Keene State's Fabian goes back to school

KEENE, N.H. 1/26/12 – It's never too late to go back to school. Keene State College swim Coach Jack Fabian packed up his bags and headed to Knoxville, Tenn., last week to spend some time with the University of Tennessee women's swim team and pick the brain of the Vols' highly respected coach, Matt Kredich.

Fabian, the Owls' seventh-year coach, is also a coach for the USA Swimming National team and was participating in a National team program that offers the opportunity to learn and observe different training methods with any coach in the country. Fabian said he chose Kredich because he was impressed with his ability to build high-level programs at Brown, Richmond, and Tennessee as well as his creative work in swimming technique. "It was a challenge to leave the team for a week in the middle of the season, and right before a dual meet. However, it was an opportunity that might only come once in my life," he said.

Success has followed Kredich at every step of his career, including at Tennessee, where he's had six NCAA top-15 finishes, 23 All-America athletes ,and 10 Southeast Conference individual championships. Fabian met Kredich at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, where they touched base on many topics, including Fabian's daughter Eva, a national champion open-water swimmer. "He was the coach of Christine Magnuson, who went on to make the Olympic team and win a silver medal in Beijing,  so I was very interested to hear what he is doing with her," said Fabian.

In turn, Kredich had high praise for Fabian, calling him one of our country's best coaches. "It's easy to see how he'll keep building on the success he has already had at Keene State. He is really bright, inquisitive, creative, and extremely knowledgeable," said Kredich, whose Tennessee team is ranked 14th in the country."          

Fabian spent the week in Knoxville intently watching the Volunteers' training methods, which include drills that have swimmers stretching with ropes and putting on boxing gloves to build strength.  In the pool, Fabian was equally fascinated with the team's work on stroke style and turns.

"Jack and I talked a lot about training plans – essentially how you structure a practice, a week, or a season," said Kredich. "We both feel that every practice should have well-defined purposes, and the challenge for coaches is to create an effective practice that accomplishes that set of purposes, and then to create sequence of practices that help create the changes we want to see in the athletes we coach."

Ideas related to goal planning and team building were also discussed. "When they start practice, it's a lot like a football team getting together," said Fabian. "Right now we're so eager to start that we just get there and get in instead of taking time to talk and go over what we're doing."

Fabian also acknowledged the apparent differences in running a Division I vs. Division III program  "They have restrictions that differ from D-III and create significant changes in scheduling practice times and working with athletes," he said.

Despite the differences, Fabian, who was a recent recipient of the Coach of Excellence award presented by the American Swimming Coaches Association, said the visit affirmed that his Keene State program is headed in the right direction  "We're on the right track, but Matt gave me some great ideas on how to develop speed by integrating specific exercises into what we're doing in the pool," he said.

Following Saturday's final dual meet of the season at Connecticut College, Keene State will get ready for the NEISDA championships. Already in shape and swimming well, the Owls will be concentrating on little details of their races. The fact that Tennessee is at the same stage of their season will help the Owls prepare. "I took a lot of video footage of what they're doing and I've been showing it to our kids," said Fabian. "Seeing somebody working on the same thing is very useful.  They pick it up right away."

"Some of the drills we've been doing have been beneficial. We've never done them before so it's always fun to learn a new drill," said senior Maureen O'Leary. "They have a real good swimming program at Tennessee, so it's cool to be doing some of the same stuff they're doing."

"Jack has been trying some new techniques in practice, working with swimmers on improving or changing different stroke styles they've been doing," said senior Jillian Whitaker. "It's given everyone a different perspective. I can already feel the difference."