Gregg Troy, coach in Florida of Ryan Lochte, the outstanding swimmer of the 2010 season so far, was voted Coach of the Year by peers at the American Swimming Coaches Association gala banquet in Indianapolis this evening. In his acceptance speech, Troy was characteristically humble and was at pains to share the credit for his achievement with his assistant coaches Martyn Wilby and Anthony Nesty, the 1988 Olympic 100m butterfly champion.
The class of 2010 ASCA Hall of Fame Inductions included five men who have made an enormous contribution to American and world swimming:
- Jerry Holtrey, a man with 24 US crowns on the heads of his charges
- Bob Bowman, mentor to Michael Phelps and in charge of the burgeoning Baltimore Aquatics programme
- Jack Bauerle, a US Olympic head coach with a string of successes down the years
- David Marsh, who can count Bowman among his pupils
- David Salo, whose Trojan programme boasts a who's who of world stars
The Ousley Award for outstanding contribution to swimming went to Dr Laura Cox, whose pioneering stance and work in the realm of gene therapy and how that could be perverted to gene doping has helped to knock common sense into those running anti-doping programmes but often doing so a step or two behind the cheats out front.
The Daland Award, named after veteran US coach, the legendary Peter Daland, who at 89 is going strong, is a mine of information and can recall splits he witnessed from the year I was born, went to a pioneer whose very position represents one of the main battle fronts on the current political scene in world swimming: Jim Wood has two weeks to go as President of USA Swimming, his term having marked the first time in history that a coach (and an active one at that) has served in the top office of the world's leading swimming nation. As Wood steps down from a role he believes should be passed on at regular intervals and not held on to for long years, he does so at a time when world coaches are demanding that the importance given to coaching and the voices of coaches in the US be extended to the governance of world swimming.
More on the awards and some truly fabulous speeches by the recipients when the dust has settled.
