Dec. 12, 2023
US Olympic Coach and Swim Parent Todd DeSorbo's Advice for Swimmers and Parents, EP 239
What happens when an Olympic swimming coach dons the hat of a swimming parent? We had an enlightening conversation with Todd DeSorbo, a parent to his own son who swims--we caught Todd at his son's swim meet. Todd also happens to be the Olympic coach for the USA women's swimming team in 2024. We delved into how he strikes a balance between supporting his child in sport and letting his son's coaches do their job. Also what he recommends when a swimmer has a disappointing swim.
From our poolside chat, DeSorbo lays out his belief in the power of supportive swim parents and the critical role they play in fostering their child's talent. He gives us an insider's view into the world of swim parenting with some great advice to young swimmers as well. DeSorbo's words of wisdom are an eye-opener and helpful to both swimmers and parents. Tune in, you don't want to miss this!
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the award-winning champions mojo, hosted by two world record holding athletes.
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Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your host, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.
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Hello friends, welcome to the champions mojo podcast.
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I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, I am with my co-host, maria Parker.
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Hey, maria Kelly, it's great to be with you here today.
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Yes, and Maria, this is a special edition of champions mojo from the pool deck and we have a great interview for you today.
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It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful.
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Yeah, and we.
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I wasn't there, but I was able to listen to the interview and some great takeaways.
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Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways.
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And here we go.
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I am here at the swim RV, a commonwealth cup in Richmond, virginia.
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I am here with a swimming parent and his name is Todd Sorbo.
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He may actually also be the Olympic coach for the women's swimming team, for the USA twenty twenty four team and the head coach at the University of Virginia triple NCAA team champions.
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Three Peters got a great resume.
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But, todd, you're here on a Sunday as a swim parent.
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Tell us what you came to watch today on your day off.
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You're here to watch your son.
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Yeah, it's fun to be a swim parent and not a swim coach.
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Yet my son's here.
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He's fourteen, fresh in high school, and he's here swimming with his team, cavaquatics, and going best times and having fun.
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I know I get asked a lot as a former D one coach myself and I do love these USA meets.
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I talked to a lot of swim parents, and parents call up college coaches and they say, oh, my daughter has Triple eight times in ten events.
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And I used to say I'm not sure that's the one I want.
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But what would you say are some things that swimming parents can do well for their kids?
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I think the biggest thing is just being supportive of the child and the coach equally and letting the coach coach and you be the parent.
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A lot of people ask me all the time oh, are you coach your son and your daughter?
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Do you teach them how to swim?
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And I'm like no way.
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Well, first of all, it's different for me, I guess because I don't want them to know me as a coach.
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I want them to know me as their dad, so I don't coach them at all.
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But, generally speaking, you want to be the parent that the coach says.
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That's the kind of parent I love, and it's not that you can know as much as you want or as little as you want about swimming, but just being the parent.
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That is supportive of the decisions the coaches are making, how they're coaching the child, allowing them to do their job, and not being like an arm chair coach yourself, because there's a lot of messages that can be sent to children and as long as the coach is a good person and makes good decisions and does good things which I think most of these club coaches they're not getting paid a ton of money, so they're not doing it for the money, they're doing it for the love of the sport, for the love of teaching children, for the love of seeing children develop and mature, and so they, more often than not, have their best interests in mind and so just allowing them to do what they do most of them have been doing it a really long time and they're really good at it and if you allow them the freedom and flexibility to do it, then they're going to do a really good job.
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And I obviously I'm really hands off with my own children and I'm really good friends with their coach because we coached together a long time ago and for a long time.
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But he often says oh, you guys are the best swim parents and we just let them, we trust the coaches and allow them to do their thing and really only maybe contact them if there's something vitally important or emergency or something like that.
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I think that's the best thing to just let their coaches do what they're going to do and let the kids have fun.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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So if a kid comes home like they're upset with the way they swim and they talk to their parents, what might you advise them to do?
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Well, I think I want to advise them to go talk to the coach, say, hey, go, maybe try to set up meeting with a coach, or just set up a cold meeting or whatever it might be to talk about things that the child can maybe work on and practices or focus on or that kind of things.
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But even more so, I think oftentimes kids are upset because now, because of, necessarily, how they swim, but how they swim maybe relative to somebody else, one of their friends or a competitor, and I think it just keeping things in perspective and relative to themselves right and especially young kids, they're oftentimes going best times and just try to get them to focus on themselves what their times are.
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I have an athlete on my team right now and the college team, who said this quote to me a while ago and said that comparison is a thief of joy.
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So don't compare yourself to the other people around you, especially youngsters, at 9, 10, 11, 12, all the way to 15 or 16.
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Everybody matures at different times and different levels and different speeds and just comparing yourself to yourself, hopefully you're going best times.
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More often than not, I probably would tell the child just to be patient and keep working hard and you'll have that breakout at some point.
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I love that and this may get a little different audience to listen to.
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But one of the things that you inspired me when you've been on the show before you talk about being an all day champion, and I know that the parents out there and certainly the kids that listen to this can you just expand on that a little bit?
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So I'd like to ask people on the show, especially at your caliber, what are a few things that kids can be doing to become their best?
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The standard that I live by and I coach by and I try to instill in our student athletes on the college team is pretty simple it's to be a good person and to work really hard.
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I feel like if you are a good person and by good person I mean you make good decisions and you treat other people really well and you're supportive If you're just a good person and then you also work really hard at whatever is that you're doing, whether it's school, whether it's swimming or whatever it might be I feel like if you do those two things, then really good things are gonna happen.
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What are those good things?
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That have no idea, but I can almost guarantee you, if you're a good person and you're working hard, then great things are gonna happen.
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And that's kind of what we push people to do in their social life, in their academic life, in their athletic life.
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If they're matching all three of those to their work ethic and good decision making and being a supportive teammate, then great things are gonna happen.
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Yeah, I love that.
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This is something that again on the all day champion thing, if we're separating swimming from life, if we just go more into swimming, what might be two or three things that in the water, specifically technically, that are gonna make a difference for high school kids that are trying to swim in college?
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Yeah, I think one focusing on kicking is huge, just like general water kicking on a board.
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I think people don't necessarily focus on that enough.
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We got a lot of kids who come in who are great kickers, and we also get a lot of kids who come in who are terrible kickers, and most college teams kick at time.
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So preparing yourself to do that and try to get as good as you can at that I think that flexibility is key to that as well.
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So working on that trying to stay flexible as you gain strength and as you mature along with that, underwaters are gonna be crucial, especially from a college perspective.
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I know that we obviously focus on long course and international success and things like that, but the vast majority of swimmers going to college aren't gonna make the Olympic team right, and so their biggest focus is probably not gonna be that.
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Their focus is gonna be short course and NCAA swimming, and underwater is a paramount to that right.
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So push offs, streamlines and those are like pushing off the wall is the most simple thing that nobody thinks about, right.
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Nobody thinks about how hard they're actually pushing off the wall.
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You've gotta just focus on generating that the fastest you're gonna go at any given point in the race is pushing off the wall.
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So generate as much speed and force as you can and actually think about that, and then have a great streamline, cause if you don't, you can even just squat 500 pounds and you can push off the wall like a gorilla.
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If you're not streamlining, you've stopped.
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And then obviously, the underwater dolphin kicking is huge as well.
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So the components of pushing off, streamlining and dolphin kicking through the breakouts are the most important thing.
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I love it.
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I'm gonna let you get back to watching your son here and tell you that of all the people we've interviewed like tons of parents the kids always say we say what's your secret?
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And they say I have great parents.
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So we really appreciate those parents out there.
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So you're a parent this weekend here, taking the time out of your busy schedule, so thank you for visiting with me today.
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It was great to see you.
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Small world yes, small world Stay tuned for the takeaways.
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And now the takeaways.
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Okay.
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So, maria, as I've been traveling around swimming in these USA Meets, it has been so cool to talk with some of the USA coaches and you can imagine my joy and excitement when I got to run into a swim parent who happened to be the 2024 Olympic women's head swimming coach.
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And, of course, we're talking about Todd, and he has the highest level of the sport, and my takeaway was that I like to ask him what makes a good swim parent.
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And he said to me hands off.
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If there was ever a coach that had the right to step in and say I want you to streamline off of this wall, I want you to do this many dolphin kicks.
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I think you need more training under for this.
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Todd could be that person, but he was sitting up in the stands, he was waiting out in the parking lot, he was just very relaxed watching his son swim and his advice was be hands off and let your coach do the coach thing.
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Yeah, I love that.
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First, I have to say, when I saw his name on a list of people you interviewed, I was jealous that I didn't get to be there for that interview, because I remember when we talked to him before and how inspirationally he was.
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But yeah, he's inspirational as a parent too, just being a parent not trying to do more than just be a parent.
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I think that would be amazingly tough, considering he knows everything.
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But I guess it's probably nice for him to step back too and just not worry about it.
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Yes, so how about your top takeaway?
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He said this, I think, in our interview with him before, but I want to write it down in big letters on the wall Comparison is the thief of joy.
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I think he learned that, or he said he learned that from one of his swimmers, but I love that.
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It's so true.
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He talked a little bit about how kids can compare themselves to others and we all develop at different rates.
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That's true for adults too.
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We need to be doing the best we can in what we're doing and we don't need to be comparing ourselves to others and it will steal our joy.
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So beautiful message for me in that.
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Yes, and I think that might have come in the section where I said when kids are disappointed, what do you recommend?
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That's one way to deal with that is.
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Why are you disappointed?
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Because maybe the person you're swimming in the same lane with at practice is beating you or whatever.
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But I love that.
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I think there's so many things that we compare ourselves to and it just ruins our joy, so I love it.
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It was an awesome treat to run into Todd at that.
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Oh, that oh that All right, Maria.
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Thanks so much, love you.
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Love you, bye, bye.
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Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo podcast.
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