Q/A with Brian Striker Head Coach of Men s and Women s Swimming and Diving

Transcription

1 Q/A with Brian Striker Head Coach of Men s and Women s Swimming and Diving Is recruiting/athlete-hunting a very time consuming process? It is an ongoing process. The most time consuming aspect is tracking down students for whom I believe Alfred University would be a good fit - academically and athletically. I make sure to be open and upfront about who I am as a coach, and what Alfred University is as an institution. I believe that Alfred University is a very special institution. I have had a really good record of getting students here who have a great experience. I think that if you compared my (swimming and diving) retention rate to that of my peers, you would find that once I get a student here for the right reasons, they do extremely well. The students who I recruit and end up attending, have roughly a 90% graduation rate from Alfred University, which is much higher than most, I would guess. Where/how will I fit in? Even when we finished as high as 6 th in the Nation, or when we won our Conference or UNYSCSA championships, we have always had a wide spectrum of talent. A championship roster can only have 22 athletes (22 men, 22 women). We have had as many as 28 men and 25 women on our teams over the years. I am always looking for anyone who would improve upon our current abilities in both swimming and diving. My goals are to have consistent ncaa qualifiers on our team and I believe that with the right amount of talent, commitment, and drive, we could consistently have 10 or more athletes at that meet. To do so, we need athletes that will both come in and be able to break our school records, and athletes that will support the depth of our team. Both of the following links show our top 15, school records, pool records, etc. What are the grade requirements to be considered for admittance? We have several different programs (schools) that each probably look at things slightly differently. The higher the SAT or ACT score and/or GPA, the better the academic scholarship. Our admissions website: has some links to information that will help answer this question. Can you tell me more about financial aid? The following link has a breakdown of aid given to the last first year class. I find that we are extremely competitive with aid. Moreover, we are regularly ranked and looked at by others as one of the best returns on investment. Is your program combined? For the most part, we do everything together. I may pull the men or women aside for a separate meeting once in a while, but 99% of the time, we are one program. We train together and attend almost all meets together.

2 I have been asking many college coaches questions about their training philosophies and coaching styles. A common theme is that nobody "does garbage yardage", that they do lots of "quality swimming". That seems to be the common theme! It is easy for a coach to say whatever they feel you want to hear. There are many different styles of coaching out there Don t just take a coaches word for it ask some swimmers in their program! From a personal perspective, we tend to try for quality on most days, but some days we do work out longer with less rest. In my mind there are two categories of quality. The first involves drill work, correct stroke technique, good turns, etc. The second category is swimming correctly with rest that will work different energy zones from one end of the spectrum to the other; usually focusing on a certain velocity. In our program, each athlete gets something a little bit different on different days depending on their events and goals. I try to be very cognizant about what each athlete needs at any given point in our season. I do this by observation, data tracking, and communication (between myself and the student-athletes and/or through our coaching staff, etc). What is the typical season length / time commitment, etc? Our season is basically from the middle of September through the end of February. NCAA rules allow a division III coach to coach for 19 weeks, dating back from the championship meet. We work in the breaks (thanksgiving and winter) and work backwards from the championship meet. This is pretty standard amongst division III programs (at least it should be). A few of our athletes do the bare minimum, while some work very hard pre and post season. We often have a good chunk of our team (usually the most committed) swim intensely in the off-season. During the season, we practice 2 hours a day for our main practice and about an hour a day for doubles (the number of doubles per week varies from individual to invidual). The double practices in some cases are just weights and dryland workouts. In most all weeks during the season, I expect them to do 6 days a week with one off day. I can honestly say that, in my opinion, my student-athletes have enough time to balance athletics, academics, and even a social life. Do you have a "compass" or core list of "principles" that affect your practice programming every single day? I work very hard to coach to each athlete's needs. I do not believe that there is any one coaching style that works for an entire team (of individuals). Each of my athletes does something different. I try to plan this, but also change things on the fly based on my intuition as well. I do this by moving people from lane to lane during different types of sets, writing multiple workouts or main sets for a practice, having different training, weight, and dryland groups, etc. I have some athletes that do an average of 4000 a day, and some that do between yards a practice. I have athletes that swim doubles and some that don't. This past season, I had our sprint group do two separate one hour practices on Tuesdays, which seemed to have great results. I try to be scientific about weight training principles and how that works in and out of season as well as what we do as far as types of sets in practice. The past three years, we have worked closely with our Strength and Conditioning coach to develop a program that works for our student-athletes. We are currently working on our seasonal plan for next year and have high expectations!

3 What is something that you learned about coaching/writing practices in the past season(s)? I want to give my distance guys more threshold training work and a bit more yardage in the early-mid season. I need them to be swimming better in mid-season practices so they are used to their end of season paces. Our sprinters did very well this past season. We will probably keep the practice load similar, but increase our power work on powertowers, weight room, and dryland We saw a very good improvement with most of our swimmers throughout our season and in our championship meet. A good amount of best times. I would say that this was due to a better job with workouts in the peak of our season (not letting swimmers get too broken down), along with a very good mix of dryland and weights to complement our training. We also made sure to make our sets bring out the best in swimmers by challenging a few of them to feed off of each other. We always do this, however, it seemed to really work well this year. I used the dryboard setup with spotting rig with the divers this year and it helped to make our practices more productive This past season, we worked very hard on team cohesiveness, and coaching intangibles. I want to do better with this as we move forward. We are in a great place, and I want to make sure that we continue to head in that direction. I plan on increasing the intensity with my returning athletes earlier in the season, as we have some big shoes to fill. I also want to do better with recruiting not only decent numbers, but increasing our talent base. My overall goal is to better our finish at our championship meet, and get relays to nationals This unit work harder than any other. Perhaps not as deep as some in the past, they knew they would have to work extra hard. We had the longest break between semesters that I have ever coached, and it showed. If I am being honest and hard on myself, I have learned that I need plan less of a break in December (hopefully it will never be as long next year, for example, it is about 10 days less). I also want to work harder in mentally preparing them to be ready to work as hard when they choose to leave campus for breaks. What is something that you've noticed that you ve seen other coaches regard as not important, that YOU think is important? I spend a great deal of time mentoring my student-athletes. I believe it is really important to be flexible and allow some leeway when it comes to out of the pool activities; mainly academics. I think that I do a very good job at helping my student-athletes achieve a decent balance between priorities during their collegiate years. Along with that, I do my best to help shape each individual by creating an atmosphere that focuses on the development of great character traits. I like our team to be a class act, good sports, and my end goal is for other teams to emulate us. I focus a great deal of time helping each individual grow as a leader. I am a humble person, but am a fierce competitor. I really enjoy success and feel that with each small (or large) step towards our goals, we in turn make ourselves more successful. Our men's and women's program work together to help each other reach their goals. By competing and training at our best individually and as a team, we will be successful as a program. The team will take care of the individuals and the individuals take care of the team. What about Academics? To me, academics need to be the priority as a college student. Some studentathletes are able to balance their academics so as to be able to put the maximum effort into their swimming/diving, and this is great; however, many need some direction and guidance. Throughout a

4 student-athlete s four years, I work very hard to know how they are doing in the classroom and gauge where they are in relationship to their goals and plans. I am flexible when it comes to academics in a way that seems to work well within our program. Our women s program has been an academic All- American program 25 out of 28 semesters since I took over the program in I plan our schedules so that athletes have a choice of practice times in the afternoon. In the Fall semester of 2015, we had the highest program GPA (both men and women) that we have ever had. There are many different types of academic programs here, ranging from art and design, engineering, business, to many liberal arts and professional type programs. This makes a coaches life very interesting! I work very closely with each individual to provide them with the optimum training that does not interfere with their academic workload. I try to contact professors of athletes who may struggle and find ways that I can help out. If I feel like I can (without interfering with academics), I create very in depth and intense training plan for each athlete. We have an alert system on campus that allow professors or profession staff to notify everyone in a student s circle who may need to be aware of something. Do you coach a club team during the summer.. I do not...i currently do a week long swim camp at Alfred University, and two separate two week clinics in the city of Hornell, NY. I also send or have someone on my staff send out regular workouts for those student-athletes on our team who want to keep training throughout the summer in a way that will complement what we will do next season; including weight training, dryland, and swimming. We have had students stay over the summer and complete practices with the local club or in small groups. If you were paid exactly the same across all levels, what would be your favorite type of swimmers (can be categorized by level of speed (senior, olympic trials, age group, etc), age, stroke specialty, league (college, club, summer leagues,) to work with, and why? I was lucky enough to start out after college coaching with a club that made me coach all levels. I spent the first four months doing the developmental program from getting in the water with four year olds to coaching the 12 year olds. After that I was asked to work with the senior group. This group had Senior National level athletes, and swimmers who would go on to excel in all three collegiate divisions. During the two plus years I coached that club team, I also coached a high school team. That whole time, I felt that my greatest connection was with the student athletes who were either in college or heading off to college. For whatever reason, I am able to make a decent, professional, connection with my studentathletes, which in turn allows me to be a good coach and mentor. I think that I am mainly a college coach; but I do enjoy my time working with younger athletes at clinics. I would love to have some Olympic level athletes in my program (I am confident that I would be able to help them achieve) - hopefully someday soon I will. With each year in Division III becomes increasingly competitive; each new Olympic cycle yields more and more Olympic qualifiers (Alfred University has had one in the past!). I enjoy the aspect of having a wide ranging team though too...i have year round swimmers and seasonal swimmers, etc. Who do you think has had the greatest impact on your philosophy as a leader of the swim team (role models, coaching clinic speaker, former coaches, etc) I have been lucky to have swum for some good coaches. My high school coach wasn't much of a swimmer, but he was one of the best motivators ever! I also swam under one of the most well-known coaches (has coached gold medal Olympians) in the world for a while. My college coach and club

5 coaches were also pretty good. Each one had great attributes that I consider myself having in my toolbox. I try to take a bit from everyone I meet...sort it out and figure out if it works for me. I would say my personal philosophy and coaching style is a conglomeration of many, many influences. Some coaches regard themselves as coaches, teachers, psychologists, motivators, mentors, parents, etc... which do you feel is your strongest role? Would it be cliché to say I am pretty well rounded? I really think that each one of my two hundred or more different student-athletes over the past 13 years would say that I am good at all of them, or have a little bit of each within me...i really do think that when someone leaves our program, they can say that I have helped them out to be better in all aspects of their collegiate lives... Just as the athletes, I am constantly growing and trying to improve. I do not think that I am the best, but certainly strive to do the best I can for the sake of my student-athletes. My two cents: I am very competitive and love to win; however, I am realistic about the sport of swimming and know that there are days that are better or worse than others. My goals are to bring both our men's and women's programs to the national championships (top 10) on a consistent basis. Some of my greatest memories and accomplishments are not only when my best athletes do great things, but when I see the culmination of my mentoring in all of my athletes. I think that many swimmers and divers leave AU knowing that they were given a lot of attention (through a combination of myself, school officials, and professors, etc), the tools to reach their goals, the advice to be successful, and having been an important cog in a well-oiled machine. Having been a part of our program, I feel like most will be quite successful in their life. Our swimming and diving program is a very large extended family. Each generation tends to stay in touch with each other. I have attended many weddings over the past eightten years and it is not out of the norm to see at least (once more than 25!) of my former teammates or student-athletes there! Another great example is that our championship meets, always away at some other facility, will tend to bring back about 20 or more alumni athletes to cheer us on. I am working hard to advance a positive, hardworking, winning tradition. Perhaps the most rewarding thing is the fact that most of us are very proud of our program and work hard to keep it moving forward in a positive direction.