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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.

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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 former swim coach, financial planner, and the creator of the 2025 Swim Coaches Compensation Survey. His findings expose how precarious coaching has become: 38% of respondents reported working without a current contract, while 80% had no cost-of-living adjustment built into their agreements.

Doug and I discuss why coaches continue accepting these conditions, how poor financial stewardship limits what clubs can provide, and why coach retention is foundational to athlete development and the future of the sport. We also lay out five practical changes that could begin moving the profession forward—from credible compensation data and honest job ratings to board education, stronger financial structures, and contract templates.

This isn’t just a conversation about what’s wrong. It’s about what swimming can actually do next—because if we want to save the sport, we have to start with the coaches.

Doug's e-mail: doug@swimpler.com

Website: swimpler.com

ISCA Email 1: https://mailchi.mp/swimisca/coach-retention-the-future-of-swimming-depends-on-it?e=70a9f8d406

ISCA Email 2: https://mailchi.mp/swimisca/can-great-coaches-afford-to-remain-great

2025 Coach Compensation Survery Data

10 Ways to Value Coaches

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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 people questioned whether she was ready.

Six years later, Margo joins me to discuss what prepared her for the opportunity, how her experience as an elite athlete shaped her leadership, and why she was able to deal with the criticism surrounding her hiring.

We also talk about protecting the health and performance of coaches, the value of letting athletes experience different environments, and why college swimming may need to reconsider its 365-days-a-year mentality.

Margo also shares the coaches who shaped her, what she has learned through six years in charge, and how she continues to balance curiosity, ambition, relationships, and life away from the pool.

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Don Wagner spent more than fifty years coaching swimmers at every level of the sport—from developing young athletes to coaching Olympic champion Janet Evans during the most dominant stretch of her career.

In this conversation, Don reflects on the moments that defined his coaching journey, how training philosophy has changed over five decades, what he believes today's coaches get right (and wrong), and the lessons that mattered most after a lifetime on deck.

We discuss:

• Coaching Janet Evans during her world-record years
• Why today's swimmers may need more rest—not more work
• The evolution of coach-athlete relationships
• Building a coaching philosophy over fifty years
• The future of swimming and what Don hopes changes
• Small lessons from legendary coaches that stayed with him forever

Whether you're a swim coach, athlete, or simply interested in leadership and high performance, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom.

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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 explore what it actually takes to sustain excellence year after year, why coaching elite athletes is more about what you do with the data than long term planning. Listen for how he thinks about recruiting, athlete development, emotional control, and building a culture that keeps producing world-class performances.

Todd also shares why he believes plateaus are often a sign that an athlete is about to break through, how he coaches Olympic champions differently (and not differently), and what surprised him most about leading a dynasty.

Topics include:

• Building a championship program without a fixed blueprint
• Why planning matters—but flexibility matters more
• Coaching world-record holders
• Why female athletes continue improving at Virginia
• Recruiting beyond times
• Managing emotion as a coach
• Creating a culture where athletes compete with each other rather than against each other

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What can The Odyssey teach us about leadership when every available choice carries consequences?

Chris is joined by Juliet Seuss for a different kind of episode: a conversation about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and the questions it raises about responsibility, power, guilt, and shame. They examine whether Odysseus accepts responsibility for the people who follow him, how Penelope exercises power within an unjust system, and what Sinon’s story reveals about the shame society places on marginalized people.

Along the way, they explore one of leadership’s hardest realities: sometimes there is no good decision—only the least-bad one. What matters is not whether a leader can prevent every bad outcome, but how they respond to circumstances they cannot fully control.

This conversation contains major spoilers for The Odyssey.