The Swim Brief

You Don’t Have to Write the Workout — Stephanie Juncker

Send us Fan Mail You don’t have to write the workout to be a hell of a coach. Louisville associate head coach Stephanie Juncker joins Chris to discuss how coaches make

How Hard Are You Really Looking? — Bex Freebairn

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to keep good coaches in swimming—and how hard are we really looking for the people we say we want to hire? UCLA associate head coach

The Guests Are on Fire — Ricki Clausen

Send us Fan Mail Are we debating how much salt to put in the soup while the guests are on fire? Ricki Clausen returns to The Swim Brief for a bonus episode about what’s

The Workout Isn't Why They Keep Coming Back - Cal Brown

Send us Fan Mail Cal Brown’s posts about swim training have occasionally gotten under my skin. So I invited him onto The Swim Brief to explore the experiences behind his

Who Gets to Coach Differently? - Ted Lasso, Part Two

Send us Fan Mail Juliet Suess returns for the second half of our Ted Lasso conversation, exploring who gets the freedom to coach differently—and who still has to prove t

You Can't Fix Confidence At Championships: Jack Brown

Send us Fan Mail You can’t wait until championships to teach swimmers how to handle championships. Wisconsin head coach Dr. Jack Brown joins Chris DeSantis to discuss w

Milo Cavic Wouldn't Like His Younger Self

Send us Fan Mail Milo Cavic looks back at his younger self and sees an athlete he wouldn’t necessarily enjoy coaching: self-centered, fiercely invested in success, and d

The Coaching Culture That Pushes Parents Out: Tracy Slusser

Send us Fan Mail Tracy Slusser has coached three NCAA championship teams. She has also experienced a coaching culture that made having children feel incompatible with do

Don't Finish The Athlete

Send us Fan Mail What is a developmental coach actually trying to finish? Longhorn Aquatics head coach Mike Laitala joins Chris DeSantis to discuss why producing fast y

Wisdom Isn’t Taught. It’s Revealed

Send us Fan Mail Jack Roach has spent a lifetime learning from coaches—and helping coaches and athletes learn from one another. In this conversation, Jack reflects on h

Building Swimmers Who Want To Be There: Jonathan Kaplan

Send us Fan Mail What makes swimmers want to keep showing up—not because an attendance policy requires it, but because they genuinely want to be there? Jonathan Kaplan,

Building Culture in College Swimming’s Transactional Era

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to build a championship-level program without allowing college swimming to become purely transactional? Stanford men’s swimming head

Building Women's Sports Differently: Ted Lasso Season 4

Send us Fan Mail Ted Lasso returns with a new challenge: building a women’s team inside a sporting structure created for men. Chris DeSantis and Juliet Suess discuss wh

Why Swimmers Aren’t Eating Enough | Alicia Glass

Send us Fan Mail Swimmers spend hours in the pool, yet many still aren’t eating enough to support the work they’re doing. Alicia Glass, Sport Dietitian for USA Swimming

To Save Swimming, Start With the Coaches | Doug Cornish

Send us Fan Mail Swimming has spent decades asking coaches to become more professional. But has the profession done enough to support them in return? Doug Cornish is a

The Making of a Head Coach | Margo Geer

Send us Fan Mail Margo Geer’s path to becoming the head coach at the University of Alabama was anything but conventional. When she took over the program at 28, plenty of

Reflecting on 50 Years of Coaching | Don Wagner

Send us Fan Mail Don Wagner spent more than fifty years coaching swimmers at every level of the sport—from developing young athletes to coaching Olympic champion Janet E

How Do Great Programs Stay Great? | Todd DeSorbo

Send us Fan Mail Todd DeSorbo has built one of the most dominant programs in college swimming history—but he says there was never a master plan. In this conversation we

Leadership, Responsibility, and Shame in The Odyssey

Send us Fan Mail What can The Odyssey teach us about leadership when every available choice carries consequences? Chris is joined by Juliet Seuss for a different kind o

We Protect Athletes. Who Protects Coaches? | Sophie Parr

Send us Fan Mail For years, conversations about athlete welfare have rightly transformed the way we think about coaching. But there's another side of the equation t