The Morning Swim Show, Jan. 18, 2012: Mark Onstott on Past, Present and Future of New Trier High School Swimming

PHOENIX, Arizona, January 18. THIS weekend, New Trier High School swimming will celebrate 100 years, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show, boys' head coach Mark Onstott takes us on a trip through history.

Ontstott talks about the beginnings of the team and its transformation into a national powerhouse beginning in the 1960s and some of the swimmers who achieved national prominence, including two Olympians. He also talks about how the team has managed success recently, including a 2007 Swimming World Magazine national championship. Be sure to visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

Morning Swim Show Transcripts
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Peter Busch: Welcome to the Morning Swim Show for Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS Monitor today we talk to Mark Onstott. He is the head swim coach at New Trier High School in Illinois. The storied program is about to celebrate its 100th Birthday. Coach Onstott joins us right now in the FINIS Monitor from Winnetka, Illinois. Coach welcome to the show, how are you doing?

Mark Onstott: I'm doing great. How are you Peter Busch?

Peter Busch: Good thank you. Where is Winnetka, Illinois?

Mark Onstott: Winnetka is just north of Evanston, which is just north of Chicago, so it is really just north of Northwestern University.

Peter Busch: So you are getting ready to celebrate 100 years at that high school. How are you guys going to celebrate?

Mark Onstott: We are going to have at our Evanston Dual Meet. This is our 94th time that we are going to swim Evanston at a dual meet, which we believe was probably one of the longest, if not being the longest running public school dual meet in the country. So we are going to swim them for the 94th time on Friday January 20th and we are going to do a little celebrating there. We are going to recognize all the guys, both Evanston and New Trier and we are also going to get the guys who want to, to go ahead and get in the pool. We have a lot of requests to get in the old pool again and so we are going to allow them to do that afterwards, and then on Saturday night we are going to have a reception at one of the clubs here in town and we are looking forward to it. It is going to be a great weekend.

Peter Busch: Imagine after 100 years is pretty decent community support for the swim programs there?

Mark Onstott: The swim program really has been the core of the Winnetka, New Trier township community. When the second pool was built in 1936, the one we call our new pool, we started a New Trier guard program and a Saturday swim school program, and really the concept of cradle to grave, that the pool was going to be here for everybody to learn to swim to swim in high school, to have classes in the pool in high school and then even beyond with swim club and other activities in the pool.

Peter Busch: Well we have had some pretty good success there in the storied history of the program. I think we counted like 40 state titles between the boys and girls teams at New Trier?

Mark Onstott: Let's see. I don't think it is quite 40. We are somewhere around 33.

Peter Busch: Oh, sorry. We gave you a few extra.

Mark Onstott: We don't like to exaggerate.

Peter Busch: Okay, so 33, so you obviously not only done a great job of cradle to grave swimming, but really producing some excellent swimmers there.

Mark Onstott: We are very fortunate. We do have a lot of community support. It is an outstanding community. Outstanding place to live and we have a great swim program with our swim club, New Trier Swim Club. We also have started a water polo program in the last few years, a club program that swims out of our pool. So you know there was a lot of activity in the pool and you know when you do that you are going to have great results.

Peter Busch: Now we should note the boy's team won the swimming world national championship back in 2007 so excellent, excellent history there with the program.

Mark Onstott: And really the greatest programs were in the early 60's. I really would be remiss if I didn't point out that 60-61 were tremendous years in New Trier swimming. Years when the swim team, the high school team would go to the indoor short course nationals and they placed third place one year behind Yale and I think USC so they were— it was unbelievable swimming back then and we like to get to that level again. We are working at it.

Peter Busch: Were there any swimmers that we would recognize that we were on those teams?

Mark Onstott: Dave Lyons was on I believe the 64 Olympic team. I think he swam the 800 relay and then I believe Fred Schmidt was also on that team. I think he was a gold medalist on the medley relay. Fred Schmidt was a guy who was a world record holder right out of high school, the summer after he graduated I believe he set a world record in the 100 meter butterfly and had a tremendous career. Actually went on to be a Navy Seal and was the guy who opened the capsule in a couple of the Apollo missions, as he was on the recovery team.

Peter Busch: How about these days, do you have any swimmers that we're going to start to maybe know as household names?

Mark Onstott: I think you probably would notice right now Sam Metz who swims at Cal and was on their National Championship team last year. He scored in the 500 at NCAA and he was on their 800 relay. He has had you know he had had great success here and they are swimming better than ever I'm sure he is an Olympic Trials qualifier. We have a couple other guys who are Olympic trial qualifiers currently on the team. Max Grodecki, Jack Mangan and Reed Malone. Both Jack and Reed and I think Max actually qualified for some trips this past fall, had tremendous long course seasons and are really lightening up swimming right now.

Peter Busch: You have long been associated with high school swimming. You are the former president of NISCA, National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association. What is the state of high school swimming in America right now?

Mark Onstott: Well I think it really depends what state you are in. You know in Illinois it is in tremendous shape. We have outstanding programs. You know we seem to get faster every year. I think in a lot of other places it is like that — Texas ,certainly California and Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania are states that come to mind as really tremendous swimming states. But you know there is always the situation out there with gender equity, and that is certainly hitting the colleges now. It really hasn't hit high school but I would expect that that is something that is looming on our horizon. We are currently in a situation where I believe the number of programs is growing almost by — on a yearly basis not only in Illinois, but nationwide.

Peter Busch: What do you think when you see some swimmers who could really help the team but maybe they confer with their club coaches and decide we are not going to swim high school this season because it could interfere with you know a big club meet?

Mark Onstott: You know we don't have that problem here. We are very fortunate. It has happened occasionally but basically the highs school experience is really totally different I think it helps round the swimmer and I think prepares from the college experience where it is much more team-oriented like high school so I don't think we have ever had a kid who has come away from our season and thought oh you know I would have swam faster if I was swimming club so, and I think that could be the situation pretty much everywhere. You know we talk a lot. I meet with my club coach every year. He is not my club coach, the New Trier Swim Club Coach I meet with him every week excuse me. We talk a lot we know we have some unique rules in Illinois where the kids cannot swim club during the high school season but you know we are running 10, 11 practices a week. They are swimming 2 meets a week normally and I think that 2 meets a week is a good thing as well. It gives them an opportunity to swim, a lot of different things. It gives them an opportunity to really learn about racing and having and really having that pressure on it you know it is go time right now. You know, we need to be that team, we need to have our guys swimming as fast as possible and there is really no hiding, you know like kind of just swim this race and be in my own little world. So I think it is a tremendous help to swimmers and I think it you know they are obviously a lot of club coaches have a control situation. They like to control it. I certainly understand that you know I guess have been accused of being a bit of a control freak myself, but you know sometimes you let them have that different experience and it really is a very positive thing for them.

Peter Busch: Well coach, thanks for sharing your thoughts, good luck with the big 100th Anniversary Dual Meet. That sounds like a lot of fun for your team and for the community.

Mark Onstott: Thank you very much.

Peter Busch: Alright, that is Coach Mark Onstott joining us in the FINIS monitor today. And that is it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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