Cal Swimming: Bears Coach David Durden Featured in Swimming World Magazine

Durden discusses the cancellation of NCAA swim meet and other issues

Cal men’s swimming coach David Durden is considered one of the best swimming coaches in the world. That’s why he was  ranked No. 10 on our list of the top 25 Cal coaches alltime in all sports, and also why Swimming World magazine did a long story about him in its May 21 issue.

Durden was named the U.S. men’s swimming coach for the 2020 Olympics, and is now the 2021 Olympic coach after the Games were postponed for a year.

Besides having the Olympics postponed, the NCAA swimming championships were canceled because of COVID-19, preventing the Bears from defending their 2019 national title.

The Swimming World magazine article touched on Cal’s dominance under Durden with this paragraph:

That’s the Cal modus operandi: always perform at or above full strength at the NCAA Championships. Durden has been at Cal since the 2007-08 season, and in every year after his first two, Cal has finished first or second in the national rankings. Ten years straight. That is, until 2020, when circumstances derailed the Bears’ opportunity to defend that championship.

We excerpted a couple of David Durden quotes from that Swimming World article:

“Our top 12 guys, we felt, were as good or better than anyone else in the country, and we felt good about going into NCAAs and showing that. I think like any 18-to-22-year-old athlete, they’re going to take that moment as a disappointment, but they’re able to redirect very quickly. We’re a pretty nimble group. We’re a pretty active group. We can handle some adaptation pretty quickly, and we’re ready to adapt to the next thing.”

“I’m a swim coach. That’s the thing I identify with. That may encapsulate teacher, mentor, etc., but, man, I’m a swim coach. My knowledge base is surrounded in this sport, and I do think that there are things that you can apply to life, to what you’re doing in the professional world, etc., etc. There are important things in this, but I’m by no means an expert in those areas. I spend a lot of time coaching swimming, and that’s what I know, and that’s what I want to know. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I want to do really well.”

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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