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Executive Head Coach Bailey
Weather’s approach to coaching, a
unique blend of good humor and skill, is one he has honed over more
than three decades training swimmers. Bailey was named Head
Coach of Club Wolverine in August of 2007 after a national search.
Coach Bailey brings to the club a wealth of
expertise in swim technique, training swimmers at all levels of
experience, including 30 Olympians, during the course of his long
career as a coach.
He is enthusiastic about the Club Wolverine
training program he is developing, which includes using underwater
filming and systematic training plans that he hopes will help more
of our swimmers reach their potential through being able to watch
themselves swim and learn from coach feedback about swim technique.
As a coach, Bailey is best known for his work as
a performance consultant for USA Swimming and his 10-year tenure as
the head coach of the women’s swim team at Notre Dame.
At USA Swimming, Bailey traveled across the nation to visit
swim clubs and offer advice on program design and coaching. Bailey
also consulted on exercise physiology, the biomechanics of
swimming, stroke analysis, strength training and testing, nutrition
and drug awareness.
At Notre Dame, under his leadership from
September 1995 to March 2005, the women’s team won nine
consecutive BIG EAST Conference crowns and posted an 86-20 (.811)
record in dual meets. Bailey was also named conference coach
of the year six times. In an article at Collegeswimming.com
written after Bailey announced his resignation from Notre Dame in
March, 2005, they mention that he is just one of three coaches - in
any sport - ever to win nine consecutive BIG EAST championships.
During his tenure, Notre Dame scored points in the NCAA
Championships every year. For more details on Bailey’s
numerous accomplishments at Notre Dame, please
Click
Here.
Prior to working at Notre Dame, Bailey was the
head coach at the University of South Carolina in Columbia
(three seasons, 1987-88 through 1989-90). Before that,
he was the head coach at Southern Illinois University (two seasons,
1985-86 and 1986-87). While at South Carolina, he was
three-time Metro Conference Coach of the Year and had two top-12
NCAA finishes.
After leaving South Carolina and before taking
the head coach position at Notre Dame, Bailey was head coach of the
Mission Aurora Swim Club in Colorado from 1990-1995. During
his five-year tenure as an age group coach, he raised that
club’s number of junior and national qualifiers to the
highest in that club’s history.
During the time Bailey was in Colorado, he also
worked at the Olympic Training
Center in Colorado Springs
where he helped many athletes qualify for the Olympic Trials.
To learn more about Bailey’s extensive
experience working with high-level athletes,
Click
Here.
In addition, from 1995 to 2001, he ran a
post-graduate training club in Colorado for athletes from Notre
Dame to train in the summer, called Irish Aquatics. Then from
2001-2005, Bailey was a co-leader in a venture to join together
three local clubs to turn the summer training group into a
year-round program called the, Irish Aquatics
Swim Club.
Bailey’s interest in sports performance is
one he shares with his wife, Susan, who was also a college swimmer
and is an accomplished swim coach. Together, Bailey and Susan
founded a business in 2005 called Advanced Sports Technology, which
offers specialized consultation and performance analysis to high
school, club and small college teams. Their work also
includes using video applications and physiological
testing.
For our Club Wolverine age group swimmers,
it’s the sum total of Bailey’s experience, knowledge
and impressive record with athletes that swimmers and parents
appreciate. Swimmers know that they need to listen when he
runs a practice, because as one swimmer says, "He seems to
know what he’s doing." Bailey’s fund of knowledge
about swim technique, right down to the precise angle and position
of a head or a hand, is what our swimmers know they can expect from
a practice with Bailey. No detail is too small to escape
Bailey’s eyes during a workout.
Swim training with Coach Bailey is always
focused and "down-to-business," but there’s usually a little
time for some fun and friendly teasing. As one of his
swimmers who is now in college points out, no joke is too silly to
stop Bailey from giving it a try at least
once.
"Get in the water. It’s not that
cold," Bailey says with a mischievous smile to a group of high
school boy swimmers, who are happily chatting, rather than starting
their challenging workout. Then Bailey gives one of the boys
a "brotherly" shove into the pool -- and if necessary, he will give
them a spray of cold water from a hose on deck to get swimmers to
start practice.
Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Bailey
is the oldest of three boys. An energetic kid,
Bailey was also an age group swimmer and his coach
was Jim
Richardson, who is now the University of Michigan
women’s swim team coach. He graduated magna cumme laude
from the University of Indiana with a bachelor’s degree in
physical education in 1982, helping out as an assistant coach to
Doc Counsilman for the women’s swim team while he was a
student. It was also at the University of Indiana that he met
his wife, Sue. He then earned a master’s degree in 1984
from the University of Texas. During that time and through
the end of 1985, Bailey worked as an assistant coach for the U-T
women’s team with Olympic Coach Richard Quick.
In his second year as head coach for our club,
this short course season, Bailey is coaching in the
National/Zone/Sectional group. Bailey also helps out if
needed with the University of Michigan women’s swim team.
He and Sue also lend a hand with Coach
Richardson’s Wolverine Swim Camps
mini clinics during the school year and the Wolverine summer Camps,
in addition to his CW coaching duties.
Bailey lives in Ann Arbor now, but still has a
home in Elkhart, Indiana. Bailey and his wife, Susan, have
three children, Christina, who is married, lives in the area and
has helped coached developmental groups in the club; Elizabeth, a
sophomore at the University of Indiana, and Tim, who is in high
school.
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