Reese, Bauerle named U.S. Olympic swimming coaches

By DAVID NIELSEN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Beijing Olympics don't begin for another 23 months. But the United States swimming team isn't wasting any time.

USA Swimming announced Friday that Eddie Reese will coach the men's team and Jack Bauerle will coach the women's team in Beijing.

"(Reese) is considered the best coach in the United States, if not in the world," said Mark Schubert, USA Swimming's National Team head coach and general manager. "Jack is a great team coach.

"Both of these gentlemen keep the atmosphere light, keep the atmosphere fun, and keep the focus on swimming being a team event."

This will be the third time for Reese leading the U.S. men's Olympic team. He also served as head coach at the 2004 Athens Games and the 1992 Barcelona Games.

"It's always an honor to be doing anything for the United States in international competition," said Reese, who has led the University of Texas swim team for 28 years. "And it's an even greater honor to be working in swimming."

For Bauerle, it is first Olympic head coaching assignment.

"It's a dream come true, in a sense," said Bauerle, who has been coaching at the University of Georgia for the past 27 years. "If I said I didn't think about it at one time in my life, I'd be lying."

Reese and Bauerle will be leading teams that usually bring home the most medals among American teams at the Olympics. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, U.S. swimmers won 28 medals, including 12 golds. American track and field athletes won 25 medals, including eight golds.

"USA Swimming is the dominant force in the Olympics," said Reese. "There's a lot of pressure on USA Swimming. We'd like to feel that we're almost the Olympic ideal.

"We go there. We compete hard. We win some medals and we do it first class. That's the way we want to keep swimming."

The U.S. historically has the strongest swimming team in the world. American swimmers have won the medal count in every Olympics since 1988. But both Bauerle and Reese know that nothing can be taken for granted in international swimming, especially with a strong Australian team and the host Chinese swimmers gunning for the Americans.

"We know that our challenge is great," said Bauerle, who was an assistant coach on the U.S. team at the 2000 Sydney Games. "We have to have a better team to have the results that we are accustomed to. When we went to Australia in 2000, they were ready to go. China will be ready to go."

Added Reese: "Even in Barcelona, Spain had only won five medals in their whole Olympic history. They won 11 at that Olympics."

This fall Reese and Bauerle will be coaching their college teams, while also helping Schubert prepare the U.S. team for the World Championships next March in Melbourne, Australia. With the Olympics still so far away, there is a lot of uncertainty.

"You don't know exactly where you stand right now," said Bauerle. "We'd like to think that we're a little bit of an underdog right now.

"We'll know a helluva lot more after March."