These coaches know how to build state champions

Just what does it take to build a team to compete for a state championship?

The coaches of the teams in this area have a pretty good idea what is required. Look at their resumes. St. Charles East's Joe Cabel was a coaching legend in Indiana before coming to Illinois, and has two state titles by his name in the Land of Lincoln.

Marmion's Bill Schalz, coach of three-time champion Rosary on the girls side, has a boys title with Marmion. Rob Rooney at St. Charles North has taken teams in back-to-back years to the brink of a top three finish and landed narrowly short.

So what are the ingredients?

By the end of the season, the team usually gets distilled to around a dozen who form the squad that compete for in the IHSA Sectional and state meet. But long before that, a much larger squad is required, both for success in the current year as well as in the future.

"You need 36 to have a team," Cable said. "The thing is, however, that they've got to be there every day. You can just show up for the contests. It's a twice a day kind of thing, every day, from November until February. We tell our kids that we're running a college-level, AP-style prep swimming thing. And they have to be prepared to put in the work to get this done."

Every one of the teams in this area has more than Cabel's number of athletes needed to be successful in the water. There are teams locally, however, who take roster numbers to amazing lengths.

"We've got 48 boys in the water right now," Rooney said. "As much as I like to think back and say that's a large team, it's not any more. Neuqua Valley walked in the other day to our pool and they had 75 boys on their team. Teams like Naperville North or Naperville Central have around 75 on their team. We saw Glenbrook North (on Saturday) and they've got 60-70 on their team, as does Glenbrook North."

One of the keys to having such a large roster is need to build a program and not just a team. Large roster numbers mean a large number return every year.

But is such a large number necessary? At some point, the "quality and quantity" argument becomes part of the discussion. There are always teams that fail to have large numbers of swimmers in the water but which have exceptional athletes and which contend for state trophies on that talent alone.

"Occasionally, you get a 'Hoosiers' team that can get it done without very many guys," Schalz said. "But in order to build a program, it's exactly true that you need more guys."

Schalz said the pattern of the season makes it a little tricky to keep boys interested in success for the season.

"The girls come off the summer club season, and if they've had a strong season, they move right into the fall high school season without a break," Schalz said. "The guys come into the fall and, while they're working hard, they have in the back of their minds that the high school season doesn't start for three months. It's a little harder to get them focused for the winter season."

The timing of the high school season can be a bit of an issue as well. The season starts right before Thanksgiving break. Teams then move a few weeks before Christmas break. Somewhere in that sequence, every team experiences semester exams before a sprint to the big meets at the end of the season.

"We started Thanksgiving week like everybody else and then we turned around and trained hard for a week and then we have finals for a week," Schalz said. "We don't slack off, but we do things differently. We don't want to kill them in the water when the have exams. The flip side for us is that we come off Christmas and don't have exams and many other schools do - but it's probably six or one or half a dozen of the other."

Finding those athletes to fill the lanes is still an issue, despite the large turnouts in the area. Once upon a time, St. Charles coach Dave Bart was famous for finding athletes in gym classes and turning them into star swimmers. Things have changed, though it still happens that swimmers are found in the halls of the high school.

"St. Charles East got Adam Carnell out of a PE class and he's done great things for them. We pulled Nick Smith out of a PE class as well. Doing that gives them a chance to be part of a team."

What's important is not so much where the athlete comes from as what happens once they decide to take up high school swimming. As Cable said, the pattern of morning and evening practices has not changed for more than three decades. And to be truly successful, swimming cannot be a 10-week a year exercise. Waiting for the end of the season and a couple of weeks spend in a high-tech swim suit is unlikely to allow the athlete to be successful.

"You do have to put the work in," Schalz said. "If you don't, even though those suits will help you, they're also going to help those kids who wear them who have also put in the work. So it may not be enough for you."

The nature of the state meet is a benefit to freestylers. But Cable said you can't force someone to be what they are not.

"Everybody has their specialty and not everyone is a freestyler," Cable said. "You have to sort through them a bit and figure what they're a specialist in."

At the same time, to challenge for a title, finding freestylers is essential. Relays count for double points, and success in those events is crucial at the end-of-season meets. And nine of the 12 relay spots go to freestyle swimmers.

"We try to train kids to be IM (individual medley) swimmers," Schalz said, "We have Matt Lifka, and he's a great breaststroke swimmer but he's worked on his freestyle to help us. He knows he has to do that. Matt Pircon is a breaststroker, and he's worked on his freestyle as well." Rooney said sometimes a bit of persuasion helps too.

"Right now, we're truing to work kids on everything," he said. "We've got so many open spots in our lineup. It may be that you're a freestyler who has to go to backstroke - and you've got to do it. If we need to make a breaststroker, then by God, we have to."

However they put their teams together, this area's squads always find some level of success by season's end. There has never been a season when All-State honors haven't flowed to athletes from this area.

And that's sure to continue this winter as well.