Courtesy: Swimming Canada
Tom Johnson saw qualities in Savannah King that he believed could one day turn her into a fine swim coach.
As long as it didn’t entail getting into the pool early in the day.
“Candidly, she wasn’t the most coachable person in the mornings,” the Canadian national team coach revealed. “You could see that it wasn’t necessarily the thing she wanted to do at six o’clock in the morning.
“Once she got past that, she was relentless and really, really great at buying into a program and following it all the way through.”
“I’m not much of a morning person, that’s true,” King said with a laugh. “Tom does always tell it like it is, that’s for sure. Getting up in the morning to stand on a pool deck rather than jump in a cold pool, I think, is a lot easier.”
King, a two-time Canadian Olympian, has been a member of the McGill University swim staff for the past couple of seasons and on Monday was selected to the U Sports Female Apprentice Coach Program. Eighteen former student-athletes were chosen for the program, the objective being to increase the number of females in coaching positions across Canadian universities.
“Having these grants and these programs is keeping me coaching, especially during these tough times,” said King, who has her Master’s degree in Occupational Biomechanics and Ergonomics. “I’m really excited to do the apprenticeship program with my mentor Peter Carpenter, the head coach at McGill. It’ll be a lot of fun things to do hopefully once we’re up and running in the pool.”
Carpenter, on the flip side, is just as thrilled to have the 28-year-old on his team.
“She’s incredibly knowledgeable,’” he explained. “The knowledge that she has as an ex-athlete in the sport notwithstanding, obviously, that’s a huge advantage. But her studies in sport science and exercise science, I find, are going to be hugely beneficial. Not just for her growth as a coach but for the athletes as well. She just has a lot of understanding how the human body works that the average person or even average coach isn’t ever going to develop. In fact, I use her as a resource in that respect.”
Given her area of expertise, King – a product of Vernon, B.C. – had hoped to work closely with a sports team and coaching has presented itself as the new challenge. With a dearth of female coaches in swimming, she’s quite happy to fill a void.
“It’s so important,” she insisted. “Growing up, I had one female coach when I was very, very young, one of my first coaches ever. Then throughout my career in high performance, I didn’t have any female coaches. It’s hard as a female; you don’t have the same connection with the male coach. They try their best, but having that role model and mentor is so important. I’m happy to be part of programs like this, as well as the Swimming Canada high-performance select coaches, and the female coaches’ group. They’re great programs trying to help women move up to those high-performance spots.”
Carpenter likes the consistency King brings to the coaching staff.
“Very level-headed with the athletes,” he described. “There’s no wavering in how she sees the sport, how she sees the development of the athlete. That’s not to say she’s not able to manoeuvre, but she’s consistent with the athletes and those are qualities that are very helpful in terms of developing a program and having a plan.”
“For me, at the varsity level, with older athletes, I think one of the most important parts is collaboration, that communication between the coach and the athlete,” King noted. “They’ve been in the sport a long time and they also have knowledge, so you can learn from the athlete. That’s one of my biggest things I try to emulate.”
Early mornings notwithstanding, Johnson – who also coached King at UBC – has nothing but glowing reviews of her demeanour.
“I think she’s always been a student of the sport and is interested in how to get better,” he said. “She has and had a very high work ethic and understood that hard work works, you know? I think she has empathy in the sense of being sensitive to the demands of the sport, but also a full understanding of the requirements of the sport. There’s a lot of people who try to coach swimming or anything that don’t necessarily respect the sport or understand what’s required. Because she did what she did as an athlete, she has a far greater appreciation than many people who are enamoured of the idea of being a coach but don’t really understand the in-depth knowledge of the sport.”
As far as the apprentice program’s desire to nurture female coaches, Johnson is on board.
“I think it’s really important,” he stressed. “There doesn’t seem to be a great amount of opportunity for female coaches to go to the head of the class. Certainly, I think they’re every bit as capable as any male out there. Sometimes you just have to give them an opportunity and if this program can do that and further their ambitions and aspirations and expertise, this is good for swimming and good for women in sport and for the individual involved.”
Carpenter agrees. When he started at McGill, he had a respected female assistant – Genevieve Gregoire – in place. Sadly, she passed away from breast cancer. Her replacements were all male.
“In the back of my mind, I always wanted to have a female head coach as part of the staff,” said Carpenter. “When Savannah came on board, it’s so important. And not just for the female athlete. I think it’s a super important part of life for the male athletes to have a female role model as well.”
