World Class Parents

”So, you want to offer your child the opportunity to be a world-class athlete….”
By John Leonard - Executive Director of the American Swimming Coaches Association.

If the above sentence doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you as a coach reading it, good for you!

The fact is, a number of parents DO, without being raging lunatics, wish to offer their child the best possible chance to be a great athlete….in the same way that they’d like to offer them the chance to attend the most prestigious University, visit the best doctors, be a world-class musician or artist, etc. etc. etc.

The key word is “OFFER”. Not “force”. Not “Make”.  Offer. The issue, if you take the words “world class” out of there….is that MOST parents want to “de-limit” their children and “offer them the chance for the best opportunities in life.”.  Put that way, it doesn’t sound so bad. In fact, it sounds like “most of us”.

As every coach knows, the devil is in the execution. (or the details, if you prefer.)
I was asked this question twice on a recent trip to Africa…..where the topic came up because of the perception that African children who aspire to be swimmers are considerably limited  on their continent. Overall, I thought it a fair question.  Here’s my answer….I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts.

#1.  It’s all about the coaching.  Led by the great researcher, Dr. Anders Ericsson, we know that expertise comes from 10,000 hours of focused, purposeful practice, guided by a “coach” of skill, knowledge and understanding of the learning process providing top quality feedback. So the number one task of the parent on the track of great opportunities….do your homework, research the coaches available to your child, spend time in conversation with them, reach a mutually satisfying understanding of “who is doing what” and then get out of the way, and TRUST THEM to do right with your child. You can “oversee the process” but let the coach, Coach.

That’s answer 1, 1A and 1B…..nothing else comes close in importance.  Here are a few other ideas, however.

#2.  It’s about RESILIENCE!  Your child, all children, are going to hit some rough patches in their development. Teach them to persevere, don’t get the roadblocks out of their way FOR them, let them learn to struggle with it and overcome. Everyone gets knocked back/down. The child has to get good at getting back up…ON THEIR OWN.

“Curling parents” are those rushing down the path ahead of the child, trying to clear every obstacle out of the way for them……and never letting the child gain the satisfaction of overcoming challenges. Don’t be one.

“Helicopter parents” are those who hover over their child at every moment, so intent on making sure the child “gets it” that they become the biggest distraction to the child ever “getting it”.  Go sit down. Relax. Read a paper. When the child’s done, love them, don’t make them replay every moment of practice for you. Don’t be one.

#3.  It’s about personal responsibility. Make sure you teach your child that “if it’s to be, it’s up to me.”  If they want to be a world class athlete, only their effort will take them there. Effort. Not talent. Tons of people have talent to achieve great things. Few do. Often because their proud parents forgot that effort is the only way to achieve.  Teach effort.

#4.  Be a Motivation Machine. As the great swimmer Michael Phelps was on his steady, effortful rise to the top of the swimming world, his coach Bob Bowman described Michael as a “Motivation Machine”. Something good happens, he got up the next morning with the mind-set, “I want more of that.” And he went off to practice. (not staying in bed congratulating himself..”I earned some more sleep this morning…I’ll sleep in..”) When something Bad happened, Michael got up and went to practice with the mindset “I’m NEVER letting that happen again”. (not staying in bed and having a mini-pity-party.) One of the greatest things I have ever heard that separates a great individual from the rest of us….Be a Motivation Machine.

Parents, you can teach that to your child and it will be a life-gift of importance.

#5. ENJOY THE RIDE! The Chinese have a saying…”most of life is about Chop Wood, Haul Water”. Mundane tasks that are essential to our progress in life. Life is not always wildly exciting and “ fun”. Mostly, it’s steady mundane effort and work. So learn (both as a parent, and teach to the child…) to enjoy and be very “satisfied” with the day to day tasks that, like water impacting the rock, make up our journey towards

Marlins April Home Meet

Not too bad of a turnout for what could be described as not the most ideal weekend for a meet. Still 62 swimmers participated, about double the amount of swimmers from last year, and we welcomed 9 kids who participated in their first meet ever. Everyone was a bit nervous but stepped up to meet the new challenge presented to them. Congrats to Ashley and Mack Blood, Harrison Flynn, Nick Ginwala, Rachel Katz, Morgan Mutscheller, Jordan Price, Haley Summers  and James Worthington.

A 48% best time is well below average, and we owe this relatively weak performance to our older swimmers who were swimming a bit tired. Could be the 30,000 yards a week they are swimming or the difficulty to get fired-up during this kind of competitive format ... at least not all is lost, these athletes still put a pretty good show for our younger kids to watch. In Particular, the following swimmers had a great meet: Jude and Belen Mirsky, Lani Kamler, Sienna and Nick Berry and Ella Biesiadecki.

All in all a good event that hopefully got our new families to learn a bit more about the sport and our older one to have some time to catch-up. Looks like Bobby offered a good alternative to our snack bar. I am thinking about passing the job on to the RRC kitchen from now on. I welcome your feedback in this area.


While not swimming close enough to their best times, our older kids managed to break 2 team records. Alicia Vogelaar, Emma Jones, Justas Reskevicius and Jared Sears broke the 13 and over mixed 200 free relay record and Alicia, Emma, Jared and Alex Claman broke the 13 and over mixed 200 medley relay record. Good job!

Next on the Marlins schedule is the long course meet in Vallejo on May 6,7 and 8. So far we have 14 swimmers attending and the meet is schedule to close on 4/28 or earlier if enough swimmers enter the meet.

On May 13 and 14, all our high schoolers will be competing for their respective high schools in their league championships. We will be preparing our athletes to perform as best as they can for this event. A week later those who qualify will get to compete in the North Coast Section High school championships.

In the meantime, the next meet open to everyone on the team is schedule for Saturday, May 21 at the Tiburon Peninsula Club and will be hosted by NBA. I recommend this meet for all the swimmers. This is very much like our home meets. The meet will be open for registration shortly.

I have officially closed our Spring session schedule to end on 6/10. I will still consider accepting returning Marlins swimmers to the team, but all new swimmers will have to wait until the beginning of the Summer season on June 13.

Marlins News - Monticello / Napa

Jeff and I took 22 swimmers to Monticello High School in Napa for our first meet in this venue. What a treat!

Great weather, gorgeous pool. See the picture below,

and a really fun format getting the kids to swim 5 events in one day. Although we had some technical difficulties with the timing system which lengthened the meet by almost 2 hours (that's a lot!). I felt it was still a good meet, so much so that we will be returning to that same pool on August 6th for the same meet.

Overall, the Marlins swimmers did a great job. 102 races with 9 disqualifications and a 62% best time. We could have avoided a few DQs, but otherwise the races were pretty clean. Every swimmer but one improved at least one race and in the process two of them managed to break another 3 team records. Bringing the total team record broken for this season alone to 40!

Congratulation to Coco Berkenfield (9-10) for 2 new team records in the 50 back and the 50 fly and to Ava Salmi (13-14) for breaking a 9 year old record in the 200 free.

Coco managed to earn another JO cut in the 100 free and a Far Western cut in the 50 back, also Ian Chow-Ise swam his first JO cut ever in the 200 free. Anika Berde, Jack Berkenfield, Ian Chow-Ise, Erin Hensley and Lani Kamler all contributed to a total of 8 new A times that day.

Since this meet was a pentathlon, it was scored on the result of each events, ultimately rewarded the most well rounded athlete in the pool. Coco Berkenfield managed to get the High point award by winning all 5 events and Ava Salmi tied for the same award in the 13-14 age group category.

We had the opportunity to watch Chloe Isleta (11-12) who happened to be at the meet. It is a random event as she is currently the best swimmer in the country in her age group. We all got treated to a solid show of great strokes, turns and transitions at a blazing speed. Humbling, but exciting as well.

Thank you again for all the parents who helped during the meet.

Good Job.

Far Westerns Championships

We just returned from the Far Western Championships in Morgan Hill where Jeff and I took 4 swimmers to compete over 4 days of competition. I was expecting a strong performance and alas it didn't happen. Unfortunately, I cannot find blame anywhere obvious (the plot thickens) and I am filling away a whole bunch of info that may make sense later.

Monica Sears had a tough meet which started with a problem with her race suit in her 200 free. She missed a best time by 1.7 seconds and recovered nicely in her following race, the 100 fly where she posted a best time and a new team record. The following day she swam the 200 IM and although she was 3 seconds ahead of her personal best half way through the race, she wasn’t able to maintain the intensity of the swim and fell back a bit to miss a best time by half a second. On Saturday, she swam the 500 free. We all had great hopes as she was seeded 8^th in prelims and stood a good chance to qualify for finals. Unfortunately after the second 50 she was already off pace and never recovered. She finish that race 8.5 seconds behind her best! Two hours later she dives in for her 100 back and somehow pulls off a best time by half a second and break another team record. Talk about highs and lows! Finally, Sunday arrives and her first race is the 50 free, she stood a good chance to improve, and she did, not by much, just one tenth of a second, but that was enough to break the third and last team record of the meet, a record that stood for over 10 years. Fifteen minutes later she dives in for her last race of the meet, the 100 breast. By now she is pretty tired, physically and emotionally and she falls short of her best time by 2.6 seconds. Throughout this whole meet she maintained her cool, sure she was bummed about her slower races, but she kept attacking each one as if they were her first.

Jared, her brother, swam the 200 back with a great improvement on his transition. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get a best time. Two days later he raced in the 100 back and raced slower than he did back in July of last year. It happens, even with hard training, sometimes it can go bad.

Tyler Welty was there to improve a race that he had done 2 weeks earlier, the same race that got him qualified for this meet. He fell short of his goal by three tenth of a second. I could blame his turns (and I could be right) but all in all he swam a much better race this time. It was well paced and he finished strong.

Aidan Cumming qualified in the 50 breast like Tyler, two weeks before. But unlike Tyler, he had to change his dive, his pull down, his kick and his glide. How did he qualify for this meet in the first place? That’s how much raw talent is in this kid. The cool part is that he did change his dive, lengthen his glides, cleaned up his pull down and manage to fix his kick, at least for the first half of the race. And yes, with all that he did get a best time.

I usually do not ramble about the specific of each race, but I felt there was a good story behind the numbers. 36% best time was just not giving the whole picture. Anyways, good job to all of you, and a big thank you to your parents for the support they afforded you.