In Practice + Pancakes, SwimSwam takes you across the country and through a practice day in the life of swimming’s best athletes. It breaks down training sessions, sub sets, and what every team is doing to be at their best. But why are they doing things that way? In Beyond the Pancakes, we dive inside the minds of coaches and athletes, getting a first hand look at why they do the things they do, and where their minds are pointed on the compass of evolution as a swimmer.
Last week we saw the University of North Carolina Tarheels preparing for the Georgia Tech Invite in Atlanta. This week, we saw them quietly perform quite well for November, including a new school record in the women’s 400 free relay. Something must be going well in Chapel Hill since the arrival of head coach Mark Gangloff.
SwimSwam sat down with Gangloff to talk with him about his goals for his first season in North Carolina. He spoke about establishing culture, using 3 main pillars: respect, integrity, and honesty. Gangloff wants his team to be good people, and believes that if that is the case, being good athletes will follow.
Basically, it’s pinky finger up when holding a cup of tea.
Excited to see UNC come back into the conversation at ACCs!