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Coleman Stewart Breaks Down Transition from Swimming to Duke Assistant Coach

In the SwimSwam Podcast dive deeper into the sport you love with insider conversations about swimming. Hosted by Coleman HodgesGarrett McCaffrey, and Gold Medal Mel Stewart, SwimSwam welcomes both the biggest names in swimming that you already know, and rising stars that you need to get to know, as we break down the past, present, and future of aquatic sports.

We sat down with Coleman Stewart, the NCAA champion and world record holder who recently retired as a swimmer and started his college coaching career at Duke University. Stewart discusses why he ultimately decided to hang up his goggles and what motivated him to pick up the stopwatch.

We also address the ongoing conversation of elite swimmers getting offered positions at DI Power-5 schools without* prior coaching experience. Stewart explains what he feels any elite swimmer (and himself in particular) brings to the coaching table that you don’t learn anywhere else.

*Stewart has coached on a club and summer league level and run swim clinics, as mentioned in the podcast.

SWIMSWAM PODCAST LINKS

Music: Otis McDonald
www.otismacmusic.com

Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners.

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Swim2win
1 year ago

Remember when Murphy punked this guy in live tv after Coleman talked $hit to Murphy’s race and then Coleman cried about it on Twitter.

Breezeway
Reply to  Swim2win
1 year ago

you don’t get points for talking to the back of his head. look him in his eye if you really got beef.

Swim2win
Reply to  Breezeway
1 year ago

Why would someone the caliber of Ryan Murphy have beef with someone so much less in the sport. Coleman doesn’t deserve Murphy’s attention.

Breezeway
Reply to  Swim2win
1 year ago

that’s true, he was punching down. but I didn’t see that bravado when Rylov was pimp slapping him all over Tokyo. he went and whined to the media. be consistent

Swammer
Reply to  Swim2win
1 year ago

How can a WR holder be “much less in the sport”?

Swimmerfromjapananduk
1 year ago

Why this many downvotes?

Steve Nolan
Reply to  Swimmerfromjapananduk
1 year ago

Because Duke.

Unless your family was taken hostage and the only way to free them was to enroll at Duke, you should not be a Duke fan.

Awsi Dooger
Reply to  Steve Nolan
1 year ago

I felt that way until visiting campus a few times for Canes football games. Parking is free and everyone is surprisingly non jerkish. I even had Grayson Allen say hello to me in the Sports Hall of Fame building adjacent to Cameron Indoor.

thezwimmer
Reply to  Steve Nolan
1 year ago

what did duke ever do to you?

Observing
Reply to  Swimmerfromjapananduk
1 year ago

I also kind of figured that considering this was Brian’s first hire, perhaps it should have been an impact hire instead of a flashy one

a b
1 year ago

Go Duke!

Ragnar
1 year ago

Walking the walk matters, other things being about equal, I’d respect a coach that has been MUCH faster/stronger than me more UNLESS they had crazy resume of improving already elite swimmers times.

Glad he found a career in swimming to stand in for the folding of ISL/SCM racing as a full time job, not many schools can brag about having a reigning WR holder as a coach!

Jason
Reply to  Ragnar
1 year ago

A lot of the times, the best coaches tend to be the ones that weren’t amazing during their career but obviously still good. Because more often than not you need a combination of talent and hard work to reach to upper echelons of athletics, and sometimes those types of people can’t fully elaborate/explain technical things because it just comes naturally to them, as opposed to those who had less talent but worked harder to get to where they were so they know the process in it’s entirety.

I think Bowman is an example of this? He swam for Florida State, obviously he was good but he wasn’t like, the US top swimmer, (I could be misremembering the article I read… Read more »

DrSwimPhil
Reply to  Jason
1 year ago

It’s not so much the “hard work defined” by those that are top coaches, but the ability to be mentally focused on a myriad of different variables (physiology, training methods, details of technique/physics, psychology, etc) and being able to mesh those variables together properly for unique individuals. I guess you could argue that’s another part of “hard work”, but I think it goes much deeper than that. But I do agree, it seems (I’m using this as more of an anecdotal response rather than quantitative) the best coaches weren’t the extremely top 0.1% of the sport when they were the athletes because they needed some sort of innate ability to think in these terms “better” than their competitors in order… Read more »

Entgegen
Reply to  DrSwimPhil
1 year ago

I think those qualities that make great coaches that think in those myriads of variables can sometimes impede them from success in the sport themselves because they can be overwhelmed with how many details needed to be focused on.

The best in the world aren’t necessarily the ones who know exactly what they’re doing right, they just race and work hard and listen to the coach. They aren’t thinking about “what angle to enter their arm into the water”, they just do it and they do it extremely well.

Skip
1 year ago

Congrats

Last edited 1 year ago by Skip
Andrew
1 year ago

Going from perpetual 4th place to not placing at all seems like a deal to me

AndyFoodieBeggs
1 year ago

Good work my man. Big things happening at Dook!!

About Coleman Hodges

Coleman Hodges

Coleman started his journey in the water at age 1, and although he actually has no memory of that, something must have stuck. A Missouri native, he joined the Columbia Swim Club at age 9, where he is still remembered for his stylish dragon swim trunks. After giving up on …

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