The Morning Swim Show, Nov. 2, 2012: New Focus for 2016 One Reason for Eugene Godsoe’s Return to Stanford


PHOENIX, Arizona, November 1. ON today's edition of The Morning Swim Show Eugene Godsoe explains what lured him back to the deck at his alma mater at Stanford University.

Godsoe also says he's continuing to train with a focus on the 2016 Olympics, and will have a smaller group of postgrad swimmers to train with, which he likes. He also analyzes the men's team at Stanford and what they have been doing this year that has impressed him the most. Be sure to visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

Special Thanks to Finis for sponsoring the Morning Swim Show's interview segments in the Finis Monitor.
Download The FINIS Custom Suit Catalog
Download The FINIS 2012 Product Catalog
Visit Finis to learn more about their innovative products for aquatic athletes.

Morning Swim Show Transcripts
Sponsored by Competitor Swim Products
www.competitorswim.com

(Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Jeff Commings: This is The Morning Swim Show for Friday, November 2nd, 2012. I'm your host, Jeff Commings. On yesterday's show we talked to Ricky Berens, who's moved back to his alma mater at Texas and is working as a volunteer assistant coach. Today in the FINIS monitor we have Eugene Godsoe, who has also returned to his alma mater, in this case Stanford, and is a volunteer assistant coach there. And Eugene joins us now from Palo Alto. Eugene, good to see you again, how are you?

Eugene Godsoe: I'm doing well Jeff. How are you doing?

Jeff Commings: Doing great, thanks. So you moved back to Stanford. You were spending some time in your hometown of Charlotte for a while swimming with SwimMAC Carolina. What brings you back to Palo Alto?

Eugene Godsoe: You know I've been looking to come back to Palo Alto. I knew I was probably going to make my way back here sometime after 2012 and I guess the stars kind of aligned after Trials. I've been talking with Ted a lot about coming on, helping the varsity team, and talking with some of the post-grads in the area, we realized we wanted to keep swimming out here as well so you can't really beat it out here, just really happy to be back right now.

Jeff Commings: Well there probably aren't as many post-grads swimming there at Stanford as you had with SwimMAC Carolina. Do you like that?

Eugene Godsoe: Yes, it's nice, it's a little different, I mean it's not too different, it's still very individualized. We've got either two coaches on deck, sometimes three, and there are only seven of us in the water. In MAC there were 14 of us with two coaches on deck and sometimes we'd have some elite high schoolers training with us. It's nice, it's definitely a different atmosphere than college when you've got 30-plus guys all trying to get some attention.

Jeff Commings: Are you the type of swimmer who really likes to have that individualized attention or do you – when you were in college having two coaches for 30 swimmers, did you like that part of it?

Eugene Godsoe: Yes, I certainly like that, I mean it definitely keeps me a little honest if I'm not focusing on something I should be or I'm slacking off, they're definitely there to let me know.

Jeff Commings: Yes, I'm sure it is. So like I said you're a volunteer assistant coach there now. What's it like being on deck working with Ted?

Eugene Godsoe: It's awesome, I mean it's definitely a bit of a different relationship now that I'm on the deck with him versus him coaching me in the water all the time. But it's good. There's a really good balance between all the great things Ted is bringing from the tradition of Stanford, Scott Armstrong all the new things he's bringing from NBAC, and I'm trying to bring as many things as I can from the David Marsh program at SwimMAC and just kind of the things I've developed in my own years at Stanford so we're trying to mesh all three things together so the on-deck kind of balance is working out really nice and I think the swimmers are really enjoying it.

Jeff Commings: Is there a different kind of vibe on deck without Skip Kenney there?

Eugene Godsoe: Yes, it's certainly different. Anybody that knows Skip is he certainly has an aura about him and it's certainly different, there's a lot of energy, kept trying to embrace the new energy kind of on deck with the new coaching staff and I think everybody's really buying into it and that's what's most important.

Jeff Commings: Give us an idea of how that men's team looks this year.

Eugene Godsoe: Really strong, really exciting. We just got back from the Pacific Invite Meet last weekend and traditionally that's usually a pretty slow meet for us, we're usually swimming four or five events in just a few hours, so we kind of tailored it down and everybody was doing three events and some really, really strong times in the beginning of the season, guys like Aaron Wayne going 43.6 and 20.0 and a lot of freshmen stepping up for some really good first college meet times. So really impressive across the board.

Jeff Commings: Well you guys lost a really nice senior class from last year. What's it been like for the team to kind of – I don't want to say replace – but just kind of step into their shoes and really kind of step up their game?

Eugene Godsoe: I would say it hasn't really been difficult at all, this freshman class has been just outstanding since the first day we went to training camp. They're already pushing the seniors in practice, at the Pacific Meet we got a lot of freshmen with some victories so that I think says a lot especially early season, they're not waiting around to develop over this whole season or even four years, they're doing it now.

Jeff Commings: Do you think maybe down the road maybe you want to get into coaching?

Eugene Godsoe: It's certainly a possibility. I never really envisioned myself doing that at least off the bat but after talking with Ted I realized this could be a pretty – not just a good opportunity but something I'd be really passionate about just to get back and help Stanford so we'll see, we'll see. I've still got my sights set on Rio and then after that we'll just kind of see where everything is.

Jeff Commings: Well if you were ever to make coaching a career what – and I know you've only been doing this for a short period of time – but what do you like about being a coach?

Eugene Godsoe: I just think the personal interaction that you get to have with people and kind of influence not just what they're doing in the water but how you can kind of help shape them outside the water. So particularly like right now I'm able to really talk with the freshmen. I only graduated two years ago so I have a lot of personal experiences that I can share with them, not just how to swim fast but to balance swimming fast with all their studies and social life that they're going to have to balance at Stanford so things like that, whether you're at Stanford or you're a 12-year-old club swimmer those are all really important going forward.

Jeff Commings: I see you've got the piano behind you, I'm sure you're still heavily involved in music.

Eugene Godsoe: Always.

Jeff Commings: Probably one of the things that was probably not the best thing about leaving Charlotte is that your band, Take Your Marks, I guess disbanded.

Eugene Godsoe: On hiatus.

Jeff Commings: On hiatus, all right. Is there anybody there at Stanford you can jam with?

Eugene Godsoe: I haven't really found anybody yet. Me and Greg were a perfect match. But there are really some guys, I can sit down with some of the guys with a guitar but right now I'm trying to pursue the solo career I guess until you guys fly Greg out here for me.

Jeff Commings: Well we loved everything you guys did, all those videos you put up, so we might have to find something in our budget to make that happen.

Eugene Godsoe: Yes, we'll write you a little swimming little jingle.

Jeff Commings: Oh, that would be nice, we'd really like that. Yes, it seems like it's one of those things that lately it's a lot of swimmers are really turning to music is kind of their outlet for swimming. Tell me how you really got involved with piano. Is it something you learned as a young child?

Eugene Godsoe: Yes, I took lessons when I was six/seven years old and kind of fell out of love with it by the time I was 11 or 12 and really wasn't practicing very much. Probably when I was 16 or 17 I think I went on YouTube and saw someone playing Mario on the piano and I thought that was the coolest thing so it kind of like re-upped my energy for piano and I just started playing whatever I wanted to play, not so much classical music and at this point I'm just kind of like improv-ing or making up stuff on my own, playing a lot of popular songs and putting it on piano, just trying to have fun and I think that's what music is all about especially as you get out of your teen years.

Jeff Commings: Well you've got to get some more videos back up on YouTube, that's definitely something me at Swimming World miss seeing on a regular basis.

Eugene Godsoe: I have some plans for that, I'll keep you guys in the loop.

Jeff Commings: Excellent. Thanks so much Eugene and great to see you on deck at Stanford and I'm sure the guys are really enjoying all the input you're giving them.

Eugene Godsoe: I hope so too.

Jeff Commings: We'll see how it all pans out as the season goes along. Thanks again Eugene.

Eugene Godsoe: All right, see you Jeff.

Jeff Commings: All right, that's Eugene Godsoe joining us in the FINIS monitor and that's going to do it for today's show. As always we remind you to log on to swimmingworld.com on Facebook or on Twitter for the latest swimming news. I'm Jeff Commings, thanks for watching.

Subscribe to this show FREE via iTunes!

To purchase this or previous episodes of The Morning Swim Show, to send comments or show suggestions, click here to send an email.

To purchase copies of our Ready Room interviews, click here.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x