Some time ago Swimwatch posted a list of our five best American swim coaches - coaches whose record leaves us in awe, coaches who have set a very high coaching bar. As a consequence of their work, the United States treats its coaches well. They are offered a degree of respect unmatched any where else. They are fed and watered at swim meets like royalty. Their words are obeyed, usually without question. Certainly the work of the nation's best has created an enviable status for the profession of coaching.

There is however another side to this coin. There are some coaches who perform badly. Swimwatch is not erudite or arrogant enough to embark on a scholarly analysis of the behavior that distinguishes good and bad coaches. What we can do though is pass on to you some examples of bad coaching. These incidents come from various parts of the world, not just the United States , and are events we have experienced. If you come across similar events, give your coach the benefit of the doubt the first time, express you concern after event two and after event three find another coach. Swimmers only have one shot at their swimming career. Don't waste it on some guy not fit to do the job.

PRIDE - This coach takes pride in setting schedules so tough, so difficult that day after day his charges stagger home exhausted and dispirited from missing another set of impossible to meet intervals. To these guys the expression, “training not straining” is the motto of wimps. Several years ago I turned up at a pool with three swimmers who were all New Zealand champions and record holders. We were there to compete in a provincial championship. I greeted one of the local coaches and asked, “How are things going?” He said, “Really good - this morning I set a schedule so tough two swimmers vomited before it was done.” Now that's not good coaching.

GREED - The greedy spend many hours looking at other coach's teams. They have two objectives. If their competition has had some success, they will undermine that success with any old lie or distortion and they will recruit the other coach's best swimmers. You see, the covetous firmly believe that good coaches are just lucky - they get the most talented swimmers. If they had the same luck, if they were coaching the same swimmers their teams would be as successful. A parent of two of my best swimmers was approached recently by another team's coach who questioned my coaching qualifications - she called them illegal. Later she asked the same parent for a list of any swimmers who had recently joined our team - presumably with the intention of spreading the same misinformation. Now that's not good coaching.

SLOTH - These coaches come in two forms. The first prefer the small pond. They focus their efforts on provincial championships or high school swimming, preferring to be big fish in small ponds rather than risk being minnows where it really counts. The problem, of course, is that while they strut their stuff on the side of some high school (or provincial) pool some really talented swimmers, capable of being big fish in the biggest ponds are being used up making their coaches look good. The second do venture forth to national championships or World Cup internationals and soon demonstrate their unsuitability for the task. I know one who is famous for grabbing his charges by the shoulders and holding his face just inches from theirs and screaming orders on how to swim the upcoming event. Swimmers stagger away from his assault looking more like victims of a car crash than athletes eager to compete. No wonder they never swim well. Another coach, I've watched at many national championships gets so nervous while his swimmers compete that he beats himself on the bum with a rolled up program. He looks like some overweight jockey midway through the Derby rather than the professional swim coach he is supposed to be. This kind of fear quickly transmits itself to swimmers and harms their performance. Now that's not good coaching.

GLUTTONY - This coach blames just about ever ill in swimming on a lack of speed. You hear it all the time, “She just wasn't fast enough.” or “He needs more speed.” Very seldom is the diagnosis true. For example, just about every female swimmer in the country can swim 15 seconds for 25 meters; almost half can swim 30 seconds for 50 meters and a healthy proportion can manage 60 seconds for 100 meters. However only four or five can swim two minutes for 200 meters and only one might be able to get to 400 meters in four minutes. The reason there's only one swimming four minutes for 400 meters is not speed, its endurance. Hundreds can swim fast enough. The problem is they can't swim fast enough, for long enough - and that's an endurance problem. A few years ago I watched a good butterfly swimmer swim badly in her favorite 200 meters event. She had been ill and clearly lacked conditioning. The next day I noticed her coach's response was to set her a training set of 60x25 meter sprints. He had decided her problem was not enough speed - wrong diagnosis, wrong cure. Now that's not good coaching.

ANGER - This is the coach who writes programs on the team white board and expects them to be swum without explanation. These coaches fail the most basic coaching test. They fail the test of teaching. New Zealand 's legendary track coach, Arthur Lydiard, was frequently reported as saying, “A coach's real function is to teach, to educate and explain.” If you find your swimmers come home having swum eight thousand meters and can not tell you why they did it or what their work was supposed to achieve, you have good reason to be concerned. I once had a nationally ranked swimmer from another team stay at my home. We were discussing drills and I asked her why she did a particular drill. “I don't know. Because coach writes it on the board, I guess,” she said. Now that's not good coaching.

ENVY - They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. All coaches have seen a drill or swim technique being used by another coach and have copied it for their own use. Nothing wrong so far, it's the way a lot of learning takes place. It becomes a problem when the copying is done without understanding the purpose behind the item being copied. Believe it or not, that happens more often than you would expect. Several years ago I was convinced a coach who shared our pool was copying my drills without understanding their purpose. To test the theory I had our team do a fictitious drill that had no swimming merit. It involved swimmers hitting the sole of their foot between each stroke. Within two days my coaching colleague had her squad twisting and turning along the pool, slapping the soles of their feet. Now that's not good coaching.

LUST - The literal definition of lust has no place in coaching competitive swimming. In coaching swimming “lust” means the ego trip of power. There are a number of examples of this behavior - coaches who see themselves as the center of the swimming universe. Coaches who fail to appreciate that the journey belongs to the athlete. You can usually pick them at meets - strutting along the pool deck with two five hundred memory grey stopwatches strung around their neck. Several years ago one national team coach was annoyed at me because I had arranged for a swimmer I coached to tour the Australian and European World Cups. Instead of taking me on, he chose to attack the swimmer in a Sydney hotel dinning room. He called her not fit to be there, accused her of swimming sub par performances and continued his assault until he had her in tears. Incidentally the swimmer broke a national age group record during the trip; she went on to win national open championships and break an open national record. She now earns her living from competitive swimming. The fact he was wrong is no excuse. That's not good coaching.

- Swimwatch Team

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