These coaches.
If we're going to be effective, we've got to understand that every athlete walking through our door has a unique history, a unique family life, unique genetic background. They're going to respond to stimuli in different ways. And if we're going to be effective coaches for all of our kids, not just a select few, we've got to get to know who those people are walking through the door. And that just takes time and energy.
This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the Reform Sports Podcast. My guest today is Greg Parini, had men's and women swimming and diving coach at Dennison University
since nineteen eighty seven. Coach Parini has built one of the most successful programs in the history of D three athletics, highlighted by seven NCAA Division three national championships, sixteen national runner up finishes, and a streak of sixty eight consecutive top ten national finishes across both genders. Greg and I discussed his interest in helping young people transactional verse transcendent relationships with athletes and the importance of getting to know
each athlete. Now, before we get to the interview, we'd like to dedicate this episode of Greg's mother, the Reverend Barbara Dennison Parini, who passed on January thirtieth, twenty twenty four. A highly accomplished priest in the Episcopal Church, Reverend Parini served five different dioceses, was instrumental in developing the first hospice ministry in Michigan, and worked tirelessly for battered and abused women. She was a positive role model not only
for the community she served, but for her family as well. Man, I'm humbled, I'm grateful for this gentleman. We connected, damn near four or five years ago. We've spoken several times. I'm really, really, really excited. He's definitely a legend. He's a goat, you know, one of the best coaches NCAA history for sure, the head swimming and dive coach from Dennison coach, Greg Parini coach.
Thanks so much for hopping on.
Colin Nick.
It's good to hear from you again and have been following you and your podcasts success and trajectory over the last few years. You guys are doing a remarkable job. Just honored to be a part of it.
Well, thank you.
Coaching I've had on, as you know, several coaches, you know, I've had Dabo Sweeney on, I've had you know, Bob Bowman on Anson Dornce on, a lot of these coaches that have had sustained success. And I think our listeners and I know I am fascinated with I mean, you got three national titles, I don't know how many runners up, and then you were a ridiculous swimmer in your own
right and had amazing success there. How do you get Dennison to have such success year over year over You're constantly either you're win international title, all Americans are in the fight for how do you keep doing How do you build that from scratch?
Which is what you did well?
I you know I didn't. I didn't arrive here with an empty play.
Dennison had established a strong tradition in swimming and diving, not to the level we've taken it now, but I had a solid foundation to work from. And that was one of the things that attracted me to Dennison is that I saw the resources in the form of facility and otherwise to build something.
And you know.
I honestly, if you'd asked me thirty seven years ago when I arrived, is this the level of success we would have had? And I said, well, in some ways, I would tell you, yeah, I'll be surprised if we don't have that level of success. But then, knowing how hard this can be, sometimes I'm really surprised we've had this much success at all. It's a it's a really weird dynamic, but very fortunate to work in a place like Dennison that is so supportive of what we're trying
to do, providing us with opportunities and resources. And you know, when I first arrived, it was just pretty much me and then it was you know, incremental improvements and resource allocation in the form of you know, hiring assistant coaches from part time to full time, then finally adding you know, the facility about ten years ago. And so it's been a well, you know, let's say, genesis of the program, but consistent.
That way you said thirty seven years right, yeah, and you often hear you know the cliches. You know, kids are soft right here at all time, kids are soft. You know which times change, right? You know, everyone changes? How do you have a culture in which you as a as a human, as a coach, have been able to adapt because let's face it, I mean things are
different social media. How do you create that consistency within your program is to start with the recruiting process, Like, can you walk us through how you continue to have the level of consistent success and buying it sounds like from the athletes that you bring into your program.
Well, I think it starts with a vision and a really strong reason why. I'm really fortunate. I got into this game not necessarily because I wanted to develop the most competitive or a highly competitive small college swimming program in the country. I got into this game because I really wanted to work with young people and I was interested in using, you know, swimming as a vehicle through which we could help young men and young women kind of find their way. And I think that precedes everything
that we're trying to do competitively. Is this I think innate strong desire to work with young people and equip them for life afterwards. And I think if we do that process and we're committed to that process in a heartfelt and authentic way, it really makes the rest of the job much easier because, you know, there's a consistency in our messaging, there's a consistency in our team culture
that transcends I guess time. I mean trying to help young men and women's that transcends time and era and generations. And I think there are some unique dynamics in play right now with the current generation of eighteen to twenty two year olds. I was just talking about this with some colleagues yesterday about what that means for us as educators, mentors,
and coaches. But I think we're fortunate here to start at the foundation that we're just here to try try to help young men and young women find themselves, find out who they are, develop authentic relationships with themselves and the sport that they've chosen in an effort to I guess, equip them for for life after after college and life after sport. And so I think that's what's allowed us
to maybe move generationally. Is that that common threat of helping people, I think transcend anything that we're doing logistically or strategically.
If I'm making sense.
I mean, it makes complete sense.
In fact, I've always heard it sounds like the people who have the most success seem to really have that.
But listen.
I want to raise great human beings. You know, I have six children, right, I want to help them be great. But I'm a freaking competitor, you know what I mean? Like, like,
you're a competitor, So do you have to separate? Like do you have to I guess what I visualize as you as you were telling your story about helping young people, I'm like, yeah, do you come in every you know, let's say the season ends in you know, six eight weeks whatever it is, and you win the national time, you don't win the nationality either way, we all start the next day at zero.
Right.
It's like if you're in sales, you have a.
Great month, the next day you're in first of the month and you're at zero.
You know, whatever it is, right, you.
Got to compete, right, So how do you balance the vision like you described of literally keeping the main thing, the main thing, which is to use swimming as a platform to help people, but also realize, Man, I want to go I want to go win national title and if there's anything wrong with that, but how do you continue that balance?
Well, I this is competition, and I think competition is good for people. I mean, I think it's important that we take on hard things. I think it's important that we set course on a goal, recognizing all the potential trip wires and challenges that are going to come along the way. But you know, I think the competitive environment exposes us a little bit in a way that we're
not exposed necessarily in real time in other areas. I mean, we're fortunate to be in a sport like swimming where we have an apt salute standard, which is the Stopwatch, and you know, and our swimmers are measured objectively every single day. They don't have to always pass. You know, I've got since played ice hockey, and so much of their their ascension in sport was not only past, you know, putting up good metrics, but also passing the eye test with the coaches.
And I think, you know, swimming benefits from the standpoint of we've.
Got absolute standards in the form of the stop Watch that expose us and basically tell us exactly who we are. As I tell my team around here, there's no bsing to stop watch. It's going to tell you exactly who you are. And whenever you find yourself in an environment like that, you know you're challenged to be at your
best the competitive environment brings all that out. And so if I'm committed to helping young men and young women move down the maturation pipe, I understand the competition and the discipline and the training that comes along in order to be successful on our sport is a great laboratory, it's a it's a great experience for us, and so the competition fits.
In with that growth mindset.
I don't think you can have a growth mindset without having a healthy sense of competition with yourself.
If that makes some sense.
I think it's great.
You know, the reason I always I always want to dig in a little deeper, especially on a point like that, is because you know, it's so easy at the youth level, right to younger ages.
Right You're you're you're dealing with young adults.
You know, in some cases today, I mean, for God's sakes, there's college football athletes or whatever because of COVID that are twenty seven years old, you know, I mean, that's what it is, and through no fault of their own, it is what it is.
Those are damn adults.
So my point is when you trickle that back down to the high school and middle school and youth ranks, you know, it's very easy for coaches that get caught up in the results, in the winning and the winning. How many of those of those coaches, I don't know, Maybe they all are, maybe none of them are are sitting there going I really want to use this platform to you know, help young people. Well maybe they also want to do well so they can you know, progress
their career, you know, their own coaching career. So how I guess I want younger coaches to hear from folks like yourself who are season You don't you can never coach again tomorrow. You're a Hall of famer. You know, your your accolades speak for themselves. But I want to take folks like you and have that mindset trickle down because I think at any age, if you have that mindset, you're going to get good results, putting the athlete ahead
of anything else. I mean, what do you think about the landscape and maybe taking your approach to younger kids.
Do you think that you don't see enough of that?
Do you think it's more driven around because I know you volunteer coach as well.
Yeah, well I think you know, I think as coaches, we've got to make a decision whether or not the kind of relationships we want with our with our athletes is transactional or transcendent. And if if we're interested in only generating transactional relationships with our athletes, where we see athletes as a means to an end rather than an end and of themselves, I think that's a path to success, and I think it can. I think one of the
outcomes of that can be really good relationships. But I also know that that, generally speaking, has a pretty short shelf life if your athletes perceive themselves as only being a memes to a coach's and I'm not sure that there's always going to be a ton of trust there.
That's always my concern is. I think that when we've got the best long term interest of our student athletes in mind, and we're thinking in terms of developing transitional or transcendent relationships versus simply transactional, then I think we
set ourselves up for longer term success. I've had the good fortune to work with and talk to a lot of coaches who are much better than anything I ever did, and the one thing, the one common thread that they have is that they genuinely enjoy interacting with their athletes. Not necessarily from a transactional standpoint, but from let's say,
just a simply holistic caring standpoint. If you go back to the John Woodens of the John Wooden clearly had the love and respect of his athletes in large part because of the love and respect that he showed them. There's that iconic photo of him and Leuel Cinder at the time later to become Kareem Abdul Jabbar walking across the gym floor when Wooden was a young man and
el Sinder was a student. Then there's that picture juxtaposed to that fifty sixty years later, when Woodin is on a cane and there there's Jabbar helping him across the same floor. And I think that that speaks to the quality of relationships that Wooden was driving that through his basketball program, and that I think that's a role model for all of us.
I think all of us can do that.
I mean, whether we're talking about the Bob Bowmans of the world, who I spent a few days without in Arizona in December, we're talking about Doc Kusman and Indiana who for generations just nurtured those relationships. You know, I think every coach has to decide at what level they want to have a transactional versus a transitioning or transcendent
relationship with their athletes. And I just think having the ladder sets us up for much longer term success and if we're just simply trying to, let's say, take the next step in our careers.
When we return, Greg and I discussed his coaching strategy for his team as well as his sons. Before we go to break, I've got another exciting announcement for you. Team Snap, the leading provider of sports management software, has
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to engage on and off the field. The combination of the two industry leading consumer tech platforms also creates the most comprehensive suite of B to B tools of a for youth sports organizations, including powerful content distribution capabilities to drive adoption of coaching and training programs, registration tools, payment processing, organizational management tools, and much more.
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Dot teamsnap dot com and set up a free demo to learn how Team snap can help your organization this season. Where we left off, Greg and I were about to discuss the importance of getting to know each athlete and coaching them accordingly.
I think that's so well said it.
You know, you mentioned you have, you know, boys that played hockey and your professionist coach. So how did you juggle the balance of being dad and coach? Was it tough? How did you navigate it? Because you know you're a competitor. I'm sure your boys were competitors.
How'd you do it?
Well?
You know the thing that's remarkably I mean, I coached five of our six sons. Our oldest didn't play hockey, the next five did. And for me, I got into the hockey coaching simply because it afforded me an opportunity to spend time with my kids as a volunteer assistant coause I played pond hockey in Michigan. I never played organized hockey. But you know, to coach organize hockey, you got to learn something about the game that goes beyond simply.
Skating on the lake. But for me, my priority.
In becoming a hockey coach is just to be able to have some time with my kids because my days year at the pool were pretty long. I basically leave the house at four thirty AM, I don't get home till seven pm, and my boys' schedules just didn't line up with that very well. So if I wanted to have any time with my kids, it had to be at the hockey rink once I got off the pool deck.
So typically I'd be at the pool deck for you know, thirteen fourteen hours, and then I'd head out to the ice rink for a couple hours to skate with them. So my priority in being their coach was really dad sun time. Now, having said that, we had some pretty successful teams. We had some high school teams that made it all the way to the national tournament, which was exciting, and you know, we got into you know, the quarterfinals
and things like that. We had some pretty good hockey going on here, and my boys were as.
Competitive as they get. But I think.
Balancing that bad coach dynamic was really dependent on each one of the sons. I was working with a son, Joe, for instance, is you know you know he's he's cut from a really competitive cloth. He's a Green Beret, he's in Special Forces now, he's a self described door kicker. He's the kind of kid who loved me to be in his ear.
As a coach, you could say, you could just say he's a complete badass.
Well, he's something else. He's a work of art, there's no.
Doubt about it.
But his younger brother of only fifteen months, it's really interesting. For sixteen months, his younger brother, Solomon didn't want anything to do with me on the on the ice or on the bench. And so I had to as a father and as a coach, I had to learn who among my sons was willing to listen to me and who wanted that input. So like with Joe or with Gabe, or with Simon or with Ted, I could be their coach.
With Solomon, I really had to step away from it though, simply because the relationship was The dynamics with that of the relationship just didn't necessarily work for him to be a better hockey player. So the quieter I was, the better Solomon played. The Noisier I got with him, the less effective he was because I think I just simply think he got in his head and you know, he had dad's voice and his said too much and it
just messed them up. So I think as a dad coach, as a volunteer coach, you've got to read your child and ask yourself, Okay, does this guy need me as a dad right now? Or does he need me as a coach? And they're not always the same thing, because ultimately it's about putting our athletes needs before our own.
And I've seen way too many times over the years where we have a volunteer coach is trying to relive their high school club experience through their children, and I don't always think that that's a particularly good combination.
I couldn't agree with you more so, how did you?
I mean, you found each personality to your own kid and coached to that.
Wow. Any successful coach I've ever spoken to it?
And I know because I played for you know several, but I could speak to Mike Fox, who's retired UNC baseball coach. I speak about him a lot, And that was the first time I really played for someone who really coached everyone differently, like he knew who he needed to kind of get on, who he had to love on a little bit more. How do you do that in a limited amount of time, particularly if you're a you know, volunteer coach, because you're still got to do x's and o's.
Well, see, yeah, here's my own personal belief on that. I think, you know, for us, it starts with developing that relationship with the athlete even before they arrive at Dennison and we have that recruiting window that we can work to get to know the person and things like that. But you know, a lot of times we have coaches just stepping out on the field. They inherit a team.
They don't necessarily get to pick their team. But you know, for me, I think the key thing, and I learned this from Doc Councilman, is that to make sure that I slow, let's say, my mind down and practices, and to listen and to ask questions and to observe. I'm generally a fairly quiet coach on deck simply because I'm watching how my athletes are responding to what's going on around them with the training and with the stimulus that
we've hit them with. Frankly, I guess my own belief is I think coaches do too much talking and not enough listening and observing. And I think the best coaches out there get to know their athletes by asking good questions, by listening to those answers, and by observing their athletes. Had a great conversation with Sparky Anderson, the great Cincinnati res in Detroit Tiger's manager, right after nineteen eighty four.
I was just getting into the coaching gig, and he happened to be one of doing one of those those winner Tours with the Tigers promoting season ticket sales, and I had a chance to talk with him as they went through Lancey, Michigan, where I was in grad school, and I asked him, I said, you know, Sparky, can you tell me how many different managerial approaches you have with your team? And he says, well, I've got forty
guys on my team. I've got forty different approaches. And I thought that that was particularly insightful, and I thought Anderson is arguably one of the best player He is a player centered manager. The guy knew his athletes well and knew what they needed. And some kids, you know, some of our athletes need that proverbial hug and some
of them need a proverbial firmer place to land. And I think as coaches, if we're going to be effective, we've got to understand that every athlete walking through our door has a unique history, a unique family life, a unique genetic background. They're going to respond to stimuli in different ways. And if we're going to be effective coaches for all of our kids, not just a select few, we've got to get to know who those people are walking through the door. And that just takes time and energy.
And sometimes we don't have that time, and sometimes we don't have that energy. But I think I think the time and energy we invest in those relationships correlates very highly with a successful athletic experience.
Not to bring it back too much, but you mentioned the transactional versus transcending relationship.
You're at the division three level.
I played Division three, So there's no athletic scholarships, right. I don't want to go down the weeds and how you know, kid, there's money available in other ways, but I don't want That's not what this is about. But if you look at sports that are in our face, right, power five basketball, men's and women's you know football.
Course, it is transactional in many ways. I mean it really is.
I mean coaches will tell you, you know, especially the ones that I've had on who are at, you know, the later stages of their career. A lot of them are retiring it's a different game, you know, because they valued the relationship so much. But it really not that
it's not valuable today. But it really seems like, I mean, let's just call space to spade, like players and coaches are kind of using each other to get whatever that and I'm not that sure it could be mutually beneficial, right, It's like in agreement, like we're going to do this thing. Is it becoming and this just maybe a random question to you. Is Division one Power five type athletic? Is that just pro sports and what you do what I say you do Division III and that type of is it different?
I mean, is it going to become different? How do you see it shaking out?
That is the sixty four thousand dollars question, Nick, And I wish I had a firm answer on this one. I do think with the amount of money that is floating around the Power five, and again I don't live in that world, but I do. I live just thirty five miles down the street from Ohio State.
Yeah yeah, you're in the biggest brand in the world, one of them exactly.
And I let you know, you read reports out of the Columbus Dispatch that, you know, they spend thirteen million dollars on nil money for the football Transfer Portal. I mean, that's just mind boggling to me that. You know, I think whenever you introduce that level of income in anything, you know, I think you run the risk of getting entirely transactional. Somebody's sharing and I didn't do a deep dive on this, but somebody shared a post with me yesterday.
How I think the Georgia quarterback just landed a Lamborghini.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Oh I saw that too. Yeah.
Well, you know, I remember going back to the nineteen eighties at Michigan State when Sam Vincent, who ended up playing in the NBA, showed up in a brand new car outside Jennison Fieldhouse because he had just recently signed with an agent.
And what a shock that was in the media.
Oh burnamt you know, like it was a big deal, Like did you couldn't do it.
Yeah, But I think you introduced this much money into the relationships, it's bound to become increasingly transactional. And I do think that that's unique. You know, I can't I don't know if it's unique to Power five. I know that we don't see that kind of money in D three and I think that So I do think it changes the nature of the relationship between coach and athlete. But I also think it changes the relationship between the
athlete and the sport. And do we have athletes who are competing purely for transactional relationships?
How far can this get me? In?
I understand the reality some kids putting, you know, are putting their whole lives on the line in committing everything they've got to becoming you know, that professional athlete. You know where where athletics is transactional. And I get that there's some there's some stark realities out there where people are trying to get their needs and family, families and needs met.
But I think you.
Introduced that much money into any situation, you are bound to get into a transactional thing.
So yeah, I'm troubled by that.
You know, I'm not talking anything about whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing. I'm just talking about the impact that I think is having. And you know, and I think it very easily. I think our students, and our coaches, and our parents and our ads could very easily get lost in that transactional process at the expense of I think having the quality relationship that you are looking to develop with your kids.
So no clear answers.
I don't think there's a clear path other than just saying it's go get Really I think it's going to get messier before it gets cleaned up.
Coach Parini, I can't thank you enough. Man, this has been We're going to do this again. Your wisdom, your insights, freaking you know, second to none, you know, entrenched and getting ready to go into the postseason.
You know.
I hope you all continued to knock it out of the park in and I just thank you so much for joining us man.
Thanks Nick, it's always approviaged to talk to you. Keep up the great work. You're doing such important work out there, and I think getting light and air exposed to these issues is really important for everyone.
So thank you.
That's Greg Parini, Head Men's and Women Swimming and Diving, coach at Dennison University.
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