Monday, November 16, 2020
UVA Swim Program Finds Growth Through Hard Work, Preparation and Dancing
Photo courtesy of the UVA Media Relations Department
Virginia head coach Todd DeSorbo didn’t see his women’s team succeeding this quickly.
Sure, the Cavaliers won nine consecutive ACC championships in the decade before he arrived in August 2017. But he had an eight-year plan to make them national title contenders capable of competing with the likes of Berkeley, Georgia and Stanford, not a three-year one.
They’re ahead of schedule because of the environment DeSorbo created, one that drew some of the top USA Swimming members in the past two recruiting classes: Kate Douglass, Ella Nelson and Maddie Donohoe in 2019 and National Teamers Alex Walsh and Emma Weyant in 2020.
The key to that environment? Perhaps their SiriusXM system, which often is blaring during practice.
“It’s just so loud,” Douglass said. “Usually, I don’t think most of us have a lot of energy walking on to the pool deck, so he helps get us excited and ready to practice.
“It’s just a fun atmosphere to be able to work hard in, and it helps us kind of push away negative thoughts and just live in the moment and work hard in practice.”
DeSorbo thrives in that amped-up environment.
With a Monster Energy drink usually in hand, he yells to motivate his swimmers during sets because that’s the only way they can hear him over his mixes of country/pop, hip hop/R&B or 1980s and ’90s throwbacks or his swimmers’ requests of EDM, hard rock or classic rock.
The music sometimes leaves DeSorbo dancing on the pool deck—in the name of coaching.
“Our coaches can’t often help ourselves from dancing on the pool deck and making fools out of ourselves,” DeSorbo said. “We want it to be fun. You don’t play swimming. It’s a really hard sport. We try our best to make it more like they’re playing swimming, keep them smiling, having a good time. I think it’s like anything else in life: If you’re enjoying the hard work, you’re going to get a lot more out of it, you’ll put a lot more into it.”
The dancing also humanizes DeSorbo.
“He doesn’t have moves,” Cavaliers senior Paige Madden said, laughing. “I think it’s supposed to be funny and embarrassing. I think it makes him more approachable. He’s not this scary and intense dude all the time. He can be weird, which I think we all are. We can relate to that.”
DeSorbo also makes his athletes believe in themselves, which draws out their best performances.
Madden remembers DeSorbo pulling her aside after practice one day a few weeks into her college career and praising her work ethic. He then told her he thought she had an opportunity to make Team USA.
“That was not on my radar at all,” Madden said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this person thinks I can make the Olympic team. I don’t know if he’s kidding or not.’ But then within the next few months, I really started to believe in myself. That was the first time he really lit a spark in me.”
Before her first college dual meet a few weeks later, Madden recalls, the Cavaliers did an intense 90-minute dryland session and an unconventional meet warm-up: 6 100s. DeSorbo told them that they would have to face and overcome adversity and this was some.
“Poor me, a freshman—I’m like, ‘This is my first meet ever, we’re going to do so bad,’” said Madden, who scored 11 points in her team’s two-point win. “It ended up being really, really fun. That was definitely a good memory of mine. You have to swim fast for your team.”
DeSorbo hopes to start having more Cavaliers also swim fast for Team USA.
The Cavaliers have produced six Olympic medalists, most recently Leah Smith, who won a gold medal on Team USA’s 4x200 freestyle relay and a bronze medal in the 400 freestyle at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and 15 Olympians overall.
The Cavaliers want to take their final step and win their first women’s NCAA championship in March, but DeSorbo has also set a goal of having his men’s and women’s teams swim 30 times in the semifinals and finals of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Swimming in July. If they do so, the Cavaliers could have a few swimmers at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“I think we’ve got a handful of girls specifically who can contend for Olympic spots,” DeSorbo said. “In their mind, that’s their ultimate goal. If we have to sacrifice a little bit from an NCAA perspective, we’ll do that because we want to put them in the position to realize their ultimate dreams, like any 6-year-old or 10-year-old wants to make the Olympics.”
Credit the environment DeSorbo has created in just three years if that happens, something that Douglass, one of those swimmers who could contend for an Olympic spot, recognizes.
“It’s crazy how much the program has grown recently and the attention it’s gotten from recruits and everyone,” she said. “It’s great to have other people who have similar goals as I do because we just help push each other every single day. We’re all working toward the same thing.”
Virginia head coach Todd DeSorbo didn’t see his women’s team succeeding this quickly.
Sure, the Cavaliers won nine consecutive ACC championships in the decade before he arrived in August 2017. But he had an eight-year plan to make them national title contenders capable of competing with the likes of Berkeley, Georgia and Stanford, not a three-year one.
They’re ahead of schedule because of the environment DeSorbo created, one that drew some of the top USA Swimming members in the past two recruiting classes: Kate Douglass, Ella Nelson and Maddie Donohoe in 2019 and National Teamers Alex Walsh and Emma Weyant in 2020.
The key to that environment? Perhaps their SiriusXM system, which often is blaring during practice.
“It’s just so loud,” Douglass said. “Usually, I don’t think most of us have a lot of energy walking on to the pool deck, so he helps get us excited and ready to practice.
“It’s just a fun atmosphere to be able to work hard in, and it helps us kind of push away negative thoughts and just live in the moment and work hard in practice.”
DeSorbo thrives in that amped-up environment.
With a Monster Energy drink usually in hand, he yells to motivate his swimmers during sets because that’s the only way they can hear him over his mixes of country/pop, hip hop/R&B or 1980s and ’90s throwbacks or his swimmers’ requests of EDM, hard rock or classic rock.
The music sometimes leaves DeSorbo dancing on the pool deck—in the name of coaching.
“Our coaches can’t often help ourselves from dancing on the pool deck and making fools out of ourselves,” DeSorbo said. “We want it to be fun. You don’t play swimming. It’s a really hard sport. We try our best to make it more like they’re playing swimming, keep them smiling, having a good time. I think it’s like anything else in life: If you’re enjoying the hard work, you’re going to get a lot more out of it, you’ll put a lot more into it.”
The dancing also humanizes DeSorbo.
“He doesn’t have moves,” Cavaliers senior Paige Madden said, laughing. “I think it’s supposed to be funny and embarrassing. I think it makes him more approachable. He’s not this scary and intense dude all the time. He can be weird, which I think we all are. We can relate to that.”
DeSorbo also makes his athletes believe in themselves, which draws out their best performances.
Madden remembers DeSorbo pulling her aside after practice one day a few weeks into her college career and praising her work ethic. He then told her he thought she had an opportunity to make Team USA.
“That was not on my radar at all,” Madden said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this person thinks I can make the Olympic team. I don’t know if he’s kidding or not.’ But then within the next few months, I really started to believe in myself. That was the first time he really lit a spark in me.”
Before her first college dual meet a few weeks later, Madden recalls, the Cavaliers did an intense 90-minute dryland session and an unconventional meet warm-up: 6 100s. DeSorbo told them that they would have to face and overcome adversity and this was some.
“Poor me, a freshman—I’m like, ‘This is my first meet ever, we’re going to do so bad,’” said Madden, who scored 11 points in her team’s two-point win. “It ended up being really, really fun. That was definitely a good memory of mine. You have to swim fast for your team.”
DeSorbo hopes to start having more Cavaliers also swim fast for Team USA.
The Cavaliers have produced six Olympic medalists, most recently Leah Smith, who won a gold medal on Team USA’s 4x200 freestyle relay and a bronze medal in the 400 freestyle at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and 15 Olympians overall.
The Cavaliers want to take their final step and win their first women’s NCAA championship in March, but DeSorbo has also set a goal of having his men’s and women’s teams swim 30 times in the semifinals and finals of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Swimming in July. If they do so, the Cavaliers could have a few swimmers at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“I think we’ve got a handful of girls specifically who can contend for Olympic spots,” DeSorbo said. “In their mind, that’s their ultimate goal. If we have to sacrifice a little bit from an NCAA perspective, we’ll do that because we want to put them in the position to realize their ultimate dreams, like any 6-year-old or 10-year-old wants to make the Olympics.”
Credit the environment DeSorbo has created in just three years if that happens, something that Douglass, one of those swimmers who could contend for an Olympic spot, recognizes.
“It’s crazy how much the program has grown recently and the attention it’s gotten from recruits and everyone,” she said. “It’s great to have other people who have similar goals as I do because we just help push each other every single day. We’re all working toward the same thing.”