Program Building
April 30, 2004 07:49 PM | General
April 30, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Modest by nature, Sergio Lopez has learned to talk a little bit more about himself.
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| Sergio Lopez is considered one of the country's top, young coaches. (Northwestern photo) |
West Virginia University’s brand new men’s and women’s swimming coach found out the hard way that modesty doesn’t always serve you well when you’re trying to convince impressionable teenagers to attend your school.
“It took me a whole year of recruiting to realize that I needed to start telling them about my career,” said Lopez, who comes to West Virginia by way of Northwestern.
And what a swimming career he had.
Lopez, a native of Barcelona, Spain, is one of just two swimmers from his country to ever win a medal in the Olympics. Lopez earned a bronze in the 1988 Summer Games in the 200 breast and was the first athlete from Spain to medal that year. The other Spanish swimming medal winner came in 1980, but he trained primarily in the United States.
“Because I was born and raised in Spain and trained in Spain people took a lot of pride in my performance,” he recalled. “That was an overwhelming experience for me.”
By his own admission, through hard work and determination Lopez developed himself into a world-class swimmer. He maintains he was just an ordinary swimmer when he was younger.
“Then everything changed when I was around 15 or 16,” he said.
Lopez’ fast times got the attention of legendary coach Doc Counsilman, who offered him a chance to come to the United States and swim at Indiana.
The late Counsilman was to swimming what John Wooden is to basketball. Counsilman led IU to six straight NCAA titles from 1968-73, coached the 1964 and 1976 U.S. Olympic teams that won a combined 21 of 24 gold medals. Counsilman added to his legendary status by becoming the oldest person to ever swim the English Channel in 1979 at age 59.
“He was one of the major influences in swimming for me,” Lopez admitted.
But Counsilman was nearing the end of a long coaching career and was beginning to suffer the affects of Parkinson’s disease when Lopez arrived in Bloomington. So after two years Sergio transferred to American University where he earned All-America honors his final two seasons. He was named NCAA All-American nine times during his college career.
“Leaving Indiana was a very hard decision but it was the best for me and my swimming career,” Lopez said.
Following college, Sergio qualified for the Olympics once again in 1992 and swam competitively until he was 28. In the meantime, he began coaching club teams where he developed an interest in helping others become better swimmers.
“Since I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a coach because of what swimming gave me as a kid … the friendships and all that is involved with swimming,” said Lopez.
He actually got his start as a volunteer assistant at the University of Arizona while training for the Olympics. From there, he coached for several club teams before landing a job at Northwestern in 2000.
Before Lopez arrived in Evanston, Northwestern was a middle-of-the-pack program in the Big Ten, never finishing higher than sixth in a span of 28 years. Northwestern coach Bob Groseth was looking for an assistant coach who was well known and had vast contacts throughout the sport.
Lopez fit the bill.
“Northwestern was the best fit at the time because Coach Groseth was looking for someone to compliment him,” said Lopez. “And I was looking for someone who could be my mentor and teach me how an athletic department works, help me with my coaching abilities but also let me coach.”
The duo worked beautifully in Evanston. After just one season together, Northwestern went from ninth in the Big Ten standings in 2000 to fifth in 2001. The Wildcats sent three swimmers to the NCAA championships and finished 23rd, setting three school records during the season.
From there Northwestern made steady improvement each season.
“The first year we had three qualifiers, the second year we had four, last year we had three and this year we had eight,” said Lopez.
Northwestern came a half point shy of a top 10 finish in 2004. It earned 13 All-America honors during the three-day meet, the most in school history.
The Wildcats have one of the nation’s top young swimmers in freshman backstroker Matt Grevers, whom Lopez believes has a shot of making the U.S. Olympic team this summer as a member of the 400 free relay team. Another swimmer Lopez is currently training will compete in the Olympics for Bulgaria and a third could qualify as a member of the Puerto Rican national team.
“I’m walking away from a program that has a chance to be top five in the country next year,” he said. “It was very hard to leave. When I accepted the job and I was driving back from Morgantown it really hit me. More than anything it’s the relationships you create. First, you take 10 months over the telephone building a relationship with a kid and it becomes more than just coaching. The first three years we had kids that never thought they would be swimming at that level but they worked very hard and began to believe in themselves. So it was very hard to face them and tell them I was leaving.”
Lopez, 35, was also concerned about his young children, aged five and three.
“My kids are young,” he said. “My wife (Sandy) and I have been together for 14 years and she’s been with me pretty much all over the world. For us it won’t be that hard. But we want a good living situation with a nice neighborhood where there are a lot of kids for our kids to play with. Those are the things that give you uncertainty.”
Lopez was able to overcome his initial trepidation after he learned more about the West Virginia situation, despite its so-so recent history. The Mountaineer men’s program has never finished higher than fourth in the Big East since joining the conference in 1996 and the women have never been higher than fifth.
The men’s program has had just one NCAA qualifier in the last 12 years when Kleyton Franca qualified in two events in 2002. The men haven’t scored a single point at NCAAs since 1986; the women since 1992.
“The men were 2-28 in dual meets when I took the program over,” said Eric McIlquham, now head coach at Alabama. “We basically started from scratch.”
Despite competing in a smaller than normal pool, McIlquham was able to get West Virginia to the middle of the Big East pack before taking off to coach the Crimson Tide last fall. West Virginia’s pool size is something McIlquham says Lopez is going to have to contend with.
“You don’t get around it … you’ve just got to make it work,” he said. “It hurt on some kids but you’ve got to sell your strengths. You don’t necessarily point out your weaknesses: you sell different aspects of the university and you sell different aspects of the athletic department. That’s what we did.”
Lopez admittedly received mixed responses from other coaches when he asked them about the West Virginia job. But the more he researched it the more he became interested.
“It’s a place that has a lot of potential,” Lopez said. “I didn’t know much about the university until I decided to look into the job. Academically it has a lot to offer … over 170 majors and there’s a lot of opportunity there. The programs are well respected and the kids do very well getting placed with jobs. And then it’s a very affordable school.
“Recruiting wise it’s a mine,” he added. “You have amazing high school swimming and club swimming in Ohio. You have Pennsylvania that is overloaded with swimmers. You have D.C., Virginia and Maryland. I used to swim for a club in D.C. and that club had over a thousand swimmers. Since we’re so close, I believe because of my reputation it won’t be very hard at all to recruit at West Virginia University when I present what the school can do for them academically.”
McIlquham agrees, “West Virginia is in a great location. You’ve got Pittsburgh, Ohio, and Maryland is starting to open up. There’s some great clubs within four hours driving distance that he can cover. Even Charleston has a pretty good swim club with some good kids coming up. I’m sure Sergio will recruit well.”
McIlquham also points out that the Big East is not yet considered one of the top three or four premier swimming conferences in the country, meaning Lopez can move the Mountaineers up the league standings quickly if he can land a few talented swimmers.
“The Big East is probably the fifth best swimming conference in the country,” he said. “Pitt is the top men’s program in the Big East yet they scored just six points at NCAAs this year.”
By comparison, Lopez is coming from a Big Ten swimming conference that had five teams finish in the top 15 at nationals with Michigan placing fifth.
Lopez says he isn’t sure how he plans to develop West Virginia’s program. He must first evaluate what the team’s strengths and weaknesses are.
“Everybody in swimming believes you’ve got to build by getting relays to NCAAs and sprinters is the easiest way because of the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay,” said Lopez. “I honestly think I just need to get in there and set a good philosophy of work and help people believe they can be successful.
“I can’t tell you right now if I’m going to build the program around sprinters, IM’ers or distance swimmers because I need to see what’s here,” he added. “I know West Virginia has some talented swimmers and if we can develop them and break into the top 25 then people will come.”
McIlquham says breaking into the top 25 in college swimming isn’t as daunting as some might think, “All you need to do is get two or three athletes to place at NCAAs to get into the top 25,” he says. “If you can get eight there you have a shot at top 10.”
Because he was so heavily involved with the team through recruiting, McIlquham kept close tabs on the Mountaineers this year. He believes there is some material for Lopez to work with on the men’s side.
“I think his situation is a little better than when I got there,” McIlquham said. “Matt Drozd could be a national qualifier and Chris Hagedorn (Auburn transfer) has some ability, as does Pedro Pinto who just missed qualifying two years ago.”
Most coaches agree the best way to build a program is by developing a clear training philosophy and making sure the athletes fully buy into it.
“In order to build a program you’ve got to make sure your kids know exactly what your philosophy is and what your goals are,” said McIlquham. “Then you’ve got to make sure the kids are on that plan and on those goals. If they’re not then you need to find kids that are.”
“To belong to the team is a choice they make,” added Lopez. “Once they make that choice they have to make sure they’re ready to do whatever needs to be done. If they choose to be a part of the Mountaineer team next year they need to come back ready.”
Lopez plans on spending the next month in Evanston training his three Olympic hopefuls and running the club team that currently has 420 members. He is in the process of touching base with all of the athletes at both West Virginia and Northwestern and must also assemble a coaching staff to take care of the daily issues until he can get back to Morgantown in June.
“Getting a staff is something I need to take care of in the next week or two,” he said. “That’s my first priority.
“Most of the kids here are going to be leaving to go home after the end of the semester so I’m going to be communicating mostly by phone, answering their questions and meeting them at meets. Sometime in July I’ll be able to find a place here to live. Right now I’m just going off the top of my head.”
Lopez may be winging it right now, but that won’t be the case when he finally arrives in Morgantown. Those in the know say West Virginia got one of the nation’s hot, young coaches in Sergio Lopez.
“Sergio has a tremendous reputation and he was by far the best choice they could have made,” said McIlquham. “He was a finalist for the Michigan job which gives an idea of the type of coach they’re getting up there. He’s good.”
Like all new coaches, Lopez comes to West Virginia University with big plans.
“Eric was on the right track here and then he had to go,” said Lopez. “One of the things Eddie Reese (legendary Texas coach who is coaching the U.S. Olympic team this year) said was, ‘When you find a good job you need to take it because we need more head coaches like you. There are a lot of young head coaches out there that need to be building teams: people with the passion and desire to do it.’ I’m young and I’ve got time to build it here.”
