Julio Zarate

In coaching circles today, we hear a lot about "connection." Coach the person, not just the athlete.” “Build relationships.” Invest in the whole human.”

If you’ve coached long enough, you’ve lived this moment. An athlete drops time. A parent beams. And then you hear it: “Well, we’ve been doing private lessons.” Sometimes it’s a local technician. Sometimes it’s an online video analyst. Sometimes it’s a strength coach, mindset coach, or underwater dolphin kick whisperer on Instagram. And if you’re the primary coach, it can feel like you’re suddenly competing for your own athlete. Years ago, ASCA (the American Swimming Coaches Association) put...

For a long time, this was just a dream. The kind you carry quietly, almost carefully, because saying it out loud feels reckless. A book. A real one. Not notes, not essays, not half-finished thoughts scribbled between practices—but something tangible. Something finished. A younger version of me certainly wouldn’t have thought I would be here. The mountain felt too high, the path too unclear. And yet, somehow, here I am, standing just shy of the finish line, holding a thing that once existed...