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Swimming World and Junior Swimmer, Jul 2003 by Stott, Michael J

For 25 years, the coaches of the Curl-Burke Swim Club, based in the Washington, D.C. area, have been trying to develop each of their swimmers to his or her fullest potential.

Editor's Note: The Curl-Burke Swim Club, based in the Washington, D.C. area, is in its 25th year. Three coaches, founder Rick Curl, Jeff King and Pete Morgan, have been together all of that time, developing more than 260 age group national champions, numerous international swimmers as well as four Olympic gold medalists. Curl-Burke won its first national team championship in 1986 and has since won an additional 13.It has also had an Olympian in every quadrennium since 1988. Curl was ASCA National Coach of the Year in 1994. Currently, the club trains nearly 900 swimmers in 10 locations.

"Our main focus is developing each swimmer to his or her fullest potential with the opportunity to compete at the international level," says founder Rick Curl. "The overriding philosophy is to have a gold medalist," notes Curl-Burke coach John Flanagan, mentor to and trainer of international gold medalist Michelle Griglione. "It's been that way, even when everybody was struggling to get their first swimmers to junior nationals."

Three budding superstars, Ryan Hurley, Leslie Swinley and Yeng Lan Beller are the latest examples. They follow in the fins of Mike Barrowman, Curl-Burke's first Olympic champion, Mark Henderson, Tom Dolan, Ed Moses and Markus Rogan (Stanford /Austria).

"The ultimate goal is excellence and winning. The whole pyramid of 800-to-900 kids is pointed to that," says Flanagan. "In a lot of clubs, that's not the goal. The way the Curl-Burke philosophy is articulated, when someone wins a gold medal or sets a world record, the 8- and 9-year-olds feel like they contributed. It gives them the idea they can do that.

"From age 7, excellence to be the very best becomes the ultimate goal. It's not just, 'Be the best you can be' Here we are asking a little more. The common thread is more than just training philosophy," says Flanagan. "It is the pyramid of excellence, trying to get the kids to the next level and, ultimately, to the Olympics. There are a lot of people involved in that."

Different Strokes

"The work Jeff does is night-and-day from mine, which is different from Pete's," says Flanagan. In fact, most of Flanagan's work is IM-based. "My thing is that every kid swims every event at every distance. We do very little specificity because everybody is developing." Predom-inantly working with swimmers ages 9 to 13, his goal is to prepare his charges with the ability to swim a great IM. "I'm looking down the road with these swimmers. It's a great group, with nine or 10 going to junior nationals and two are senior national qualifiers."

His latest protege, among many, is USA national junior team member Yeng Lan Beller, a 14-year-old with an Olympic Trial cut in the 200 meter butterfly (2:16.68) and four senior national times in the 100, 200 fly, 200 back and 400 IM. "She is really exceptional, incredibly well-rounded." Beller trains with a group of 20-to-30 like-minded swimmers, all of whom are friends, and are reminded regularly by Flanagan of what former Curl-Burke swimmers have done to reach peak potential.

Curl is adamant that the key to developing individual talent is a consistent training plan. "When I design my training plan and workouts for the year, it is always with the idea of challenging the best swimmer in the group. When I execute the workouts every day, I demand the best out of every athlete. If they train with a good plan, over the long haul they'll develop their physiology to the point that they will be as fast as they can be. It doesn't happen overnight. We strictly focus on the long term." That said, each season has an emphasis consisting of aerobic conditioning, technical excellence, sound nutrition, compatible school schedule and programmed rest.

Curl put those elements to work for Tom Dolan and the 2000 Olympics. The majority of the 400 IM world record holder's training for Atlanta was done at the University of Michigan, where he rallied from overtraining and chronic fatigue syndrome to claim gold.

But in 1999, a still hungry Dolan committed himself full time to Curl, the coach he'd had since age 13. "I think we were able to work at a level where we had not only a coach-athlete relationship, but also a father-son relationship. Rick did a great job of listening to my body."

"Tom was good up front and the fiercest competitor I've ever known, but he was definitely not the most gifted swimmer. He had to develop, and we focused on technical issues," says Curl. Not a problem. Dolan, who held the 400 IM record for eight years, was totally committed. His attitude was, "If I outtrain everyone, there is no one who will beat me."

The Long Run

The first thing both did after Dolan rehabbed from May knee surgery was commit to a 12-month plan. By Week 3, Dolan was doing more than 100,000 yards with the September-to-December focus being exclusively building his aerobic base. Dolan got "crushed" at that fall's World Cup and U.S. Open meets-not surprising, given the 100,000 weekly yards and an occasional 29,000 one-day training load. "Tom did a lot of intense volume," says Curl. "He'd also do sets no one else would do, such as a 12,000 IM."