Did you know that there are only seven other Division III programs with separate head men's and women's coaches? In fact, there are less than thirty among all college swimming. What makes Carthage different is how the women's and men's teams are working together.
With high-caliber athletes comes the need to specialize. That's great except women's coach Beth DeLaRosby and would oftentimes find ourselves writing 3-6 workouts for each practice. That's great, except it tends to spread the coaching staff a little thin (though not as thin say as a head coach working with men's and women's teams).
So last summer Beth and I decided we could be more effective if we could focus on our own strengths. While we've been very successful sprinting, I felt she was even stronger (I mean one national champion to her name). At the same time, most of my coaching success has been related to IM'ers, Breaststrokers, Mid-Distance and Distance.
What resulted then was a unique partnership where Beth has become our de facto "Sprint Coach" along with her duties as Women's Coach while I'm our "Mid-Distance/Distance" Coach along with being the men's coach. Three days a week we're separated by gender, three days a week we're separated by specialty giving us the best of both worlds - combined and separate programs.
The only downside so far . . . I've got a lot more names to remember now.
With high-caliber athletes comes the need to specialize. That's great except women's coach Beth DeLaRosby and would oftentimes find ourselves writing 3-6 workouts for each practice. That's great, except it tends to spread the coaching staff a little thin (though not as thin say as a head coach working with men's and women's teams).
So last summer Beth and I decided we could be more effective if we could focus on our own strengths. While we've been very successful sprinting, I felt she was even stronger (I mean one national champion to her name). At the same time, most of my coaching success has been related to IM'ers, Breaststrokers, Mid-Distance and Distance.
What resulted then was a unique partnership where Beth has become our de facto "Sprint Coach" along with her duties as Women's Coach while I'm our "Mid-Distance/Distance" Coach along with being the men's coach. Three days a week we're separated by gender, three days a week we're separated by specialty giving us the best of both worlds - combined and separate programs.
The only downside so far . . . I've got a lot more names to remember now.