Save Swimming: Raise The Bar For Coaches

Courtesy: Doug Cornish, the founder of Swimpler. Follow Swimpler on Substack here.

The future of swimming in the United States feels increasingly uncertain.

Seismic legislative changes, a leadership vacuum, societal values shifting toward balance and well-being, and an outdated sport culture stand opposed to positive momentum.

Swimming is trying to digest all of it.

We could use some good news, and some Pepto.

If there exists a bright future for swimming in the United States, it will be born of the passion, burdens, and relentless dedication of swim coaches.

That much is certain.

And that’s exactly where our real crisis lies.

The Problem and the Solution Lie with the Coaches?

Yes.

100%.

Coach Perspective

I spent 18 years as a competitive swimmer. The next 24 years of my life were spent as a full-time coach, spanning North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. I walked away from coaching last year. Not because I stopped loving swimming, but because there is no justification for a lifestyle that demands endless sacrifice without proportionate compensation, support, or respect.

I wanted to prioritize my family. I threw in the towel upon the realization that the profession rarely permits those priorities, and that the chance had escaped me.

I became a registered representative with New York Life and quickly discovered a new way to serve the sport I love. Now I consult with coaches and teams on strategies to attract, retain, and value their coaches through enhanced compensation packages.

My manager, Rob Berkowitz, spent 26 years coaching soccer before leaving the profession for many of the same reasons I did. The coach’s struggle isn’t abstract to us. It’s personal and profoundly understood.

Anecdotes aren’t enough to be successful in this new line of work. So I collected data. Over 800 coaches participated in the Swim Coach Compensation Survey. The survey shows clearly that coaches are being undervalued in both compensation amounts and structures.

Coaches are not just undervalued. They are overburdened, misunderstood, taken for granted, and too often blamed for everything that goes wrong.

Many coaches feel trapped. They want out, but don’t see a way.

How do I know?

They tell me.

Consumer Perspective

Swimming is not just losing coaches. The sport is losing athletes and appeal.

The overwhelming majority of potential swimmers will never even consider this sport.

Parents in our modern society are choosing balance and safety. They’re skipping swimming entirely because our sport looks like an early-specialization machine oriented toward imbalance, burnout, and injuries.

Even among the greatest athletes, we’re seeing growing cause for concern. Mental health struggles have always been part of the process, especially at the elite level. But now, with instant media exposure and a more open and accepting cultural dialogue, we are more aware of the toll being taken on the athletes. Rational parents are including those visible testimonies when considering the health and sustainability of activities for their children.

The narrative we celebrate acts as a repellent.

Train insane or remain the same.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

No pain, no gain!

…didn’t miss a day of training in 6 years.

Then we see our heroes break down in real time, with real emotion, with real impact on both them and our sport.

When other sports offer variety, freedom, fun, and games, swimming’s reputation for grind and exhaustion no longer resonates.

Swimming, the only sport that saves lives, has become too risky in the eyes of many rational parents.

That truth is as paradoxical as it is devastating.

And what about the kids who do give it a try?

We lose most of them, too.

• To burnout.
• To injury.
• To the act of doing nothing.

United States swimming chews up athletes and coaches and spits them out.

It’s 2025.

We must recognize that neither the supply of athletes or coaches is endless – that each holds tremendous value and need to be nurtured.

So What’s the Solution?

I’ve long argued that our sport needs a paradigm shift.

Wayne Goldsmith provided a thesis for the shift in his recent work, Coaching is Dead,

“This isn’t about lowering standards or accepting mediocrity. It’s about understanding that higher standards become achievable when people feel valued, understood, and supported.”

Wayne’s message is simple, clear, and transformative. Coaches don’t unlock greatness in their athletes by demanding more. They do it by connecting more. Put simply, an athlete’s performance rises in direct proportion to the degree to which they feel valued, seen, and supported by their coach.

The same holds true for the coach.

The performance of the coach rises in direct proportion to the degree to which they feel valued, seen, and supported by the team. If you want excellence from your staff, create an environment where they feel valued, understood, and supported.

That’s not lowering the bar. That’s how we raise it.

We can navigate a course to a paradigm shift in three steps:

1. We raise the bar for coaches.
2. Coaches raise the bar for the experiences they oversee.
3. The new narrative raises the bar for the sport.

Raising the Bar for Coaches

A full overhaul is needed, starting with two things:

1. Enhanced Compensation

• Click HERE to view the full 2025 Swim Coach Compensation Survey data
• Click HERE for 10 Compensation Enhancement Strategies

Before we talk about performance, passion, or professionalism, we must first meet the basic needs of the coach.

The data is clear. Coaches are undervalued in both their compensation amounts and structures. They need help from leading organizations, the teams that employ them, and the families who are led by them.

Words are cheap. If you have told a coach how important they are, that they are essential to the team, the development of your children, and to the sport, but you don’t fight for fair wages, benefits, and job security, you’re not valuing them. You’re exploiting them. That goes for leading swim organizations, teams, and parents.

This isn’t retail. This is youth development.

Based on USA Swimming statistics recently shared with me, the number of new coaches in USA Swimming sky-rocketed this past year, up over 25%.

At first glance, that sounds like progress. But this may be the most alarming statistic I’ve seen yet.

Why the enormous jump?

Are we replacing experienced, full-time coaches with part-time coaches who are not able to make holistic, long-term student-athlete development their professional priority? The vast majority of part-time coaches have families and careers that come before their commitment to your team.

If so, that’s horrible news for our sport.

We can’t expect long-term athlete development models and execution from a workforce that lacks time, resources, or professional security.

You want better, happier swimmers and a better experience for them?

Start by valuing their coaches.

2. Enhanced Education

Coaches hold the greatest influence over whether a swimmer’s experience is meaningful or miserable. It’s easy to blame them when things go wrong.

Here’s my concession:

I’ve been on enough pool decks to know that sometimes the coach is the problem.

But that blame obscures the fact that the system we rely on to educate and support coaches is broken.

If you were a new coach today, where would you turn for a foundation that equips you to develop athletes safely and effectively while also building a sustainable career and family life?

Let me illustrate the problem with two simple, critical concepts:

• Lordosis
• Antagonist muscle groups

Lordosis, the excessive curvature of the lower spine, is one of the greatest sources of drag experienced by swimmers. It is mitigated with posterior hip tilt and exacerbated by poor head position. Muscular imbalances in the shoulder, caused by repetitive overuse and neglect of antagonist muscle groups, remain the leading cause of injury in the sport.

Ask coaches across the country about either, and I’d wager 75% couldn’t give you a confident answer.

That’s not a criticism of coaches. It’s a reflection of the system that failed to prepare them for the position they hold.

Every coach should have a working knowledge of biomechanics, injury prevention, skill development, a grasp on the causes of attrition, and the science of overload and recovery. We also need to equip them with business skills, communication tools, and leadership training so they can build programs that work and lives they can sustain.

Swimming needs more knowledgeable coaches who can develop athletes through positive experiences while deepening their impact through meaningful connection.

Currently coaches are being asked to give far more than they’ve ever been given, receiving little education, limited support, and inadequate compensation.

Here’s my assertion:

Complaining about coaches without properly supporting them is like peeing in your own tent before bed, then being upset about the smell in the morning.

A New Paradigm: Value the Coach, Elevate the Sport

We need to better compensate and educate coaches, not just for their benefit, but for the survival and evolution of the sport.

If we collaborate with and value coaches, instead of exhausting them, we can finally deliver:

• A better experience for athletes
• A better product for families
• A better future for swimming

Swimming needs to be fun again.

Kids should walk into school bragging about how awesome practice was instead of dozing off in class as a result of being engrossed by a threshold-based microcycle.

Parents should be telling other parents how their experiences in swimming has added value to their family and positively shaped the character and future of their children instead of how they dread yet another 3-day, out-of-town swim meet.

Coaches should be telling future coaches how much they love the job. How they couldn’t envision ever doing something else. That it challenges them, supports them, and rewards them for their dedication instead of telling other coaches that they want out.

Swimming doesn’t need more gimmicks. It needs an overhaul inspired by more humanity.

Let’s start with the coach.

If you’re a coach or team administrator looking to improve your team’s coach compensation packages, I’d love to connect. Forty-three of my forty-seven years on this earth have led me to this moment, uniquely positioned, prepared, and committed to helping you build something better.