The Swim Brief
A swimming podcast featuring natural conversations about the sport. Chris DeSantis brings the poolside conversation to the podcast form.
Episodes
Jack Roach has spent a lifetime learning from coaches—and helping coaches and athletes learn from one another.
In this conversation, Jack reflects on his time leading USA Swimming’s National Junior Team, where he helped create developmental experiences that connected young swimmers with senior athletes and brought coaches into a broader web of relationships. But his philosophy extends well beyond any part...
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, head coach and director of SwimRVA, joins Chris to discuss a collaborative approach to coaching built around athlete ownership. Jonathan explains why he has never used an attendance policy, how coaches can teach swimmers to manage the psychological demands of pr...
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 g...
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 ...
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 perfo...
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 ...
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 al...
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 lesso...
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 c...
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 u...
For years, conversations about athlete welfare have rightly transformed the way we think about coaching. But there's another side of the equation that receives far less attention:
Who protects coaches?
This week I'm joined by coach Sophia Parr (@swim.coach.sophie) for one of the most vulnerable conversations we've ever had on The Swim Brief.
Sophie shares the story of being removed from a high school coaching position ...
Why do parents keep intervening in coaching decisions—and why does giving in usually make the problem worse?
In this solo brief, I describe the fear underneath parent pressure: the belief that failing to secure every possible opportunity means failing their child. I explore how coaches unintentionally reinforce that anxiety, why concessions invite more intervention, and how proactive communication can prevent c...
Dave Salo has coached at every level of the sport—from NCAA championships to Olympic medals—but this conversation isn't about workouts or sets.
Instead, we explore the decisions that define great coaching.
We discuss why process matters more than outcomes, how a single sentence can change the way an athlete experiences failure, the transition from assistant coach to head coach, what it means to lead people...
The head coach of Swimming and Diving at the University of Illinois Jeana Kempe joins to talk influences and the path of her coaching career.
Recapping the day I spent following around USA Swimming National Team Director Greg Meehan at last week’s Indy Pro Series event.
Bonus Pod: A Day with Greg Meehan Chris DeSa...Dave Durden joins to discuss how he approaches his unconventional start at Cal and his approaches to recruiting and hiring.
Debrief: Dave Durden Chris DeSantisMegan Devito, a high school swim coach and performance mindset coach, joins to talk shop on the value of coaching.
Debrief: Megan DevitoThe CEO of USA Swimming joins to share what he’s learned in his nine months on the job and what he thinks is possible for the future.
Debrief: Kevin RingPopular Podcasts
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