The Morning Swim Show, March 5, 2012: Maureen Travers Talks About Academic and Athletic Expectations at C.W. Post

PHOENIX, Arizona, March 5. THE women's swim team at Long Island University — C.W. Post brought in the highest GPA across all NCAA divisions last fall, according to the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show, head coach Maureen Travers talks about the accomplishment.

Travers talks about the expectations she has for her swimmers, from a minimum grade point average to the study hall requirements. She also talks about how the foreign athletes perceive their academic responsibilities compared to the American athletes. 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.)

Peter Bush: This is the Morning Swim Show for Monday, March 5th, 2012. I am your host Peter Bush in the FINIS Monitor today. We will talk to Maureen Travers. She is the Head Coach of the women swim team of Long Island University C.W. Post. Last week we talked to the coaches at the swim teams that were honored with the highest GPA in division 1 swimming by the College Swim Coaches Association and Coach Travers' team just won the honor for division 2. And she joins us right now in the FINIS Monitor from Brookville, New York. Coach welcome to the Morning Swim Show, how are you?

Maureen Travers: I am well. Thanks.

Peter Bush: Well your team had a 3.7 GPA that was higher than any swim team in any division of college swimming so congratulations.

Maureen Travers: Thanks very much.

Peter Bush: And I think you won the longest title for the name of the university so.

Maureen Travers: Probably.

Peter Bush: Extra kudos. First of all tell us about your school.

Maureen Travers: C.W. Post is part of Long Island University and it is a private institution. The campus that we are on is about 40 to 100 undergraduate students and then another probably like 5,000 graduate students, doctoral students, but it is a pretty small midsize campus I guess.

Peter Bush: Is it known for fantastic academics or do you just have the smartest kids on campus?

Maureen Travers: Honestly, we have the smartest kids on campus, but it is a good school academically and I am just very fortunate to be working with a team that understands that balancing academics with their swimming is an important thing to do and they need to have good grades and go on in their future beyond swimming.

Peter Bush: So do you emphasize that from day 1 as the coach or even before that when you are recruiting them?

Maureen Travers: When we recruit we are actually very, we are very clear with people what we expect from a swimming aspect but it is also very clear to them that I tell them out right. We don't expect people to be under a 3.0 that sometimes it happens obviously but there is always the expectation that you should be striving to maintain a minimum of the 3.0 and you know and then we do probably what most other people do. We have a study hall that is required for Freshmen and so long as people show that they are doing fine and can handle their academics they are free after their first year from that, but I tell them I am a product of my environment and they are coming in to my program in my House growing up, you get to mess around with academics and that is pretty much how we run the program here. So they know what is expected than when they come in.

Peter Bush: It sounds like the girls really buy into it.

Maureen Travers: Absolutely. I have a mix, I have some international students as well as some Americans and I think some of it is with the international kids. They are looking to come to college to be able to continue their academics, that is a big important thing for them and they want to be able to combine the swimming with that which they often can't do in their home countries so there is a really big buy-in right there and then the American keeps coming in, they understand what the expectations are. If you are coming from a different perspective, but as a group they sort of feed off of each other and I know they have socialized but they understand during season their concentration is their swimming and their school and to get things done.

Peter Bush: Well tell us about how the season is going. It sounds like you just had your conference meet?

Maureen Travers: We had our conference meet a little over a week ago. We had a very successful season. We were 10-1 on Dual Meet season and right now we are waiting for our national invitations to come out but we are hoping that we qualified relays and four individuals, but I won't know till tomorrow.

Peter Bush: It looks like it is a pretty young team.

Maureen Travers: It is a very young team and we only have 2 seniors this year, mostly the freshmen and sophomores, so it gives us a tremendous amount to grow but they are all starting in the right direction which is great for us.

Peter Bush: And the program — what kind of coaching philosophy would you say?

Maureen Travers: Our coaching philosophy, I would say is always to really do your very best and again it sort of ties in with the academics a lot with us the way we promote the program from within is that we want people to qualify for a national, we want you to do as well in school as you can and while everybody won't have a 4.0 and everyone won't qualify for nationals the underlying belief is that you should be committing 125% to what you are doing so when they are here on back on the deck or in the pool you are giving us everything. And when practices are over, we are good. You don't have to think about something anymore and you need to focus on the next thing at hand, but whatever you are doing you do to the best of your ability. It is not just go to school and well study enough just to get a C, you should always be studying to get an A. Whether it happens or not is the same thing with swimming.We should be always trying to do your best. Everybody has all faves in practice but within that there are always small things that you can focus on even if that day you're sort of tired, you can't see the really bigger things.

Peter Bush: Well it is good to hear that there is still somebody — a coach who has their head in the right place when it comes to academics. We have done — this is now the third show in the past few shows that we have done focusing on this highlighting the teams that won this amazing honor of the highest GPA, because let's face it we are in a day and age in which college sports, usually the bigger money making sports, have kind of been tainted by, it certainly seems to be more of a focus on what goes on the field rather than the classroom and at the end of the day this is helping you know people remind them that they are student athletes right?

Maureen Travers: Absolutely.

Peter Bush: Well coach thank you so much for joining us. Good luck with the NCAA invites and have a good rest of the season.

Maureen Travers: Thank you, thanks very much.

Peter Bush: Alright that is Coach Maureen Travers joining us in the FINIS Monitor today. That is it for today's show. I am Peter Bush reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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