BY SCOTT FOWLER
August 12, 2016
2016 U.S. Olympic women's swim team coach David Marsh says he’s needed to gain the trust of his team to help motivate them. Jeff Siner
RIO DE JANEIRO
- David Marsh thought the banner was a good idea at the time, although in hindsight he believes it was one of the dumbest coaching decisions he ever made.
This hard lesson in how to best coach women came more than 15 years ago, long before Charlotte's Marsh ascended to his current high-profile summer job as the head coach of the extremely successful 2016 U.S. Olympic women's swim team. That team has grabbed multiple medals almost every night so far in Brazil at these Olympics, helping push Team USA to the top of the overall medal standings.
Marsh still lived in Alabama 15 years ago when he found out what not to do when you coach women. He was the head coach of both the men's and women's swim teams at Auburn. His women had just finished the first day of a three-day meet that would decide the national championship. They had never won a national title before, but they were in the lead and flying high.
Let's really motivate them for the final two days, Marsh and his staff decided. So they had a mock banner designed for the team meeting that night proclaiming the Auburn women's team as national champions and then unveiled it to the women.
"And we couldn't have swum worse the next day," Marsh said. "There were tears all over the pool deck. We had projected an outcome, making it more about results than relationships. It was ridiculous."
In his regular job, Marsh coaches some of the best male and female swimmers in the world for SwimMAC Carolina's Team Elite in Charlotte. But he doesn't coach them the same way. He has learned a number of things over the years. The most important one, he said, comes down to the fact that most female swimmers value relationships over results.
"The magic happens when they all get along," Marsh said. "And they also want to hear from people they trust. With the men, they often want to hear from just anybody who will jack them up a little bit. With the women, if they don't trust you, you can't motivate them."
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