403 - How to Build a Winning Team: A World-Class NCAA Coach on Culture, Standards, and High Performance
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
On this episode IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon interviews Chase Kreitler, a renowned swim coach, about his journey from coaching age group swimmers to leading the University of Pittsburgh's swim program. Kreitler discusses his mentorship under coaches like Eddie Reese, Greg Meehan, and Dave Durden, emphasizing the importance of individual responsibility, team culture, and high standards. He shares his strategy for revitalizing the Pitt program, including fostering a high-performance culture through intentional practice habits, team-building activities, and clear communication. Kreitler also highlights the significance of mentorship, risk-taking, and the balance between high expectations and care for athletes.
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Episode Timecodes:
00-:51 Episode Promo
1:24-4:42 Episode Intro
4:51-end Meat & Potatoes
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Transcription
Matt Dixon 00:00
Today's episode is a special one. It's a fun one for me as well. I'm actually interviewing, well, a guy that used to be a young kid who I used to coach, but has actually now gone on with absolutely no thanks. I should enforce to me to become one of the world's best swim coaches, Chase Kreitler, it's a cracker. I think you're going to enjoy it. Now, as you listen to the show, you might be inspired to take your conversation around performance further. If you'd like to reach out to us to explore any of our coaching programs, whether it's across our field of squad programs, or of course one-to-one coaching in any capacity, or if you're a leader looking to dig in deep around driving performance in your own team and even yourself, feel free to reach out to us. info@purplepatchfitness.com We always offer complimentary co-strategy sessions to help you get on the right path for your journey. Enjoy the show. I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential through the lens of athletic potential. You reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life. And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. As ever, your host Matt Dixon, and today this is an incredibly fun one for me. Through a series of circumstances, a few months ago, I got reintroduced to a young man who I used to coach as an age group swimmer in my very first coaching job back in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Anderson Barracudas Emmy Lions swim team. I used to coach a young lad called Chase Kreitler. Now, along the next 20 or so years, I got to follow along from afar, to observe Chase develop into a collegiate swimmer, into dabbling into coaching, and going on a journey of progression to now becoming one of the sport's greatest coaches.
Matt Dixon 02:15
His story is inspirational and intriguing, and if you're listening today as a young coach, I invite you to listen, take notes, and apply many of the lessons that Chase goes through. If you're listening as an athlete, you get going to get a behind-the-scenes view into a coach's mindset. And if you're listening as a leader in business, this is special for you because in today's show, Chase Kreitler. We dig into leadership, performance, culture, what it takes through the art of coaching to help people get the most out of themselves. Chase has a remarkable rise through the coaching ranks. He started at Cal State University. He went on to coach at Eastern Michigan. He then became a assistant coach at LSU, and then paused with paid coaching and went to become a volunteer assistant at the University of Texas to coach under the great Eddie Reese. From there, it was Stanford, a full-time paid assistant for multiple years at the national winning championship program of Cal, and then about five years ago, he took over the reins at the University of Pittsburgh, their men's and women's swim coach. Their program at the time not doing great, certainly not a powerhouse, but he turned that program around with a human first approach, driving around real care for every one of his student athletes about them as a human being, but also partnering it with incredibly high standards and setting up a high performance culture. It's a wealth of lessons and insight. And as you're going to hear today, in fact, we pretty much ran out of time. We had a fantastic discussion, but there's so more. So I'm hoping to get chased back for a second go at this. But you're going to find an incredibly empowering story of what it takes to be exceptional in your craft. It's about a little bit of sacrifice, reaching out for help, leaning into mentorship, surrounding yourself with great people, and really understand authentically who you are, it is a massively inspirational conversation, and I tell you what, I love listening to it because not only is Chase a world-class coach, but I got to sit on the side and just listen and learn. It was incredible, and so without further ado, I gave you Chase Kreitler, elite swim coach. It's all in today's meat and potatoes.
Chase Kreitler 04:49
I got to I got to tell the story about about you quickly about barracudas. So, all right. So you know, there's that Maya Angelou quote about. You know, you don't really remember what people say, but just how they made you feel. And you know, Matt, you were the young, cool coach. I don't think you were ever. Maybe I don't know about my primary group coach, but maybe assisted Tim and assisted Ed. You know, as as we worked with with each other. And I remember, I definitely liked you. I definitely could feel the energy, the positive vibe. Like I got confidence from you. But I remember at the 1999 Junior Olympics, I did the 50 breast, and I came back to you, and you said that start was crap, and I was crushed. I was crushed, and now I just you know, obviously, I've worked with a lot of European student athletes that you know are much more open to direct coaching. And one of the athletes that I had that that made world championships last summer for Italy, I've probably coached him the most direct I've ever coached anybody. But it's because he knows that I love him and we care about him. So, anyways, that's the story about you telling me that my start was crap and I was crushed and and I think you saw my face probably drop and then you know probably had to put your arm around me and walk that back a little bit but I wasn't that mean that mean so anyways that's fun but um so yeah a little bit I guess my my swimming journey. So I moved out to Los Angeles and swam club for a small club, Sea Cat, in the San Fernando Valley, and then went on to swim at at Cal State Bakersfield, which was a really cool program. They had won 13 Division II national championships.
Chase Kreitler 06:37
The last one being just about a year before I got there, and and so I swam there for four years, and and really, you know, when we talk about you know inspirational kind of moments that that where you catch something that keeps you going, I I have two. You know, my my sister asked me; she was already maybe doing summer league, and she asked me to do summer league with her, and I said no, I don't want to do that. I didn't I don't want to swim, and and then obviously I got roped into it, and you know here we are, you know 30 plus years later. That was even before Barracudas, but just the first couple weeks of my college swimming career, I was thinking about being a physical therapist, and and I was already really into coaching, and and I had all these sports science books and and things, and I just got into that environment where everybody wanted to be there, they wanted to do it at the highest level. My freshman year, we were still Division Two. They wanted to win a national championship in Division Two, and I just looked around. I was like, "This is awesome! Like, this is this environment is awesome. And I was like, "I don't want to be a physical therapist. I want to be a college trump coach. Like, this is really cool. And so, obviously, that was now you know 21 years ago, but yeah, a fun a fun journey there. I got a lot better. I tried to probably do way too many things in high school, and kind of you know did some running and some triathlons and some swimming, some water polo, and actually had a lot of injuries. And you know, like you said, we've learned from try probably trying to do things too hard, not get enough sleep. A big part of my, you know, personal journey was getting sick a lot and probably overtraining. But you know, really, I had a phenomenal experience swimming at Bakersfield. One of my college coaches there, Morgan Bailey, who's now an FBI agent, by the way, was just an incredible leader, mentor, and so I really appreciated the time being there. So
Matt Dixon 08:24
I want to dig into your coaching journey because it is actually fascinating to me. Because I think it's actually very rare the way that that you went about it, and incredibly smart, by the way. But you know what followed was was an incredibly methodical, from my perspective, climb where you coached at Eastern Michigan. You went to LSU, Texas, Stanford. We're starting to get into the real powerhouses of swimming, and then finally four years as men's assistant at Cal under Dave Durden. Incredible sort of journey of of of development, and also seeing so many perspectives at the highest level of collegiate swimming, where you wanted to go, and then and then from there you became the pet men's oh sorry men's and women's head coach. Can you go back? What was there strategy behind this? Why don't you unpack your coaching journey for us a little bit because it it sort of it has led you to who have you you've become so well. Oh
Chase Kreitler 09:30
yeah, thanks. I it some I'll just say be very honest about it. Some of it was very intentional, and some of it was just truly I'm blessed to have ended up you know in places with mentors and and things that I didn't even expect, like the the journey going out to Eastern Michigan. I had no idea how good Peter Lynn was as a coach. And if you ask to this day, he's now retired. But you know the the coaches around the country that have been in it for a long time will say that Peter Lynn, the Eastern Michigan coach, is easily one of the most. You know, underrated coaches in the country, and he had you know from a mid major program had a an athlete get second at the national championships, had an athlete get fourth at the national championships, just phenomenal job. So that you know, I had an opportunity to go out there and get my master's for free, which is obviously a big deal, and so that that was kind of a no brainer. And that I looked at a couple programs, but that exercise physiology program was very much focused on human performance, which I was a little bit less interested in doing like clinical research and more in like how do you help really good athletes get even better, and so that that was a little bit of the the journey to Eastern Michigan, and you know as I some other time, I'll do a talk about how little I got paid at each of the stops along the way, because that truly that's a big part of the story as well. Is like being willing to kind of make some sacrifices, both with lifestyle or working second jobs or doing things to to take risks. And so, you know, the journey to LSU like that that made a lot of sense. It was a big time SEC job, and I was you know pretty young coach, 26 or 27 and had the opportunity to have my own group, and that was a great experience.
Chase Kreitler 11:11
Like I would, if I go back, take a step back and look at it at Bakersfield, I got to kind of run my own group and learn a lot by doing. At Eastern Michigan. I did get to influence a lot of the weight program there, strength conditioning program. But Peter kind of really kind of quarterbacked the the training, and I that was hard for me. It was hard to take a step back. But what I learned was, I we had people swim fast, short course, long course, men, women, you know, sprint events all the way to distance, and it was different than I would have done it. And he had a lot more experience than I did, and I needed to do that. I needed to take a step back. You know, even though I'd had come off this incredibly successful second season of coaching at Bakersfield with a group of you know pretty small group of men sprinters, I needed to take a step back and just see more. And that's a good lesson for anybody, right? If you've had success in something, sometimes it's just you think that you're going to continue to be successful, and it's like sometimes you need to take a step back and learn from somebody who's been in it a lot longer than you, and and just has done it and made mistakes, right? And I actually one summer I coached an altitude camp and and a group of athletes kind of shortly after my time at Bakersfield, and they didn't swim that well, and so I learned from that, and just learned you know some things I needed to do differently. But so the the journey to LSU was was awesome, and and really I had you know we were kind of building as a program and had you know some fun things happen there. But what really struck me, Matt, was right around 2016 Texas in 2015 had had they had like six guys out of the top eight in the 100 fly at the national championships. Like that is unbelievable to have six of the top eight athletes in one event. And then the next year, and I just saw what they were doing, kind of winning back to back national championships.
Chase Kreitler 12:57
And I had a really really good South African athlete at LSU, a 200 flyer, but a couple guys at Texas that broke the NC two A record were like four or five seconds faster than him, and I I truly was like, what are they doing at Texas? And so I just you know again some of it by by chance, and my wife got a job where we could move anywhere in the country. We had met in Louisiana, and and so we decided to move to Austin, Texas. And and Coach Reese was, you know, obviously gracious enough to give me a spot on the staff as a volunteer assistant, and that was awesome because again, I had had a chance after Eastern Michigan where I had taken a step back to get back in and kind of run things my own way for three years, and we had a lot of success. And yet, you know, there was people around the country looking around the world that were swimming at another level, and I just needed to see what they were doing. And you know, as I got to Texas, it's funny because it took a while to see what the differences were, and certainly some of it was recruiting and the talent of athlete. But really, there were some key differences that I picked up there, and I would say, you know, 2016, that decision about 10 years ago now was pivotal, like in my coaching career. Again, I went from having a pretty good salary job at an SEC school, and I decided to go work for free, not knowing how I was going to kind of get back into a paid job again.
Chase Kreitler 14:20
But that that obviously gamble totally paid off, and and you know beyond that, I funny enough, as you have you know and and for a lot of the Bay Area listeners that have you know if you're married or with a partner that have two incomes, it's like you're definitely both working to afford housing in the Bay Area. But my wife is a very accomplished professional in in her own right, and she got a job in the Bay Area, and so then I kind of had to leave Texas, even though I, you know, we loved Austin, wanted to stay there, but she got a job, you know, for a tech company in the Bay Area, and so we moved out. I started volunteering at Stanford, and and one one thing that I didn't mention, you know, at the very beginning of the conversation was right when I started. Coaching at Bakersfield, my goal was to be the assistant coach at Cal. Coach Durden had gotten there in 2007 right at the middle of my college career, and I had just seen the rise. We swam against Cal every year, and I saw them getting better. And then my a couple of my first years of coaching, they won the national championship in 2011 2012 and so that I was kind of like, how do I get to that that spot and top level as well? Yeah, the top level, and and specifically working with Coach Jordan and Au, and so just you know a little fun story for for the business professionals out there. I when I was at Texas, even though Texas is kind of the bitter rival of Cal, I co I called Coach Durden and just said, "Hey, like I know that your assistant coach, you know, is very eligible for getting called up to head coaching jobs. I just want to let you know I would love the opportunity to work with you, and just put that out. And that was about a year before the position actually opened, and and even before that, at different conference or just you know had opportunities to kind of network, right, and meet people, and just keep that connection point going. And so then, when the position opened up, it was a natural call. We'd already talked, and and so in another kind of scenario, I thought I was going to be at Stanford for similar to Texas a couple years, and that kind of you know ended up being kind of a short time frame. But even just the time that I had there with Greg Mihan and Tracy Sluster was incredible.
Chase Kreitler 16:23
Learning from them and seeing an elite, you know, kind of women's only environment was phenomenal. And then obviously, you know, on the cow and working with Coach Jordan was a dream. And and yet also like we, you know, it's as with many companies, organizations, it's kind of shiny on the outside, and it's like you work right. Like it's we we had success. We had certainly a lot of talented athletes, but we put a lot of work in to get them to be in the position to perform at the NCAA championships, Olympic trials, the Olympic games. So yeah, it's been a fun journey, Matt. It really has been. It's been special. Well,
Matt Dixon 16:59
high performance is no accident. That's that's what someone once said. That so so Greg and Tracy Stanford, Eddie at Texas, and Dave at Cal, and you know two of or three to four leaders of powerhouses. Each one of them bringing something probably similar and also different from one another. So I'd love you to just unpack briefly, because because ultimately this this ends up leading to you as a head coach. So what's one thing that you took from each of them that that really informed or even changed or evolved how you coached?
Chase Kreitler 17:41
I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep it to one thing. I'm gonna do my best. The one of the most impactful things I mentioned that quote, you know, the sports psychologist. If it is to be, it's up to me, and kind of you know taking individual responsibility. The very first meeting that I was in at University of Texas, it was right after the Rio Olympics. I believe we had four gold medalists in the room, and it was a very informal meeting. And Coach Reese just looked around the locker room and said, "You have to take responsibility for your own success. If you need to get better at you know dolphin kicking, something specific, and swimming, like you need to work on it and and ask the coaches if you need help. But just instilling you know, that level of individual responsibility, I think, was something that that Coach Reese really taught me, and and empowering the athletes, the student athletes, to do that. And then, you know, a couple other things that he was just a master at was instilling radical confidence in the athletes, both to do a lot of work, you know, and and also to do something that was, I think, is becoming increasingly hard with just kind of our cultural, you know, desire to have things, you know, fast to play the long game. Like we we would train through dual meets in a way. I think my second year there, we won or excuse me, we lost maybe three dual meets, but we won the national championship, and we, you know, and and so it's like, hey, that level of trust of like, you know, don't worry about this now. We're going to be good at the right time, and that's that's hard. That's hard for anybody to do. And then you know, just guys believing that they could do something incredible and truly, you know, kind of superhuman, so to speak. So that that's that's Coach Reese. That was incredible. You know, Greg and Tracy at Stanford. I loved the the time that I had with them, and and Tracy, I'm still involved with. She's an executive coach that I work with. Greg Greg is a fantastic communicator.
Chase Kreitler 19:37
He's just really thoughtful about his planning, his organization, building a team culture, and one thing that you know I picked up from them, and and you know stayed in contact with them, they had five core values for their team, but they talked about kind of you know the Gen Z student athlete wanting to have some ownership in you know the team culture, right? Like things have changed in. Workplace and you know it used to be a lot more kind of like hey this is the vision it's coming from the top and now especially with Gen Z workers they want to have more input and and their values driven as as being values driven is super important so that's something that I took from Stanford and implemented with our team at Pitt was hey we're going to have you know core values but the men's team is going to come up with one every year. The women's team is going to come up with one every year, and that will rotate and change based on the group that we have. And that way, they feel like they have input of like, hey, this is you know they are helping build the culture, and yet at the same time, you know we might have some non-negotiables, you know, from the coaching staff that are just based on our collective experience. So that that was really cool. Really appreciated learning that from them. And then you know, Dave, he, I learned so many things from him. But you know, one of the things was just really choosing where you want to be good, right? Especially in in the the course of a four year cycle. You know, within like a singular season, we really talked about emotionally building and then physically building.
Chase Kreitler 21:04
Like the very first year that I was at Cal, we actually quite we built into this training quite slow, and and some of that I mean our our group swam year round and they would take only two to three weeks off after a major competition at the end of the summer, so we never lost too much fitness, but we were not in a rush in September to just get right back into it. We would really wouldn't be afraid to slow down and really be thoughtful about you know kind of changing some things that we needed to change technically, or you know taking time to have meetings or that sort of thing. But you know Dave's just a methodical. His plan is is incredible. Like we would do, you know, four to five hour practices, kind of in our championship season, where you know we would set up and and guys would come in. They would come in and basically rehearse their individual warm ups, and we would have them going off, and there'd be a timeline, and they might do three or four fast efforts, kind of in the race course, and we're we're videoing it with underwater video or iPad. We're getting splits. They're getting really quality feedback, and that way, you know, with a group of 30 or 40 athletes, we're only really watching say four to six at a time and giving them high level feedback, and then they go warm down, and the next group comes in. So that that was something special, and yet we would take the time to run a five-hour practice, and that that takes a lot of work. And then one other thing, you know, his meat itineraries, like just your your day to day what you're doing, were meticulous. And so, like you said, you know, elite, you know, kind of performance doesn't happen by accident. Like we really thought through what are you doing each minute of the day? Everything has a purpose, and so that was something that I think instilled the team with a lot of confidence as well. But yeah, certainly that's just scratching the surface. But I learned a lot from from all all three of those teams and leaders.
Matt Dixon 22:55
Well, young coaches out there listening, you know, just think about that journey you can pull on. You you identified, you know, meticulous planning, team culture, instilling confidence, the long game agency of athletes. Even you know that the mighty Eddie Reese isn't sprinkling pixie dust. He's, you know, creating ownership and agency for the athlete values, or all of these components that you get to draw from, and it is this long journey for you with ultimately assistant roles. Boom! Now you get the head coaching job at Pitt, and this is not a powerhouse swim program. Many people listening are not a you know particular fans necessarily of the swimming program probably don't know that much about NC Two A Division One swimming. You took the job in April 2022 hadn't made too much noise. You know, over the course of the coming years, you finish 16th in the nation, 20th in the nation, best best finish in the program history. Really incredible. That might not sound like much, but it but it really is. I want to give you a context and and tell us a little bit about what you walked into, what you saw there, and how you took it. What how did you approach this?
Chase Kreitler 24:19
Yeah, yeah. It was it it was a journey. I'll just say that, and just for the you know the non swimming related people listening in, it would be a little bit like maybe a team not making the March Madness tournament for four or five years, and then ending up you know four years later in the Sweet 16. Right, that's a little bit of of an equivalent of you know kind of what we did, and it was just, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work, but you know, just kind of where we were at when we walked in the door. Pitt was sort of at the bottom of the ACC, the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is a very competitive conference. Even now, there's been conference alignments, and Cal and Stanford and SMU joined, so it's even more competitive now. The women were a little bit better. Excuse me. The men were a little bit better than the women, both culturally and performance-wise. Though interestingly, that kind of shifted in some ways during the time that I was at Pitt. And then, you know, I would say the team when we got there was filled with a lot of great people, but they had not really been taught how to be a team, and and so there was a lot. Like we really had to kind of just come in at entry level and and take time to educate and and both kind of simultaneously build the culture.
Chase Kreitler 25:38
And as you know, for people that are in leadership positions, that there is a big difference between being, you know, an assistant coach, an associate coach, and a head coach. And and you know, people used to say for years like, "Oh, you don't know what you don't know about head coaching. And I'm gonna be honest, Matt. Like they used to kind of piss me off because I'm like, if you're willing to work hard, you know, it's like you put in the work, you can do it. But there are some big differences, you know. And so now, you know, four years later, it's like it's like stepping into that CEO role for the first time. Very lonely, yeah. You are managing so many things. You are managing alumni relations and fundraising, and you know administration and 60 plus athletes. But then also you're managing coaches, and it's just there's a lot of things going on. Travel, you know, like just you know budgets, all of those sorts of things. And so I think you know we the the primary thing for me is at the very outset was I cannot do this alone. It's not you know great organizations are not led by you know some cult leader. It's like you gotta have an incredible staff around you of people that are like-minded, gonna buy into the same vision. And for me, like in hiring a staff, you know, two things that were really important. I wanted people that had integrity that were just gonna do the right thing, right? Like no matter who's looking. And then number two, people that were gonna treat the student athletes really well. High level of care for them, just as people, not based on their performance academically or swimming wise or diving wise. Like, and I felt like if if we have that, that's going to be a really good recipe for success. But also, coaches that have experience at a high level and can kind of encourage and draw people up with vision. So that's that's where we started. We started, you know, at the bottom of the ACC, and then you know it was a climb, but a lot of fun.
Matt Dixon 27:31
I want to dig into culture because culture is one of those words that you say, yeah, culture is really important, but what does it actually really mean in living action? And you you you did not walk into a high performance culture. Let's call it that. Over the course of four years, you absolutely developed a high performance culture with high standards and expectations. We'll dig into that a little bit later. But you know what? What did actually mean to you? What did it look like? What were you looking to accomplish? What do you actually do to help foster and develop over time a high performance culture.
Chase Kreitler 28:05
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, interestingly enough, I mean, the three stops that I had at Texas and Stanford and Cal, like a lot of that cultural groundwork had already been laid right before I got there, and so this was this was a little bit different. It was a little bit more like my experiences at you know at an LSU or in Eastern Michigan at Cal State Bakersfield, where we had to develop a lot. And so you know when you talk about what is culture, what does that really mean? It's very broad. You know I think a couple things in terms of outside of the pool, outside of the training, or outside of the work, so to speak, we needed to do some things that were fun together and just enjoy being together as a group, right? Like I think there has to be a base level of like, hey, I enjoy going to work, I enjoy you know working on this project, I enjoy training, and so we would do some you know some fun things like when we went out to Colorado Springs for our altitude trip, we went bowling, we went to the movie, we went to the Garden Under the Gods, and did a hike together. You know things like that. So that's one aspect of just you know fun and and pretty easy to schedule in. A second part that I think takes a little bit more work and honestly something that I learned a lot from my assistants along the way, just building connection within within the team, and so with our organization, I really say, and I took this from somebody else. We had three teams: we had a women's team, a men's team, and a combined team. They all had kind of separate identities, and yet they all needed to function really well. And and that you know that can be a challenge. And so taking time to kind of slow down and have meetings and talk about you know what are we here for and and and you know getting them you know to to buy into being a part of this process of goal setting and then getting excited about putting in the work to to goal set and ultimately having unity because you know if you're gonna have a high. Forming an organization, everybody has to be moving in the same direction and on the same page, and understand why they're there, what the expectations are, you know, what our purpose is, what the day to day looks like, all of those sorts of things.
Chase Kreitler 30:12
So, you know, that I would say as a leader, and and I think the a theme that keeps coming up for me in my life is, you know, you've got so many tasks to manage as a leader, and and so many things are going on, and yet the connection that you have with people, the relationships, a lot of the things that I think really lead to breakthrough, really happen when you slow down and just take time to talk and and process and and you know and so that's it's a lesson that I'm still working through but it's something that over the four years at Pitt we spent more time each year talking with the team having some of these you know meetings and honestly if I look back on year four I wish I would have done it even more and so that's just an interesting you know kind of reflection on my part, but but certainly that helps. And then you know, I would say, kind of, you know, that's the the outside of the pool or outside of the work type of stuff. You know, in the pool or at work, like for us, it was the the foundation was championship practice habits, or another way that would be like, what are our team standards, and and sort of what that breaks down to is like, what are the expectations for how you do everything in practice? And I'm a very big believer. I never gave warm ups that were just long and all right. I'll see you in 15 minutes and you know get yourself warmed up. You can kind of flop, so to speak. Everything we did had intentionality from the moment you dove in.
Chase Kreitler 31:38
You were focusing on a low stroke count and perfect turns, and particularly at the beginning of the season, where you're establishing some of these team expectations, we would do a lot of you know stuff where if somebody didn't do the expectations, and it wouldn't, it really honestly, it wouldn't be hard. We would start it out pretty moderate, but if somebody didn't do it, rather than being a jerk about it, I would just say you know maybe call out their name and say you know so and so from this city we're really glad you're on the team and you didn't do you know you double breathed into a turn and we're gonna restart the set you know and then you know then you get some groans out of the team or it's like what eventually what we try to do is get people to encourage people in those moments, and so it's that accountability piece of like, hey, actually, what you did wasn't good enough for our organization. I still care about you, and I care about you enough to give you another opportunity, and we're going to hold you to that higher standard. And that those are some things I, you know, that direct kind of thing I picked up at Cal and the way that we started the season, and and obviously you pick things up, and then you kind of make it your own as you go. And I think it is really important to. I'm not a carbon copy of either Eddie or or Greg or Dave. It's like you have to be yourself, but also kind of take those things you know from other people that you've learned along the way. So practice habits, and then the other the other thing I was going to add is just just the work aspect, right? Like you develop confidence and pride from hard work, and so those, you know, the high expectations, and then putting in the work consistently for long periods of time, was a big part of our culture, so to speak. Yeah,
Matt Dixon 33:14
it's fascinating because I'm I'm just going to pull a thread on it and and rebound with you and think about the you know one of the things for me coaching professional triathletes in an individual sport, drawing from my experience coaching swimming originally team and everything that you talked about before was we applied a team approach and when we broke down the sort of conditions of this team, it was anchored in at the bedrock, and I'm going to come back right to when you start to talk about is trust and understanding. So knowing each other as human beings and starting to build trust, and and outside of the swim bike and run that they would be doing, getting to really know each other and going on adventure. We always did consistent training camps because they weren't always training with each other. There's something magical, but on top of that was an absolute alignment and buy-in on what mission and success looks like, and establishing clarity so that there could be great support, great accountability on this. So many of the components that you're talking about really do parallel developing. Lo and behold, developing a host of professional triathletes over many years, and I think that's important. I where you started when there was in many ways the standards, and you know with the with the triathletes that we were coaching, they were trying to be world class athletes, no different than great Division One swimmers, and it was there's no easy, there's no shortcut, there's no you know that you can't lower the standards. It's world class sport. So as a coach, I had incredibly high standards, high expectations because I wanted them to be successful, and yet I always knew and felt it was important to. Really partner those high standards with great support, and and so just giving you that with that, I would love you to dig into your approach as you were developing what ended up being an incredibly positive environment. Putting my words into yours for these athletes to go on long term development, how did you balance or what's your perspective on? We're looking to achieve something really fricking hard here, and therefore we need to go to work. As you talk about, it needs to be high. Expectations are high, but I also care about you and want to be successful. Want to support you. How did that come into play for you as a coach?
Chase Kreitler 35:37
Yeah. Well, it's well. What's been really fun, Matt? I think just as we've talked, you know, both today and then and then leading up to this, is just to see kind of how we came, like you said, to the similar conclusions about things, and really completely separately because it's been a long time since we've connected. So, one of the mantras, like in recruiting or or you know talking with other coaches, if they said, "Hey, like, what's your philosophy? and you can answer that a bunch of different ways, but one of them that I always said was high level of care for the student athletes as people. Again, not having to do with their academic performance or their swimming performance. Just I care about them as human beings. I want to be a mentor to them, and yet high expectations. Right, the highest expectations, you might say. And so it's not, you know, as I have three young boys now, it's not too dissimilar than parenting, where it's like unconditional love, right? You care for them, and yet you're trying to help them grow and mature, and and obviously have opportunities later in life. But you know, I think you know when we again, it's one thing to say it, and I think it is powerful to say it because not every coach out there will say it, and certainly not every coach acts it out.
Chase Kreitler 36:47
But the other piece of it is like you have to back it up, right, with your actions. And I think that's you know that's the tricky part for again for your CEOs, where the the one thing that really challenged me in the role of being a head coach was it was the first time in my professional career where I got asked to do more things, paperwork, meetings, calls, whatever, than I actually had time to do, and that is like you know as you're coming up in your professional career as a you know whatever the industry is, you do a good job with the responsibility and you grow and you get more responsibility, and you work harder, and it grows, it grows. But there is a point where you literally can't do it all yourself, and and then at that point, when you're truly in that position of leadership, is when people need you to spend more time with them to show that you care. And I think that that like it's literally it's just it's a challenge, right? And so you have to kind of wrestle through that, and that's something that the entire time, you know, as a head coach, I was wrestling through with that again, leaning on my staff and delegating. But I think where I could with the team, one thing that we did that I just absolutely loved was every Wednesday morning we would have a pretty hard Monday and Tuesday training sessions and Wednesday morning people came in tired, you know, middle of the week, and we would take practice time 1015, 20 minutes, and we'd go around the team, and everybody would say something that they're grateful for or thankful for in their life, and we our gratitude meeting we call that, and that was actually born out of the core values. One of the women on the team, kind of pitched gratitude. That was our our core value about three years ago, and then that that that one student athlete that that kind of suggested that, and then the team embraced it. It truly changed the culture of our organization. And so, when you talk about you know creating that that environment where people know that you care, it's hey, we care enough to slow down to miss some training and to talk about like hey what's really important in life because you know what being really good at triathlon or really good at swim diving is is awesome we put an incredible amount of work into it and yet there are other things in the world that are more important than elite sports, right? And I think that that's part of us as mentors is saying, like, hey, we are going to help you do everything that you can do to make an Olympic podium or win a medal or whatever that goal might be, and yet we care about you as a person and we want you to develop as a whole person.
Chase Kreitler 39:15
So I think that that's something. And then you know, I mentioned this like relying on the staff, I mean, we were very fortunate to have you know assistant coaches and athletic trainers, physical therapists, mental health counselors. You know, there's a host of people. We have a life skills program. You know, people that they could rely on. So it's not just one person. You know, kind of bearing the weight of developing relationships with 60 people, which is just honestly not you know you can't have a deep relationship with 60 people. You have to have a staff, and they have to be empowered to take some leadership in those roles. So yeah,
Matt Dixon 39:51
no, it's it's absolutely amazing. I want to ask one last question, and then I'm going to invite you back for part two of the show. We have a. We have a whole other area to unpack that I really want to do, which will be a slightly shorter show. But and I'm volunteering you for it. That's how I do it as a coach, by the way, because you you're live on air, so you can't say no. Caring about you as a human, you have the opportunity to share more of your wisdom. How's this? But here's here's perhaps the most important question I'm going to ask you, and there is one more off this, but this this is the last major one, and and and that is this that I know from an inside source because I do have my sources everywhere that you're a huge Miley Cyrus fan, and and and I also heard from this source that you had a propensity to play this a lot on the pool deck and in the locker room. What gives there? What's what's the story behind that, and how does it impact what the why behind that as a coach? What did that do for your for your team, your culture? Give me a little insight into that.
Chase Kreitler 40:54
People are probably wondering what are you talking about. Okay, I'm going to zoom out just for a second. So, just for context, both of my parents were professional musicians. My dad was a TV and film composer. My mom is a professional singer. My sister's a professional singer. Has been working on a musical for the last eight years that hopefully will go bad way. So my family is very creative. I did not get that gene exactly, but I love music. On one of our team trips out to California, we went out every summer and raced in Irvine, California, at a big meet out there. And one of the trips, someone played the Miley Cyrus song "The Climb" on the trip, and we back to having fun. We would just blast the music and jam out, and I I think that was the first time. Maybe I heard the song. I'm not exactly sure, but I just loved that song, you know. And I, I think I'm, I'm old enough now to be confident in, you know, even if it's maybe not what you would kick out of it, Kristen. It's like you like what you like, right? I love that song. I will listen to it on my own in a variety of circumstances, but just that idea of of climbing, right? Of being better, like, and that's you know, there's something when you know it's now been a long time since I stopped my own athletic career, and yet a lot of the things that I learned at nine years old about goal setting and perseverance and all of those things kind of wrapped up in that song about climbing, being better than you were yesterday. You know, ultimately, I think the the special part of of you know doing it not just yourself in a collegiate team or in a business or in an organization that you really care about is you're doing all this work for something bigger than yourself, and that is so-it's so much more compelling than just doing something for your own success or whatever. And so, yeah, that song became kind of our ethos. You know, I think the women's team owned it, maybe a little bit more than the men. But you know, I leaned into it. We would play it on a lot of Fridays, and you know, it's yeah, I love it. So thank you for asking me about it. I appreciate it, and a couple couple of the women on the team ended up getting tattoos of kind of a mountain range for the climb. So that, yeah, it's gonna it's gonna stay with me for the rest of my life for sure. It's
Matt Dixon 43:11
fantastic. Well, joking aside, like the the other subjects I really really want to dig into for you is is development, talent identification, and development. I want to talk a lot about stress and some of the some of the challenges of creating incredibly high performance culture in a program that doesn't have momentum and history on its side, which I think is is a hugely more challenging thing to do than than being on the front of the wave, like those programs that you assisted at, and I talk about most importantly some of the transfers of lessons of your leadership into broader life for people that are listening. But so I hope we get the opportunity to do that over the coming weeks. With that in mind, I do want to leave one question for you because we're going to have a lot of young coaches or people that are interested in getting into coaching in swimming or in other sports, and I think that we can actually transfer that to also young business professionals that really want to grow and have high aspirations in business. What would your advice be? Your one piece of advice for anyone listening today that's starting or on their journey in development in their domain, what what piece of advice would you give them?
Chase Kreitler 44:27
That's a really good question. You know, for somebody early on, I would just say find a great mentor, right? I mean that that has been, I guess, this a little bit of my story has just been about you know some of the people that I had the opportunity to work with and under, and so find somebody who you know particularly is great at the X's and O's of whatever you want to be good at, but also to the best of your ability, try to evaluate and find someone that treats people really well, right? And that that truly has kind of a mentor heart, wants to help people see helps. Help see people grow, thrive, develop. You know that is different than than finding a mentor who just happens to be kind of a win at all costs, make money at all costs. You know type of person. And so, you know, to the best of your ability, find someone like that, and then don't be afraid to take an outside of the box position. You know where you're working a second job to support yourself, or you know obviously that can has to be a season. It's not sustainable for you know a decade or things like that. But you know that I would say that, and I would say also like don't be afraid to reach out to people. You know I I spent a lot of time looking at the top coaches in the NCAA and studying their resumes and seeing what their path was, and now you know with technology, everybody's so accessible. Email people, call people. Don't be afraid for someone to not get back to you. You know, I had one or two top coaches that I'm really good friends with now that I emailed in 2010 and said I'll work for you for free, and neither one of them got back to me. You know, so it's just you got to be willing to take a risk and and and follow up because you never know. I mean, people are busy, right? They get 1000s of emails, and you just have to kind of get work your way up to the top. Yeah, and don't don't get
Matt Dixon 46:11
don't get too disappointed or take it personally if you don't get a response. There's all sorts of reasons that people fail to respond. At the same time, I think people that have been successful in life generally really do like to a be asked and be help. That never, you know, that was my one of my biggest lessons growing up as a coach is when you actually ask for help, it's the worst they can say is no, and then you move on. Yeah, but but that's you know mentorship for me was was the catalyst of the pathway in so many ways, and and not just by the way, not just in your own industry as well. I would say is you can look for you know inspiration elsewhere. But thank you so much, Chase. It was goodness me, we got through a lot, and we certainly didn't get through at all. And that was that's how we anticipated. But such an empowering conversation. Really appreciate your time, and thanks so much for being on the show. And and hopefully we get to do it again. I'll ask you off air if we can.
Chase Kreitler 47:10
Yeah, thanks, Matt. No, it's been a privilege to to talk with you, and and appreciate the opportunity to be on the show. And thanks,
Matt Dixon 47:17
thanks, mate. Guys, thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you if you will subscribe. Also, share it with your friends, and it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, any questions that you have, let me know. Feel free to add a comment, and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page, and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset, as we like to call it, and so feel free to share with your friends, but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience, and we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy. Have fun. Keep smiling. Doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Swim coaching, athletic potential, performance culture, leadership, team building, high standards, mentorship, development, high performance, student athletes, core values, gratitude, team culture, coaching journey, elite performance.