive reasons, because something is genuinely not going right? Rhi and others left USC for this valid and reasonable motive. Or is the change being made in some frantic search for greener grass. One is ethical the other is not.

Manaudou would have us believe things were not right in Canet. She has said, “I needed a change.” That’s just rubbish. She’s going because her boyfriend is in Turin, she wants to swim less distance, Turin is making her offers Canet can’t match and any number of other personal, selfish reasons. Her character has been revealed by her lack of allegiance to a coach who has cared and nurtured her to Olympic medals, world records and World Championships.

Some are probably going to say swimmers always have the right to change and that of course is true. The fact that something is able to be done does not however void consideration of its ethics. Many things are able to be done that good people do not do. Let me give you an example.

About eighteen months ago a mother brought a swimmer to our team. The swimmer was sixteen. She had been ranked in the nation’s top dozen swimmers as a twelve and thirteen year old. Since then her career had deteriorated, She was damaged physically and mentally as the mother carted her daughter to other Clubs searching for the girl’s pre-teen success.

As I say, she ended up at our door. Her mother was very specific. Her daughter’s pre-teen coach had damaged her daughter. He had pushed the girl too hard and had acted badly when she decided to attend the “wrong” high school.

The mother was right about one thing; the girl was a mess. She pulled out half way through her first race and I realized fast times would have to wait while we rehabilitated a broken soul. A combination of considerate training and selective racing seemed to work. She was faster, but not by much. She was however physically and mentally strong again. Even her pre-teen coach, the one blamed for all the damage said he had not seen her swim with such spirit since she was thirteen years old. He also explained to me that the mother had serious problems as he was sure I would soon find out.

The table below shows the swimmer’s 500 yard times over a number of years and gives you a statistical view of the story I’ve just relayed.

The swimmer came to us just after she’d swum the 5.30 (Column 11) and left eighteen months later after she’d swum 5.05 (Column 18). That’s right, she left because her mother said that the training wasn’t working. The part that really stole the whole bloody cake was she scampered off back to the team that according to her had caused the girl’s problems in the first place. And that beats even Laurie Manaudou.

Philippe Lucas has said he would never take Manaudou back. I can understand that. Arthur Lydiard, probably the world’s best ever middle distance track coach always said, “David, never take an athlete back.” I broke Lydiard’s rule on one special occasion. It looks like Lucas is not even going to do that.

As a fun aside, check out this piece written by Navtej Kohli about four popular sports and why they’re … well, stupid. This is written in a rather “tongue in cheek” manner, as this guy actually loves sport.