Todd Schmitz: Breaking Through

Todd Schmitz is an anomaly. In 2011, his kind of achievement is even more rare than it has been. While it was treated as a minor news story by some, Olympian Kara Lynn Joyce's decision to go train with the Colorado Stars represents something quite remarkable. Todd Schmitz has arrived. He no longer just happens to have a young olympic hopeful on his team- his team is now a place to go for established international swimmers. The fact that he's been in coaching for not even a decade makes it seem easy. It most certainly isn't.


You see, USA Swimming made a decision under the guidance of former National Team Director Mark Schubert to create Post Graduate Training Centers. We used to call them "Centers of Excellence" until, I guess, they got outperformed by clubs that didn't have excellence in their title and it all seemed a little silly. "Post Graduate Training Center" offers no judgment or prediction on how well anyone is going to swim. These training centers have become increasingly concentrated with Olympic hopefuls.

And yet, for all the talent amassed, at the 2010 Pan Pacific Championship, two male medalists came from the Post Graduate Centers. One was Michael Phelps, training with his coach for the last 14 years, Bob Bowman. The other was Tyler Clary, who spent a few months at FAST after leaving Michigan. On the women's side Ariana Kukors earned a silver in the 200 IM alongside Kate Zieglers 800/1500 medals to make up post graduate center results.

Nearly all the rest come from club teams that are attached to powerhouse college programs. Gainesville has started to draw a significant population of Olympic hopefuls, no surprise with the men's Olympic coach down there. Likewise, Berkeley with it's own Olympic coach has a number of notables.

Which brings me back to Schmitz. He has none of the advantages above. He has no built in credibility with national level adult swimmers that running a power college team. He has no special designation as a Post Graduate Center and all the money and support that entails. He has broken through in a system that is designed not to have breakthroughs.

Over a year ago, club coach John Collins complained bitterly about the state of coaching swimming. He felt that the creation of post graduate centers and the expectation that kids go to college had created a system where people like him, were just a farm system. They were on the outside of what was exciting in swimming. He was wrong- Todd Schmitz is exactly that. He's an inspiration to coaches like me, still climbing our way up the ladder.