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Dave Gibson
@DaveGibson
Head Coach/Director of Competitive Swimming
Swim Fort Lauderdale/City of Fort Lauderdale
42 yrs experience, ASCA Level 5, Board Member & Gold Award of Excellence, USA Swimming National & Jr Team coach, has coached 3 Olympians
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training sets coaching your coaches college recruiting competitive swim training professional swim coaching
Biography
Dave Gibson, Head Coach/Director of Competitive Swimming Swim Fort Lauderdale/City of Fort Lauderdale, is a certified ASCA (American Swimming Coaches Association) Level 5 Coach with 42 years of coaching experience including Head Coach/General Manager at the Phoenix Swim Club in Arizona; Head Coach/CEO at the Mecklenburg Aquatic Club (SwimMacCarolina) in Charlotte, North Carolina; Head Coach at Fort Wayne Aquatics in Indiana; and Assistant Coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dave has coached all levels of swimmers from the novice to the world-ranked, including three Olympians (most recently Rickey Berens). In addition, Dave has served as a USA National Team Coach for several international meets. He has received the following accolades during his career: ASCA Gold Medal Coaching Award; Coach of the Year in Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina; and he is an Indiana Swimming Hall of Fame Inductee. Dave is currently an ASCA Board member.
Experience
Head Coach and Director of Competitive Swimming
Swim Fort Lauderdale and City of Fort Lauderdale
January 2012 - present
Education
Goshen College
Bachelor's Degree
1974 - 1979
Hi Coach Dave. Can you recommend a database software to record swimmers training?
Not really. I do not regularly use one. Hytek sometimes. My son has actually developed one...kind of waiting to try it. (A swimmer tracking device that will give all training data.) Sorry. Not much help for your question.Dave, my question pertains to restructuring our age group program which means I need to in essence demote my head age group coach to working only with our 10 & unders. He is just not as effective as he once was, several factors for this, but the bottom line is I am seeing over the past few years a real decline in our 11-12 year olds compared to the rest of the state and country we are very much lacking. Especially, our girls! He and I just have not been on the same page for years and as hard as I try it seem to make little or no difference. It looks like coaching is no longer his passion, but a pay check and that's not right. I would have released him, but the old boards were so afraid of repercussions, so instead I have to deal with a rouge coach. Any advice on how you would handle it, he has been with the team for 22 years, so he once was great, now only mediocre.
Honestly, if you have had conversations and teaching/coaching moments with him to get "buy-in" to your philosphy, and things are not changing, the best thing for all involved is for you to let him go. I know this can be difficult, but in the end everyone is happier and better off.However, having said that, you might try explaining to him that you feel the program & you need his "expertise" with the 10&unders. You think he can really help the 10&unders.
How is his communication, relationships and effectiveness with working with parents? If pretty good, you could tell him you also need him with this very important group of younger swimmers & newer parents to help educate & guide them...his experience can help them.