Greg Meehan – 7 Months In: The Big Takeaways (Swim Brief Podcast)

Greg’s about 7 months into the USA Swimming job, busier than he’s ever been, and drowning in meetings – way more than he expected.

He and his crew (Yuri Sugiyama, Kim Williams, Brendan Hansen) are trying to run USA Swimming like coaches, not bureaucrats – “from the pool deck” instead of from an office.

Worlds was hard to read because a ton of athletes were sick, so the results are skewed.

Nationals, though, were crazy fast and one of the best in years, so they’re using those results a lot when they analyze where the U.S. really stands.

He’s big on data and race analysis:

• The U.S. is getting beat 5m into the wall and 15m out.

• Issues:

  • Underwaters not as sharp.

  • Decelerating into the last 5m of the wall.

  • People breathing immediately off the turn and losing speed.

He thinks Americans have always prided themselves on turns and underwaters, so this data surprised him – and now he’s pushing coaches to refocus on that.

The rest of the world hasn’t caught up - they’ve passed us.

He thinks Team USA is great at becoming a team, but:

• They haven’t had enough non-meet time together.

• Meets feel like “speed dating”: quick camp, quick competition, then done.

So they created:

• A national team coaches webinar (100+ coaches showed up).

• A national team onboarding camp at the OTC tied into Golden Goggles:

  • 80+ athletes came.

  • Medical screening, USOPC resources, training, meetings, plus time to just hang out.

Goal: athletes feel like they belong to two teams:

1. Their club/college team

2. Team USA

He thinks USA’s decentralized system is a huge advantage:

• Tons of different training models.

• No top-down “this is exactly how you must train.”

But that makes it harder to align everyone around big goals like LA 2028.

His role: “set the table” so everyone feels like they’re part of something bigger than just their own group.

He feels strongly that Americans aren’t racing enough long course.

Pros especially: no dual meets, no college invites.

He likes the World Cup circuit:

• Great racing.

• Short sessions (8 finals).

• He doesn’t think fast short course racing in October harms long course performance.

He wants more long course reps:

• Hard to be great in June/July if your first LC race is in April.

• Data they looked at backs this up.

Officially he’s over the national team (about 120 swimmers), and Brendan handles national junior team (about 90).

But he wants to push learnings downward:

• Example: understand the path of someone like Gretchen Walsh (club → UVA → world record).

• Share with age-group coaches:

  • Lots of kicking.

  • Don’t over-snorkel everything.

  • Teach breathing and fundamentals well.

Idea: show 12-&-under/14-&-under coaches what the best in the world did on the way up.

Yuri Sugiyama:

• Big on relationships and “on-deck” feel.

• Taking a larger role in open water and distance, plus a performance staff.

Kim Williams:

• Ex-athlete of his, then assistant at Stanford.

• Super organized / systems thinker.

• Handles selection procedures, coach selection frameworks, funding models, and oversees operations.

Overall philosophy for the whole group:

• Every decision must pass one test:
  “Will this help us win medals?”
  If not, it drops down the priority list.

Support & resources:

• Connections to nutrition, sports med, labs, diagnostics.

• Better access to USOPC and medical support.

Money:

• Prize money, travel assistance, monthly stipends.

• He says they’re already:

  • Increasing some travel assistance.

  • Increasing pieces of performance funding for pros.

Site visits:

• They’ve met ~55–56 national team athletes individually in six weeks.

• On deck for multiple practices at each site.

• Coaches actually want feedback, and most are open to suggestions.

• They’re looking for trends: common strengths/weaknesses in how the best train.

He knows this job is exhausting and not something he wants to do forever.

Long term, he wants to coach again someday.

He still sees himself as more about the art of coaching (people, motivation, culture) than purely the science.

He uses trusted coaches (Yuri, Todd, Dave, Carol, Braden, etc.) as his support network.

He’s realistic about how hard it is to measure his impact:

• When you’re not writing workouts every day, you don’t see direct cause/effect.

• So he focuses on:

  • Filling “gaps” for athletes.

  • Creating better structures and support.

  • Trusting that if coaches/athletes do their jobs, and he removes friction, they’ll go faster.

He’s genuinely in love with the Olympic movement & USA Swimming, and that’s what gets him out of bed:

• He wants to look back after LA 2028 at a collective win, not a personal one.