http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?PRID=11526

Best of luck to you Coach Duchac!

It's a great time to get aboard the Bultman women's swimming and diving train.

[This message has been edited by apoColyPticus (edited 6/22/2006 1:28p).]

agreed...they are arguably the most underappreciated team at A&M considering how well they have been performing the last few years

Welcome to Aggieland.

I'd hit it.

We can't rest on our laurels. tu hired a new women's coach to stop their 5 yr slow decline (as we caught up). tu's new coach was a top assistant at Auburn, the perennial power over the last decade in both men's and women's swimming.

Bultman has done a fine job, especially with recruiting. The new assistant is very young, and unproven. Not saying she isn't a great add to the staff. She was a top freestyle sprinter at Purdue herself. My problem is just that good swimmers often aren't particularly outstanding coaches (Jill Sterkel at Texas is an example).

But I'm pulling for the Ags and hope this is the year we beat Texas at the Big12s. We lost very few seniors and some of our newcomers are very fast. I hope last year's freshmen continue to develop.

care to explain why sterkel isn't an outstanding coach?

(without simply saying she was fired)

also, the new texas women's coach was the co-head coach at auburn - not a top assistant.

First - I do not know Sterkel. By all rights - she is a good, perhaps, very good coach. Her accomplishments as a swimmer are unbelievable. She may be the best UT swimmer, man or woman, in terms of NCAA accomplishments. However the UT women's program has slipped over her time there. A&M is catching up - probably unfathomable for UT swimming. But more seriously it has been quite a while since UT was a real contender for the women's national championship. So that is probably the reason UT decided to make a change.

Dave Marsh is the head coach at Auburn for both teams. So Brackin was the top women's coach but officially an assistant to Marsh. Splitting hairs I know.

I think it is interesting that the UT women's assistant is a former head coach. We have an assistant one year out of college. I suspect we don't have the budget to hire a more experienced coach.

you can split hairs all you want but her title was "co-head coach"

http://auburntigers.cstv.com/sports/c-swim/spec-rel/042805aaa.html

Ok you win.

So how do you think OUR new assistant will do?

Do you have any idea why Codie Hansen swam so poorly last weekend?

Why are our sophomores and juniors getting trounced by 15 year olds from Austin?

heck i dunno

Hopefully it is because they are putting in a ton of summer training to hit the ground running in the fall. I've always believed that mid season and pre season performances are not very indicative in swimming unless there is a huge improvement or a mid season taper.

I think H20 has it right...this is an early summer season meet and several of the Ags are likely not even training in College Station, but with home club teams...A&M also ended four straight weeks of working swim camps last week which I could imagine takes it's toll on both the staff and the counselors (many of whom are swimmers on the A&M team), especially if they were doing workouts on top of that...as far as Hansen goes, I wouldn't say she swam bad, inconsistent maybe, but not bad...she did make numerous finals and is always there when it counts...again this is just an early season summer meet...

[This message has been edited by Look Out Below (edited 6/27/2006 11:55a).]

I don't mean to sound too negative. But the girls that swam the meet had their club listed as "Aggie." I think that means they are registered and training with the Aggie Swim Club, under Bultman. Many girls are training with their home clubs (like Aljan, Sturdy, etc.).

I know many worked the camps - my son attended one and Briskie and McCullough were working for sure.

Except for Wilkinson, Heiss, and Neal, many of their times were simply slow. 15 yr olds from Longhorn Aquatics, Texas Gold, and Kerr McGee regularly finished ahead of our girls. I doubt these girls were fully rested either. Hopefully Bultman is recruiting these girls....

Bultman's girls have always been fast in Feb and March and there's no reason to think that will change...That's what I mean by 'when it counts'...I'm sure he has his eyes on several of the up-and-comers...Keep in mind there are a handful of young girls that flame out early and won't be as fast in their late teens/early 20's as the A&M girls are now

LOB - what do you think about the new assistant?

don't know anything about her except what's in the press release...One would imagine Bultman had a large number of candidates but she fit the bill best for what he was looking for...

I can understand Bultman wanting to hire someone, particularly a woman, closer in age to his athletes, considering he is probably in his mid-50's...his last assistant was in her mid-20's when she came here...I would also imagine his athletes might have played a small role in deciding which way to go too...seems like it would be a smart thing to do...It's hard to fault anything Bultman has done to this point

Former women's assistant Kristin Hill is now head coach at Boise State.

http://www.broncosports.com/index2.asp?id=&article=4243

I have no idea where each individual girl is training, but the USS team that they represent has little to do with where they are training in the summer. Because of the mandatory time you have to be unattached between officially switching teams, swimmers swim with whatever USS team they are registered for.

As for 15 year old's beating our girls, that is the nature of college swimming in the summer. It can be one of two things. Either our girls are in CS training their butts off and don't really care about results this summer because the focus is on training for the short course season, which is good. Or, our girls are at their old USS teams getting a break (even if they are training hard they see is as a break). I've seen it when all the 15 year old girls are trying to beat the college girl at every practice or meet, while the college girls are just there to get their workout in. This isn't necessarilly a good thing, but it happens all the time. Either way, the girls will be ready in March as long as they don't get burnt out. If that means they miss a few trainings in June, so be it. Remember, before Steve got here A&M couldn't even keep a full roster half the time because girls would quit after 2 years.

h2o - I know you know swimming and I respect your opinion a lot. But I wonder why our girls would essentially blow off the long course season and NOT compete for the Pan-Pacific team roster (etc.). I see no downside whatsoever to compete against the best in the world. Yes - they need to focus on SCY races, but they are training LCM, right? And racing is how we truly measure the results of the work they put in at the pool.

How much of this is Bultman telling the girls what to do vs. the girls deciding how they want to spend the summer?

whoa whoa that judgement is a bit premature - they don't have to worry about qualifying for anything until august. we'll see how much faster the 15 year olds are going at Nationals. don't forget Bultman had a summer national champion two years ago.

Meets like the Grand Prix series get a lot of attention from USA Swimming and club coaches. Our swimmers performing well should be a recruiting advantage for us.

Where to begin.........

"As for 15 year old's beating our girls, that is the nature of college swimming in the summer. It can be one of two things. Either our girls are in CS training their butts off and don't really care about results this summer because the focus is on training for the short course season, which is good."

In all my years of swimming, I never heard of this at all. Long course season and short course season are two very different things.
Most, if not all good swimmers still train their butts off during long course season or "college off season" to make nationals and to improve their times. To say that they are training for next seasons short course is a dumb thing to say, since you get about 3-4 weeks off between seasons............


"Or, our girls are at their old USS teams getting a break (even if they are training hard they see is as a break)."

I don't know what team they swim for, but in most cases, club swimming work-outs are harder then college workouts simply due to the fact that they have not time constraints and club swimming is incredible important for swimming as a whole. As a matter of fact, my work outs were harder in club swimming then in college. Most top club teams work this way and most swimmers with scholarships tend to come from those types of clubs.
I hated going back to club swimming because it was opposite of college swimming..............meaning it was harder not easier.

"I've seen it when all the 15 year old girls are trying to beat the college girl at every practice or meet, while the college girls are just there to get their workout in. This isn't necessarilly a good thing, but it happens all the time."
This I agree.

"Either way, the girls will be ready in March as long as they don't get burnt out. If that means they miss a few trainings in June, so be it. Remember, before Steve got here A&M couldn't even keep a full roster half the time because girls would quit after 2 years."

There were a lot of foreign girls that quit for X reason.............and yes, we did have a full roster?!

regardless of the past meet's performance, Bultman's girls almost without exception are at their best under his guidance in Feb and March...Hansen is the perfect example...she came in very heralded with very fast times, swam in a great club program, etc. then came to A&M and got faster in all her events across the board in only her first year

I think the fact that the team is so fractioned off during the summer may take away some of the importance and focus, even just subconsciously, of summer competitions, kind of why you see post-collegians struggle to regain their collegiate success after they leave...during the collegiate season, you have your whole team there and there seems to be a lot more unity and 'one goal' type of mentality...I think it makes a difference

as far as the club workouts go, I can imagine there are some pretty tough ones around, but I would bet, the Aggie women would say Bultman's definitely put them through the ringer...