The Swim Brief

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You can’t wait until championships to teach swimmers how to handle championships.

Wisconsin head coach Dr. Jack Brown joins Chris DeSantis to discuss why mental skills deserve the same deliberate practice as physical ones. Drawing on his own struggles as an elite swimmer, Jack explains why “just focus” often fails, how coaches accidentally amplify performance anxiety, and when goals stop helping athletes and start getting in their way.

They also explore Jack’s transition into head coaching, a disagreement over the development of elite female swimmers, and what it takes to build a coaching culture where commitment to winning can coexist with commitment to family.

Jack’s book, The Six Questions, is available on Amazon.

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Milo Cavic looks back at his younger self and sees an athlete he wouldn’t necessarily enjoy coaching: self-centered, fiercely invested in success, and determined to learn things the hard way.

The Olympic medalist joins Chris to discuss how he understands that athlete differently today, what he needed from Dave Salo and Mike Bottom, and why believing in your training matters. He explains why his own late-career coaching change makes him sympathetic to athletes who choose to leave successful environments.

They also discuss the balance between strong training partners and individual attention, why practice times can become an emotional trap, and the tension between team coaches and outside specialists. Milo shares how he approaches that relationship through Swim with Milo—and Chris offers his perspective on how coaches value their work.

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Tracy Slusser has coached three NCAA championship teams. She has also experienced a coaching culture that made having children feel incompatible with doing the job at the highest level.

We talk about the expectations she absorbed early in her career, what happened when a fellow coach brought her child onto the deck at Nationals, and the changes Tracy wants to see—from emergency deck passes to better coverage when coaches take leave. 

Today, Tracy works with coaches on leadership, confidence, and the skills needed to build a career they can sustain. We close on a question that connects her past work to what she does now: when coaches want to perform at the highest level, who helps them get better?

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What is a developmental coach actually trying to finish?

Longhorn Aquatics head coach Mike Laitala joins Chris DeSantis to discuss why producing fast young swimmers is not the same as preparing athletes for long-term success. They explore the risks of early specialization, the difference between developing strength and simply “lifting,” and why athletes can advance beyond their own developmental awareness.

Mike also explains how he prepares swimmers for college, another coach, and eventually the ability to direct their own careers. The goal isn’t to exhaust every tool available—it’s to build the foundation athletes will need for whatever comes next.

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Jack Roach has spent a lifetime learning from coaches—and helping coaches and athletes learn from one another.

In this conversation, Jack reflects on his time leading USA Swimming’s National Junior Team, where he helped create developmental experiences that connected young swimmers with senior athletes and brought coaches into a broader web of relationships. But his philosophy extends well beyond any particular program: coaches shouldn’t simply provide answers. Their job is to ask questions, deepen awareness and help reveal the wisdom already developing within the athlete.

We discuss purpose, autonomy, the difference between being unable and unwilling, admitting weakness as a coach, and why genuinely caring about someone sometimes requires walking directly into difficult conversations. Jack also shares lessons from Eddie Reese and his longtime mentor, Jon Urbanchek—including one question that has stayed with him: How much are you willing to care?

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What makes swimmers want to keep showing up—not because an attendance policy requires it, but because they genuinely want to be there?

Jonathan Kaplan, head coach and director of SwimRVA, joins Chris to discuss a collaborative approach to coaching built around athlete ownership. Jonathan explains why he has never used an attendance policy, how coaches can teach swimmers to manage the psychological demands of practice, and what happens when an athlete’s entire identity becomes tied to results.

They also explore confidence without false modesty, the damage created by praising outcomes while ignoring the process, and why much of championship-meet coaching becomes an attempt to undo lessons athletes learned when they were younger.

Jonathan then shares how SwimRVA was designed around the needs of its community—removing barriers while creating space for everyone from seasonal participants to nationally competitive swimmers—and why good leadership requires enough confidence to question your own ideas.

The result is not a rejection of performance. It is a different path toward it: build better people, give swimmers meaningful ownership, and create a program they don’t want to leave.

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What does it take to build a championship-level program without allowing college swimming to become purely transactional?

Stanford men’s swimming head coach Dan Schemmel joins Chris DeSantis to discuss his unlikely path from Hawaii to one of the most prestigious jobs in the sport—and the moment he finally felt that he belonged there. They explore how Stanford is navigating NIL, the transfer era, and the growing pressure to treat the athlete-coach relationship as an exchange of immediate benefits.

Dan also explains why recruiting athletes who genuinely love swimming matters, how a strong team culture can sustain people when their individual motivation fades, and why the sport needs to better recognize age-group and club coaches. The conversation closes with a look at leadership, the difference between “learners” and “knowers,” and whether faster performances are necessarily producing better swimmers.

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Ted Lasso returns with a new challenge: building a women’s team inside a sporting structure created for men.

Chris DeSantis and Juliet Suess discuss what the opening episodes of season four reveal about coaching, leadership and the systems surrounding women’s sports. They explore Coach Chilton’s technical strengths and relational blind spots, Rebecca’s failure to consider a woman for the head coaching position, the limitations of copying and pasting from the men’s game, and how Emma Hayes has turned a deeper understanding of female athletes into a competitive advantage.

They also examine the power of teams to bring different people together—and why sports need more leaders like Keeley, who refuse to diminish themselves to fit an inherited model.

Contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Ted Lasso season four.

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Swimmers spend hours in the pool, yet many still aren’t eating enough to support the work they’re doing.

Alicia Glass, Sport Dietitian for USA Swimming, joins to explain why swimmers need to think more like endurance athletes—and what happens when training volume and fueling fall out of alignment. We discuss early-morning practices without breakfast, why sugar and sports drinks can be valuable performance tools, and the practical barriers that keep exhausted athletes from eating consistently.

The conversation also explores why effective nutrition advice must account for the individual, how restrictive ideas about “healthy” eating can leave athletes less adaptable, and what coaches should look for when bringing nutrition professionals into their programs.

Finally, Alicia offers a nuanced approach to one of swimming’s most difficult subjects: body composition. 

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Swimming has spent decades asking coaches to become more professional. But has the profession done enough to support them in return?

Doug Cornish is a former swim coach, financial planner, and the creator of the 2025 Swim Coaches Compensation Survey. His findings expose how precarious coaching has become: 38% of respondents reported working without a current contract, while 80% had no cost-of-living adjustment built into their agreements.

Doug and I discuss why coaches continue accepting these conditions, how poor financial stewardship limits what clubs can provide, and why coach retention is foundational to athlete development and the future of the sport. We also lay out five practical changes that could begin moving the profession forward—from credible compensation data and honest job ratings to board education, stronger financial structures, and contract templates.

This isn’t just a conversation about what’s wrong. It’s about what swimming can actually do next—because if we want to save the sport, we have to start with the coaches.

Doug's e-mail: [email protected]

Website:  swimpler.com

ISCA Email 1: https://mailchi.mp/swimisca/coach-retention-the-future-of-swimming-depends-on-it?e=70a9f8d406

ISCA Email 2: https://mailchi.mp/swimisca/can-great-coaches-afford-to-remain-great

2025 Coach Compensation Survery Data

10 Ways to Value Coaches