University of California head coach Dave Durden checks in with SwimSwam to share his thoughts on the Golden Bears team title from the weekend, a title that came down to the sixth and final swimming session to be decided.
Durden credits distance man Jeremy Bagshaw‘s mile with providing the day 3 spark for the Bears, who showed up red-hot on Saturday to turn what looked like it could be a photo finish into a meet that was pretty clearly Cal’s about halfway through the session.
Video courtesy of Coleman Hodges.
Congratulations on behalf of the Colgate University Raiders to the Cal Bears on a fantastic TEAM performance. Way to go Dave, Nort, Yuri, and Nick! Our boys are ready for another dry conditioning session !!!
Kinda surprising that some are calling for Greg Meehan to be an American Olympic Coach, but not so much for Durden. Love Meehan-excellent coach and a great guy who’s reset a listing power, but Cal didn’t exactly fall apart after he left. Durden’s really well-respected and he’s already delivered. Three NCAA titles for a guy who’s not yet 40. Durden should coach NCAAs next year wearing one of those schweeeet bear suits and answer interview questions only by growling. Hibernate until July 1 and then clean up in recruiting again.
Don’t really see why these two are mutually exclusive. Right now Meehan only coaches women and Durden only coaches men. If they were to be Olympic coaches, they would almost assuredly be coaches on the women’s Olympic and men’s Olympic teams respectively.
First things first they need to get a fair number of high-profile swimmers on the team. That usually leads to an Olympic assistant-coach position. After a couple of those, then there can be talk of them being head Olympic coaches.
Swimmers, pay close attention at 1:49. Very important point and mind set that helped these Cal Bears to victory. No magic here.
You can tell what Dave was during the 3-day meet by listening to his voice: cheering his ass off! Go Bears!