sp or t s An Individual Sport Where Team Culture Is the Winner
I
n New England, swimming is a winterseason sport. Swimmers come in from the cold, peel off the layers, pull on their suits (still wet from the day before, in some cases), slip into their lanes and push their bodies to exhausting limits. Their motivation comes from their love of the sport, and at Milton it also comes from a supportive and fun team culture that the coaches work hard to foster. Twenty-four years ago, with David Foster (English faculty and, earlier, college counselor), Coach Bob Tyler brought the coed Milton swim team from club status to an interscholastic, competitive team. Today, Bob coaches with Jamie LaRochelle, or Coach “La,” as the swimmers call him. Both are science faculty members whose friendship goes back to their swimming days at Deerfield Academy. “Our coaching styles complement one another. Neither one of us feels the need to be more in charge,” says Coach Tyler. As the practice starts, all the swimmers are “on the wall chatting.” The swimmers selfselect their lanes, and the stronger swimmers tend to group together. The coaches accommodate the range of swimmers (from well-tested competitors through less experienced swimmers) by focusing on sets of timed swims: for example, four four-minute swims. All the swimmers begin together. Distances vary; swimmers in the fast lane might do a 300 and a swimmer in a slower lane might do a 200. Every student is focused on his own swim. The swimmers seem to appreciate the coaches’ approach. 34 Milton Magazine
“In practice, you decide how hard you want to work, and then you see your work pay off in your results,” says Kasia Ifill (II). “The coaches do push us, and it’s amazing what they do to help us improve in three months.” The coaches are especially interested in stroke technique. Coach Tyler periodically uses an underwater camera to capture every swimmer so he or she can see strokes precisely. On the day before winter break, the mood on the bus going to practice is festive. A few students are belting out Taylor Swift songs as the swimmers get settled into their seats. This is going to be a “fun” practice according to Coach Tyler. The swimmers are going to work hard, but he will mix up the regular routine with games. Pool time for Milton swimmers is more limited than both coaches would like, due to travel time to get to the UMass Boston pool and sharing the pool with other schools. “We do a lot of stroke instruction and drills; if we had more time in the pool, swimmers could repeat the stroke change enough times for it to really sink in,” says Coach LaRochelle. “The upside is that we don’t develop a myopic team culture,” he says. “We are swimmers who are violinists. We are swimmers who are poets and scientists. That’s a good thing in the big picture, even though the limited pool time can be frustrating.”