USC and WSU Get Messed With in Texas
How about this for a hypothesis;
That the actions and decisions of sports administrators can have a material and direct effect on the performance of the athletes in their care; at USC and WSU the actions of administrators have left these two PAC10 programs in disarray.
Let’s look at WSU first:
This team began the school year swimming very well. The only dual meet they've lost this season was to the Number One ranked University of California, Berkeley. Swimmers posted times very close to their bests in dual meets. It looked like WSU was going to make big some moves in the Pac-10.
That the actions and decisions of sports administrators can have a material and direct effect on the performance of the athletes in their care; at USC and WSU the actions of administrators have left these two PAC10 programs in disarray.
Let’s look at WSU first:
This team began the school year swimming very well. The only dual meet they've lost this season was to the Number One ranked University of California, Berkeley. Swimmers posted times very close to their bests in dual meets. It looked like WSU was going to make big some moves in the Pac-10.
About three weeks ago, the WSU Cougars beat arch rivals Washington for the first time in half a decade. The Pullman girls were on a high; pretty excited about their performance and their future. About three quarters of the team decided to celebrate with an “undies” party; no sex, no drugs, just some really happy young women enjoying their success.
As is common these days several photographs of the event appeared on Facebook. The girls were dressed in more than they had been, representing their school twenty-four hours earlier and certainly more than they wore every day at practice. According to sources within the WSU swim team, minors were not consuming alcohol. Also, any and all allegations about the consumption of alcohol that reached WSU’s administration was reported by other athletes. Yep, the girls were suspended partly because of hear-say.
The Coach Erica Quam and the Associate Director Marcia Saneholtz were appalled by the incident. The whole team – that’s right, not only the team members who had been at the party – was banned from the following weekend’s Indiana Invitational and suspended from training. Or, if you listen to some accounts, their coaches simply refused to coach them.
Beside the obvious “shoot-the-whole-village” injustice of their mass punishment, the decision was out of all proportion to the girls’ actions… so out of proportion that one wonders whether some sexual hang up influenced their over reaction.
The effect was immediate and critical. A high spirited team fell apart. Their happy “undies” party had become a swimming wake. The Washington Huskies must be wishing the panty party had been before, not after, their dual meet encounter with the Cougars.
Although a hypothesis can never be proven true, it can be verified beyond reasonable doubt. If the hypothesis that began this item is to be verified the results of the WSU team in their next competition should reflect the contempt of their leaders. Did they? Let’s look at the table below.
But before we do, let’s look at USC.
For fourteen years until 2006 USC was coached by Mark Schubert. His record at USC was as stellar as it had been in previous clubs, colleges and national teams. But more important was his distinctive coaching style. He was one of the sport’s tough buggers. With no nonsense clarity he stood alongside the likes of Talbot, Lydiard and Parcells and he loved distance.
His swimmers earned the right to win Olympic gold by working harder, longer and better than others. Schubert, who saw swimming "a war between the fast-food thinkers and the big-picture thinkers," would like to eliminate the 50 freestyle events from competitions and require all young swimmers to train for race distances of 200 meters and above.
He was an extreme example of his philosophy, strong and uncompromising; and then in 2006 he left USC to join US Swimming as the National Team Head Coach.
I don’t know who, but someone among the 40 odd sport’s administrators at USC was responsible for finding a replacement. Who did they come up with? David Salo. Now I’m not about to question Salo’s record. He’s coached several very good swimmers. But I can’t think of anyone whose training philosophy is more different to Mark Schubert. They are chalk and cheese, oil and water, left and right, yin and yang. Schubert looks fondly down on a set of 10x400 IMs while Salo thinks 1x25,1x50,1x75 x 5 is reason enough to head home.
Surely someone asked the question, “What is such a draconian change going to mean to the poor buggers swimming up and down our swimming pool?” I guess not, because they hired Salo anyway. Adjusting to a change like that will take the athletes involved a year or more, maybe never.
If it has and this article’s hypothesis can be verified, the USC swim team’s results should have been affected. Fortunately both USC and WSU were swimming this weekend in the Texas Invitational; a big meet, sufficiently big that both schools chose it ahead of the US Open Championships being held on the same weekend. Texas was time to go fast.
Let’s see how they did. We have not included all their swimmers' times but have taken the fastest two or three from each school in each event to see how their best got on. To help you read the table the events in which swimmers swam faster than their best previous time, we’ve colored in red.
As is common these days several photographs of the event appeared on Facebook. The girls were dressed in more than they had been, representing their school twenty-four hours earlier and certainly more than they wore every day at practice. According to sources within the WSU swim team, minors were not consuming alcohol. Also, any and all allegations about the consumption of alcohol that reached WSU’s administration was reported by other athletes. Yep, the girls were suspended partly because of hear-say.
The Coach Erica Quam and the Associate Director Marcia Saneholtz were appalled by the incident. The whole team – that’s right, not only the team members who had been at the party – was banned from the following weekend’s Indiana Invitational and suspended from training. Or, if you listen to some accounts, their coaches simply refused to coach them.
Beside the obvious “shoot-the-whole-village” injustice of their mass punishment, the decision was out of all proportion to the girls’ actions… so out of proportion that one wonders whether some sexual hang up influenced their over reaction.
The effect was immediate and critical. A high spirited team fell apart. Their happy “undies” party had become a swimming wake. The Washington Huskies must be wishing the panty party had been before, not after, their dual meet encounter with the Cougars.
Although a hypothesis can never be proven true, it can be verified beyond reasonable doubt. If the hypothesis that began this item is to be verified the results of the WSU team in their next competition should reflect the contempt of their leaders. Did they? Let’s look at the table below.
But before we do, let’s look at USC.
For fourteen years until 2006 USC was coached by Mark Schubert. His record at USC was as stellar as it had been in previous clubs, colleges and national teams. But more important was his distinctive coaching style. He was one of the sport’s tough buggers. With no nonsense clarity he stood alongside the likes of Talbot, Lydiard and Parcells and he loved distance.
His swimmers earned the right to win Olympic gold by working harder, longer and better than others. Schubert, who saw swimming "a war between the fast-food thinkers and the big-picture thinkers," would like to eliminate the 50 freestyle events from competitions and require all young swimmers to train for race distances of 200 meters and above.
He was an extreme example of his philosophy, strong and uncompromising; and then in 2006 he left USC to join US Swimming as the National Team Head Coach.
I don’t know who, but someone among the 40 odd sport’s administrators at USC was responsible for finding a replacement. Who did they come up with? David Salo. Now I’m not about to question Salo’s record. He’s coached several very good swimmers. But I can’t think of anyone whose training philosophy is more different to Mark Schubert. They are chalk and cheese, oil and water, left and right, yin and yang. Schubert looks fondly down on a set of 10x400 IMs while Salo thinks 1x25,1x50,1x75 x 5 is reason enough to head home.
Surely someone asked the question, “What is such a draconian change going to mean to the poor buggers swimming up and down our swimming pool?” I guess not, because they hired Salo anyway. Adjusting to a change like that will take the athletes involved a year or more, maybe never.
If it has and this article’s hypothesis can be verified, the USC swim team’s results should have been affected. Fortunately both USC and WSU were swimming this weekend in the Texas Invitational; a big meet, sufficiently big that both schools chose it ahead of the US Open Championships being held on the same weekend. Texas was time to go fast.
Let’s see how they did. We have not included all their swimmers' times but have taken the fastest two or three from each school in each event to see how their best got on. To help you read the table the events in which swimmers swam faster than their best previous time, we’ve colored in red.
University of Southern California (USC)
Washington State University (WSU)
So what does this say? It says that USC’s and WSU’s best swimmers competed in 48 events and swam 8 personal best times. If other swimmers were added the numbers might change a bit but the principle of a meager 17% PB return would not be unduly affected.
The proposition that began this piece is at least partially verified. At USC and WSU, a group of swimmers are trying their very best but appear to have been brought up short by some strange administration.
PS – We had no sooner finished preparing this item than we received the following message. We thought it best included in the article.
The proposition that began this piece is at least partially verified. At USC and WSU, a group of swimmers are trying their very best but appear to have been brought up short by some strange administration.
PS – We had no sooner finished preparing this item than we received the following message. We thought it best included in the article.
“Maybe it is not even about proper training. A big part of what swimmers have to do every time they step on the block to race, or dive in to a practice, is believe. If they do not believe in the program they are competing for, it's tough times ahead.
That is a big problem at USC. Dave Salo's methods are so opposite to Mark Schubert's that it has become very hard to believe that what they are doing in workout every day is right and beneficial. If an athlete has spent their whole life training in a Mark Schubert type of environment, changing over to a Dave Salo environment is like having to change what you were brought up believing in.
Your body at a young age was conditioned to be beat up by yardage and tough sets like 10x400 IMs. Trying to make practices that contain 1x25 1x50 1x75 x5 work is something that is not easy to accomplish. You have to have belief to go along with it. And when the athletic directors at the school choose someone so different from Mark Schubert to replace him, a lot of that belief is lost. At least, that is a big part of what happened with me.”
posted by Swimwatch at 7:17 PM
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