The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1419104
42 ■ THE WOLFPACKER Fox remembers a time when the program was not living up to those expectations, back when Jones was winning the 2006 NCAA title in the 50-yard sprint in Atlanta. "There were very few final swims to cheer for," Fox explained. "Fast forward 11 years since Braden's arrival and there are State swimmers competing to get into finals, swimming in finals and winning titles in almost every event. "The transition from point A to point B has been remarkable. It's a testament to his ability to recruit and inspire young people and to prepare them. He's arguably better than any coach is at preparing athletes." A Kick-Flip Turnaround The program's turnaround was fast, ef- ficient and a little painful. Holloway had earned the head-coach- ing opportunity after successful stints as a club coach and proving himself on the col- lege level for University of the South head coach Max Obermiller and Virginia Tech head coach Ned Skinner, both established veterans in the sport. Holloway had been given the gift of au- tonomous coaching while with Skinner, the same kind of independence he gives his own assistant coaches. He used that to develop a vision of how he would run his own program. When he returned to Raleigh in 2011, he saw a program with mediocre results and a lack of commitment to hard work. There were things he couldn't fix about what he inherited — an aging pool being one of them — but effort and commitment were two things that he vowed to change immediately. He instituted 5 a.m. workouts six days a week. He changed his recruiting focus. He demanded excellence in the pool and in the classroom. "When we first got here, no big-time recruit was ever going to take a look at us," Holloway admitted. "It was a matter of me trying to convince everyone that I had a plan and I was going to do certain things to make improvements. "I knew I needed to make big changes. I knew if I tiptoed around our issues and tried to do it little by little that I would take forever and I would probably lose motivation. I wanted to redirect the wreck- ing ball and throw it to the other direction, instead of incremental changes. I had to make some pretty crazy choices." Holloway's first men's team finished fifth in the ACC standings, but did not score at the national meet. The women finished seventh in the league and 34th at NCAAs. In every year since, the men have been in the top 15 at nationals and the women have finished among the top 20 in seven of the last eight. It took more than just changing the men- tal culture of the program to reach those levels, however. Holloway also made the decision to change the physical culture of the program by searching for high-per- forming international recruits. He focused his attention on Northern Eu- ropean countries where swimmers were not particularly familiar with team swimming but wanted to improve their times in order to compete at the Olympics. When Simonas Bilis from the Baltic country of Lithuania chose NC State, it wasn't long before Hol- loway landed recruits from Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries. "They weren't familiar with where our program was at the time, quite frankly," Holloway said. "And a lot of international athletes don't really understand American team sports. It's more about their individual needs and performances." And despite language and learning bar- riers, international athletes are often a little older and a little more mature. "From my perspective, when you can get someone more mature, more well-sea- soned, more knowledgeable about them- selves, you end up getting a more advanced athlete," Holloway says. "Once they get a taste of team swimming, they really like it and end up being great leaders." And when they became successful here — Holloway has developed Olympians from nine different countries — more fol- lowed. Currently there are eight men's and women's swimmers from other countries, mixed in with a diverse roster from North Carolina and the rest of the country. The early success of Bilis and Anton Ipsen from Denmark helped attract high- level American recruits such as Ryan Held of Illinois, who won a gold medal and set a world relay record at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and Coleman Stew- art, a Baltimore-area native who was not only a multiple-time All-American at NC State, but recently set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke. Neither the men nor the women had placed among the top 20 in the NCAA in the 16 years prior to Holloway's hiring. Since the coach's second campaign, the men have been in the top 15 at nationals every year, and the women have finished among the top 20 in seven of the last eight. PHOTO BY TIM PEELER