GCSTO Coaches Profiles
Nothing but quality, commitment & loyalty!

The GCSTO staff works extremely hard to operate in unity and has made it their mission to promote the concept of "One Team" within the ranks of this program. Each coach fulfills a very specific role in the success of this team that is no less important than the role that any other coach plays on this team. GCSTO has developed an internal coaches’ education program that covers all operational aspects of this team and all coaches provide input into all aspects of program development. Through such input and communication GCSTO has one of the most extensive internal education programs of any program in the country. In fact, GCSTO was the first team in the country to have its’ own internal education program sanctioned for ongoing educational credit by ASCA (the American Swimming Coaches Association). GCSTO utilizes one pre-practice stretching routine, one dryland training routine, one pre-meet warm-up procedure, one series of core development drills and more. This allows everyone on this team to move as one in the same direction in terms of all operational aspects of this team.

Every level on this team has a series of practice performance expectations designated for their particular group which has been written by the head coach. Athletes are expected to accomplish certain physical skills and techniques as a member of that particular level before moving onto the next level. These are designated as our “Level Expectations”. Next, we have developed a series of technical developmental guidelines, termed our “Skills & Drills” that we use in similar fashion across the team to help promote the technical development of our athletes. As well, the staff has also developed a series of actual practice performance test sets for each level on the team that help us determine the actual performance capabilities of the athletes within our practice groups. These are part of our “Challenge Set” and “Goal Set” series. Each and every coach on this team has available to them anything that they could possibly want in terms of written information to help educate them on team operations. Nutrition, hydration, pre-race strategy, warm-down procedures, relay pick procedures, race strategy, practice structure, practice volumes and more has all been discussed on the team and summarized in writing for use by the staff. This staff has available to it hundreds of pages of information associated with how this team approaches all aspects of swimming. All coaches write their own practices in accordance with these series of guidelines established by the staff as a whole.

Each level on the team has its’ own head level coach at each pool. The national team coaching staff is comprised of the head level coaches of level 5, 4 elite and 4. The age group staff is comprised of the head level coaches of all remaining levels. Each level has 3 lanes so there is one coach per 3 lanes during practices. In levels 1, 2 & 3 we also assign an assistant coach to work directly with that group on technical development. That places 4 coaches on deck for 6 lanes at most times during practice. We have a national team development coach working with the senior staff who works as the technical assistant and race strategy advisor to these groups (Level 4, 4 Elite & 5). For all groups at the pools we have also added a video analysis coach at each pool who will videotape athletes during practice and then review these tapes with the athlete right there at practice. Our dryland strength coach handles all aspects of specialized dryland training and strength development in our athletes to ensure consistency throughout the program.