3 Ways to Thank Our Coaches

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Photo Courtesy: Mission Viejo Nadadores

By Sarah Lloyd, Swimming World College Intern

Swim coaches have a grueling and often unappreciated job. If you’re walking onto the pool deck at 5:50 in the morning for a 6:00 practice, you can bet your bottom dollar your coach has been there since 5:30. While you’re busy getting yourself ready for your first 400 IM of the season, your coach is probably very busy looking at all of the heat sheets, making a mental picture of when and where all of your teammates are swimming. And while you’re freaking out about how you’re supposed to fit all of your suits, caps, goggles, towels, and clothes into a carry-on bag for that four-day travel meet, your coach is definitely working extremely hard to make sure that everyone not only has a ticket for the plane, but transportation to the airport. It’s a thankless job most of the time, which is why it’s important to remind ourselves to show our coaches how much we appreciate them.

1. Actually say “thank you.”

This seems obvious, but it’s something that isn’t said enough. Simply saying “thank you” after a workout, a bit of advice, or a post-race chat is the simplest way of showing your coach that you appreciate him or her. You know when you were little and your mom or dad would drop you off at a friend’s house and as you were getting out of the car or walking up to the front door they would sternly remind you to “use your manners, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, follow the rules” etc.? This advice still applies today, whether we’re age-groupers or collegiate swimmers. Let’s use our manners and verbally thank our coaches for all the time and energy the put into us, because it’s a lot.

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Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

2. Listen to what they have to say.

How many times have we been given a piece of advice from a coach during a workout only to ignore it completely? I’ll admit it, I’m guilty of it. At the time, it’s not because I don’t care about the advice I’ve been given, but because I’m selfishly more concerned with making an interval, hitting a pace, or minimizing the amount of pain I’m in for that particular set. Retrospectively, I know I was given a piece of advice because my coaches actually know better than I do. I also know that every time I ignore a piece of advice I’ve been given, it shows a certain amount of disrespect to my coaches.

Coaches give us advice because they care about our swimming–if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t bother giving us any advice at all. The least we can do is listen to what they have to say. If we try to do what they’ve suggested and it doesn’t work out, at least we can say that we’ve shown them enough respect to try. And believe me, coaches recognize when a swimmer is listening to them and trying to make adjustments and changes. Which means they also notice when they don’t. Let’s take the time to really listen to our coaches when they make corrections, we owe them that much.

Roman Willets North Baltimore

Photo Courtesy: Heidi Torregroza

3. Race with everything we have.

I’m not sure there’s anything more disheartening to watch–for anyone, not just coaches–than someone just give up in the middle of a race. Watching a teammate give up in the middle of the race is incredibly frustrating, so I can only imagine how hard it is for a coach to watch an athlete give up. Our coaches know how we swim. They are intimately aware of our stroke counts, average tempos, kick, and turns, so they know when we aren’t giving it our best.

When we give up, it’s one of the most disrespectful things we can do in the sport. Whether we’re giving up because we’re so far behind that it wouldn’t make any difference how fast we went, or because we’re so far ahead that we feel that cruising to the finish is easier than hitting the wall with everything we have, no one benefits from it, especially not our coaches.

Our coaches have poured hours and hours of hard work and an incalculable amount of care into each and every one of us–from writing three separate workouts for sprinters, strokers, and distance swimmers, to missing out on family birthdays to be on deck at meets and practices–they’ve given us their all. For us not to reciprocate is unfair, rude, and selfish. The most powerful way to thank our coaches is to leave everything we have in the pool for every race. They’re not going to care about times or place finishes if they know that we raced as hard as we possibly could have on that given day. They’re going to care that we put ourselves out there and laid it all on the line because that’s what the sport is about.

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Photo Courtesy: Taylor Brien

As we sit down to a Thanksgiving meal with family and friends and we think about what we’re thankful for this holiday season, let’s add our coaches to the list. Most of us are fortunate enough to be able to afford professional training in one form or another, but there are so many swimmers around the world who train by themselves, without coaches. Let’s be mindful of the resources we have and remember to say “thank you.”

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Whiteangel Elaine
8 years ago

David Chung ?????

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