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What does it take to build a championship-level program without allowing college swimming to become purely transactional?

Stanford men’s swimming head coach Dan Schemmel joins Chris DeSantis to discuss his unlikely path from Hawaii to one of the most prestigious jobs in the sport—and the moment he finally felt that he belonged there. They explore how Stanford is navigating NIL, the transfer era, and the growing pressure to treat the athlete-coach relationship as an exchange of immediate benefits.

Dan also explains why recruiting athletes who genuinely love swimming matters, how a strong team culture can sustain people when their individual motivation fades, and why the sport needs to better recognize age-group and club coaches. The conversation closes with a look at leadership, the difference between “learners” and “knowers,” and whether faster performances are necessarily producing better swimmers.

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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 what the opening episodes of season four reveal about coaching, leadership and the systems surrounding women’s sports. They explore Coach Chilton’s technical strengths and relational blind spots, Rebecca’s failure to consider a woman for the head coaching position, the limitations of copying and pasting from the men’s game, and how Emma Hayes has turned a deeper understanding of female athletes into a competitive advantage.

They also examine the power of teams to bring different people together—and why sports need more leaders like Keeley, who refuse to diminish themselves to fit an inherited model.

Contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Ted Lasso season four.

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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, joins to explain why swimmers need to think more like endurance athletes—and what happens when training volume and fueling fall out of alignment. We discuss early-morning practices without breakfast, why sugar and sports drinks can be valuable performance tools, and the practical barriers that keep exhausted athletes from eating consistently.

The conversation also explores why effective nutrition advice must account for the individual, how restrictive ideas about “healthy” eating can leave athletes less adaptable, and what coaches should look for when bringing nutrition professionals into their programs.

Finally, Alicia offers a nuanced approach to one of swimming’s most difficult subjects: body composition.