By Ryan Maloney, assistant women's volleyball coach
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| Fredonia's 2015-2016 swimming and diving team on their January training trip in Coral Springs, Fla. |
So when our head swimming coach, Arthur Wang, offered the chance to spend a week in Florida on their yearly training trip, I couldn't resist. College swimming and diving teams commonly travel to warm locations in January as a respite from the cold weather, preparing for upcoming championship meets. This one was in Coral Springs, Florida.
What I learned, much to my surprise, was less technical and more philosophical in nature:
Swimmers need to balance competition with personal improvement
In swimming, the most satisfying part of the process isn't winning a race, but seeing your times improve. There's something about pushing the boundaries of human potential that reward one's inner being more than any accolades could.
As Al Carius, the most successful D-III cross country coach of all time, is often quoted as saying: "Run for fun and personal best." In this case, "swim for fun and personal best." (though the process isn't always fun -- see below)
In most team sports, including volleyball, there isn't an obvious, objective standard by which we measure individual improvement. Playing time is almost entirely out of an athlete's control, but it easily becomes the standard by which she judges herself. What else does she have to go by?
In our gym, we frequently keep practice statistics. For quite a while I thought we kept them to judge which players deserve playing time. Now I think the reason is to let players know when they're improving; an opportunity for positive reinforcement.
It's empowering to know that your hitting percentage is improving, even if you're not seeing the court.
Swimmers value "meaning" over "fun"
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| Yes, that's steam coming off the pool on a 48-degree, rainy morning |
It was the most difficult practice of the week, but most days consisted of two, 2-hour practices that were roughly 8,000 yards total.
At dinner that night, Danielle Dembrow, a junior, asked what the biggest difference is between the volleyball team and the swimming team (besides the obvious). The first answer that came to mind was the insufferable amount of training swimmers do every day. Because competitive swimming is so physically demanding, there's hardly any practices swimmers enjoy.
Instead of fun-seeking, swimmers take value in building a consistent work-ethic. They develop the ability to handle what the coach throws at them, and in theory, what life throws at them. I suspect they find meaning in purposely putting themselves in difficult circumstances.
I'm reminded, as Anson Dorrance said, that fun and happiness are not the same thing.
The fastest swimmers are masters of their own body weight
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| Senior Sam Rokos, preparing for sprint practice with a stretch cord |
It wouldn't be a problem for Rokos if I asked her to do 30-40 push-ups from the ground, and Clouthier could easily do 15-20 pull-ups. They're both phenomenal at moving their body weight. It gives an alternative definition to what it means to be physically strong.
It hasn't changed my thought process on the need for weight training in most all athletes, but it's changed my thinking in how we need to go about it. Spending more time testing and training body weight exercises (push-ups, pull-ups, etc.) should be a priority.
Most importantly, I learned appreciation
On the night before we flew back to Buffalo, I sat down for a nightly cup of tea with the assistant swim coach, Rob Sweeny, much better known to the team as "Snarf". Snarf is easily recognizable by two features: his gizzly long hair and beard, and the kilt he wears. (yes, the same kilts of Scottish lore).
Snarf is also known for hiking both the Pacific Crest Trail (California to Washington) and the Appalachian Trail (Georgia to Maine). In April, he'll begin a six-month hike of the Continental Divide Trail (New Mexico to Montana). The three hikes total 7,900 miles (kilts are excellent garments for hiking because of their breathability).
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| Assistant swimming coach, Rob Sweeny, a.k.a. "Snarf" |
Snarf described to me a time when he walked through a national park. He ran into plenty of tourists who were content to drive to a scenic area, take a few pictures, then quickly ride off to the next scene to be checked off the list. It seemed to him an insult to spend only a moment appreciating a landscape after he'd walked thousands of miles to get there.
It was the perfect analogy to describe what I felt during the week in Florida. The trip was a retreat of sorts, albeit a physically exhausting retreat for the athletes. The team could have done the same training at home, but it wouldn't have had the same effect. As the French author Albert Camus famously said, "In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."
Spending every hour of every day together, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., creates both communion and tension. Communion because one re-discovers the importance of human relationship, that little else matters as much in daily life. Tension because those relationships can create the precise difficulty one needs to grow (or deepen, as the case may be).
There's a Zen saying, "Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another." To at least one coach, that's what this trip was for.
Complement this article with the heartwarming quote from diving coach John Crawford on building relationships with athletes.
(Thank you Jim Fitzgerald for providing pictures during the trip).