{"id":277540,"date":"2017-09-17T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=277540"},"modified":"2017-09-16T15:55:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T22:55:32","slug":"dave-durden-engineering-consistently-fast-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/dave-durden-engineering-consistently-fast-swimming\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Durden Engineering Consistently Fast Swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morning Splash<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by David Rieder.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dave Durden<\/strong> made no effort to sugarcoat it. \u201cI wasn\u2019t a very good swimmer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As a coach, though, Durden acquitted himself well. Entering his 11th season as the head men\u2019s coach at Cal, his teams have finished in the top two at the NCAA championships each of the previous eight years. And in 2016, he and assistant Yuri Suguiyama<\/strong> placed five swimmers on the U.S. Olympic team.<\/p>\n

Aside from his stable of professionals and his college team\u2014expected to again be among the best in the country this season\u2014Durden was head coach for the U.S. men\u2019s team at this summer\u2019s FINA World Championships.<\/p>\n

It was his second straight Worlds leading the U.S. team, and after a rough go of it in Kazan\u2014where, in his own words, he \u201cmessed up all the relays\u201d\u2014Durden earned plenty of praise for his work in Budapest, including from legendary Texas coach and U.S. men\u2019s assistant Eddie Reese<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is Mr. Organized,\u201d Reese said. \u201cHe\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, so were the American men in Budapest. Under Durden, the team won seven gold medals and 16 total medals, up from just two gold medals and 10 total podium finishes two years earlier in Kazan.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Durden has consistently been able to get his swimmers\u2014currently those at Cal and on the U.S. National team, but before that at Auburn and at Maryland\u2014to swim fast at crunch time. He\u2019s learned the right buttons to push for any individual athlete or squad.<\/p>\n

But when it came time for Durden himself to compete for the first time in 19 years, he needed a little bit of an extra boost.<\/p>\n

Durden\u2019s children swim in a local summer league, and he was tapped for leadoff duty for the Scottsdale Swim Club dads’\u2019 100 free relay at the city championship meet. So he came out for the race in a full-body polyurethane suit\u2014one of the ones that have been banned from competition since 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the Walnut Creek City League bylaws, there are no suit restrictions placed on the parents\u2019 relay, one of the final events of the city meet,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like running off the side of the deck is not prohibited in the parents\u2019 relay, the tech suit is also a legal suit.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Durden ended up giving his team a bodylength lead after his 10-second 25 free leadoff leg, and the other three dads held on for victory.<\/p>\n