A Review
Please check this book review. It was published by Ryan Woodruff in his newsletter: The Swimming Wizard. I appreciate his impressions of the book and recommend that you subscribe to the newsletter. It is packed with usable information.
Book Review: “The Art of Swimming and the Game of Racing; Reflections of a USA Swimming Club Coach” by Dudley Duncan
Posted on April 1, 2024April 1, 2024by rdwoodruff
by Ryan Woodruff
I had the good fortune to meet Dudley Duncan in 2015 when I moved to Virginia. Having only observed his team from a distance previously, I enjoyed conversations on the pool deck with him until his retirement in 2019. The title of his book spells out his philosophy — that swimming well is an art and learning how to compete is figuring out the game that is happening within every race
.
My favorite thing about this book is that it reads as though one is having an informal conversation with the author. If you have ever wanted to pick the brain of a master coach but are too afraid to ask, this is the book for you. Coach Duncan tells stories from his career and explains every step of his 51-year coaching journey.
He delves into the business side of owning a swim team and a pool facility (very informative!) and advocates for more coaches to control their business destiny. He doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of ownership, even detailing the difficult schedule he had to keep to turn his vision into a reality.
Sure, there is a chapter on technique (humbly titled “A Way”, not The Way), but the real gold nuggets in this book for me were the chapters on Team Consciousness and The Mental Game. Duncan describes his process for elevating a group to next-level performance and how to most effectively communicate with different personalities.
Coach Duncan’s ideas have caused me to reflect on my own coaching process and re-framed my thoughts on how I lead and guide a group. Though he is writing from the club coach’s perspective and very much aiming at helping the career club coach, there are lessons here for anyone interested in becoming a better swimming coach.
“The Art of Swimming and the Game of Racing” is available in paperback ($19.99), on Kindle ($12.99), or as an audiobook ($17.99). Get it and read it twice or listen to it while you drive back and forth to practice. It will be a valuable addition to your coaching library.
You can purchase the book or read the reviews on Amazon.
Editor’s note: I received zero compensation for this review other than a copy of the book.
Author’s Note: An inscribed copy may also be purchased on this website.