M Swimming Coach Mike Bottom retiring (someone get the money cannon out for Michael Phelps)
It’s well out in the news that long time Michigan Swimming & Diving coach Mike Bottom is retiring this summer after an illustrious career that included a National Championship, 9 B1G championships and nine times being named B1G Coach of the Year. That said, some in local swimming circles said it was time and he was having trouble recruiting which is why his biggest stars the last few years have been international swimmers. Does anybody in the swimming world have any idea how you replace someone like Mike Bottom and who would be a candidate?
Maybe with the PAC-12 financial woes, get lucky and poach someone from one of the top programs?
Should definitely hire someone who will make a splash.
What you did there….I see it.
I don't have any names that I could float, but hiring a great coach would really help bouy the program.
I understand that the PAC-12 is drowning in debt.
There are certainly some ADs currently under water.
It would take a stroke of luck for that to happen but we could really use someone who is ready to dive right in.
This is Michigan. We should go to great lengths to find a worthy successor.
We had Bob Bowman, who coached here and is now at ASU, which finished 2nd in NCAA. We should go after Dave Durden from Cal. He is relatively young and a great coach. Also, Matt Bowe, who used to be at OSU, is a good choice. He is now associate HC at Cal.
Getting Durden for Berkley would be like getting Sabin or Kirby Smart to come coach UM football. He’s isn’t leaving Cal. Now Matt Bowe is an interesting suggestion. I personally like Virginia Tech’s head coach. While our AD is a tire-fire in terms of making decisions regarding publicity, we seem to hire good coaches so I’m confident they will make a good choice. The recruiting under Bottom the past few years looks a look like Hockey in Red’s last few seasons.
Too…many…Bottom + swimming puns…can’t pick just…one…program likely to sink…flounder…
He was a powerful Bottom. A power-Bottom.
Our swimmers feasted under Coach Bottom. They should celebrate by taking him to dinner.
Don't know the first thing about the swimming world but I would guess Phelps isn't and shouldn't be at the top of the wishlist.
Yeah, why would we want someone like this as a coach! It's not like he knows anything about discipline, sacrifice, or teamwork. He would be a horrible recruiter as well...who is dumb enough to want to swim for some schmuck who is the most successful and most decorated Olympic champion of all time with a total of 28 medals. Sure, he holds the all-time record for Gold medals (23), for Gold medals in individual events (13), and for Olympic medals in individual events (16), but what kind of young athlete wants to be coached by this slacker!
Your points hold some legitimacy but very few elite performers have either the interest or the ability to coach (well). Maybe Phelps is different.
C'mon folks, just grow your lungs and feet until they're 17 times the size of any other human on earth! What's so hard about that!?
All that doesn't mean he's going to be a great coach. It doesn't even mean he'd be a good coach. I don't believe he's been a coach at any level as far as I can tell. Phelps coming in as an assistant would be the move if he wanted to get into coaching. With that said, I could care less who they hire as I don't have any desire to watch swim.
And also someone who has never been an actual swimming coach. What could go wrong?
I realize that there is probably some amount of trolling going on in your post so you are laying it on a little thick. However, the reality is that swimming is quite different from other sports and the idea of hiring someone based completely on their success as a competitor - even when combined with best-in-class-name recognition - is not a great idea. Maximizing the performance of any individual swimmer requires the best training regimen possible. Every single swimmer knows this and no one with aspirations (and options) for being competitive at the D1 level is going to go to a school if they don't have the utmost confidence in the coach of the program to design and implement a world class training regimen. Yes, Michael Phelps will be able to get an in-home visit with any potential recruit. That will count for very little. Ultimately recruits must be convinced that he knows how to design and implement an elite level training program. And if the answer is "well, I have never done it before but I swam for coaches that did it so I will figure it out" then all the best swimmers are going to opt for the coaches that have actually done it before. To put it more succinctly, when it comes to coaching, Michael Phelps coach carries MUCH more weight than Michael Phelps.
I'm a big Phelps fan, and I think having him in a role of ambassador to the program is a great position. Let him come and help coach wherever he wants if he has an interest in getting into coaching.
The notion that elite competitors in any sport are automatically going to be great coaches has been disproven by reality so many times in so many sports yet it gets trotted out here repeatedly. Hire Tom Brady when Harbaugh retires! Hire Charles Woodson when Brady retires!
Jake Butt should be the coach
another coach we could get behind.
If other olympic sports are any indicator, Warde Manuel seems to go after assistant coaches at big programs and pay them at or below the level that Stanford, OSU, and Texas pay their coaches. I wouldn't expect anything too big.
Warde strikes again!
A great coach candidate is a former UM swimmer, was the assistant coach at UM until Dave Brandon screwed things up, and was recently the national high school swim coach of the year at Ann Arbor Pioneer winning both the boys and girls titles.
She's a great coach. Extremely intimidating. It's incredible how many high school kids she gets to buy into her training methods.
Swimming is a definitely a unique sport and requires dedication, discipline and passion that few sports require because the clock doesn't lie. Having a passionate coach and a team to share the grind of training often leads to great results.
There are great pictures of Michael Phelps carrying the American Flag at the Rio Olympic opening ceremonies with Steph at his side. That was a very cool A2/ Dexter moment.
Maybe also hire an elite diving coach? We cannot compete for natties unless we build a real diving program.
Do you really want natties?
Michigan used to be a national powerhouse in swimming back in the 1930's and again in the later 1950's. We were great under Matt Mann, Gus Stager, and Jon Urbanchek, and we could be great again. Who knows where that kind of greatness will come from, but the greatest swimmers generally don't make good coaches. Good luck to Warde,
I don't think Phelps ever graduated college? If that's true, he wouldn't meet the minimum education level requirement to coach at Michigan.
Here's the job posting for Head Diving Coach.
https://careers.umich.edu/job_detail/234485/head-mens-and-womens-diving-coach
Required Qualifications*
- Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university.
- Previous coaching and/or playing experience.
- Thorough knowledge of NCAA rules and intercollegiate athletics.
- Knowledge and/or experience of the recruitment process.
- Previous playing experience at a highly competitive level.
- Must work with and communicate effectively with all team members and support staff within Michigan Athletics and the UM community.
- Must possess excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Must possess excellent computer and technical skills.
- Must be able to successfully complete a background check and NCAA recruiting test.
- Ability to train and motivate student-athletes.
No, let's hire the G.O.A.T.--Tom Brady!! Who wouldn't come swim for the greatest quarterback of all time?
a lot of highly successful coaches (quite possibly majority of them) were not elite athletes.... Being great at something doesn't automatically qualify you to coach others to be great at something.
Never understood why people always gravitate to a great performer as a coach. As they are different skill sets. Can't remember who it was, but a long time ago I read an interview with a former great who failed as a coach. When asked what he thought went wrong he said something along the line of, "someone once asked me how I did something, and I couldn't explain, it just came naturally to me and I couldn't understand why they couldn't do it."
Gretzky..... if it wasn't him, it should have been
This is accurate. If anything, it's rarer for great former athletes to make great coaches. Phelps can't teach the things he did so well - he was a once-in-a-generation physical freak. That's not to take away from his accomplishments - he absolutely worked his ass off and got everything he could have out of his natural gifts. But that's an entirely different skillset from being able to teach technique and develop personalized training regimens for other athletes.
It was definitely time. He had a large amount of transfers the last couple years and the team's performance the last couple years at NCAA's has gone down every year since he won the National Championship.
I'm not sure who would be in line to coach next. Though, I think we had an assistant go to LSU recently. Also, do we want a separate Men's and Women's coach? The NCAA just changed the rules about the number of coaches for separate vs. combined, and I don't remember which is more advantageous.
One word: Grateful.
Grateful Coach Bottom sustained such a great program of winning for UM Swim.
Thank you Coach, hat tip to you.
Go Blue.
Logged in to upvote. Then upvoted. Then posted this. Then logged out.
List of Candidates from SwimSwam:
https://swimswam.com/wild-speculation-who-will-take-over-for-mike-bottom-at-michigan/
Also from SwimSwam a little bio on Bottom:
https://swimswam.com/mike-bottom-the-mad-scientist-constantly-on-the-cutting-edge-of-swimming/
I am a swim coach (part time, intro/rec league, but still...)
Go after someone from the staff of the Sandpipers Swim Club: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandpipers_of_Nevada
That club has been KILLIN' IT on the national and international stage!