Small Colleges : Bakersfield’s Coach Has Written the Book on Swimming Technique

On the heels of the computerization of football and baseball comes the swimming coach of the 80s, Ernie Maglischo of Cal State Bakersfield.

Technically that’s Ernie Maglischo, Ph.D. in physical education and exercise physiology. Maglischo is in Colorado Springs this week at an elite coaches’ seminar, discussing high-tech training with his counterparts from around the world.

Since publishing his book, “Swimming Faster,” three years ago, Maglischo has spent a good portion of his time writing and presenting papers with such titles as “A Biomechanical Analysis of the Distance Freestylers,” “Biomechanics and Swimming Propulsion,” “The Effect of Sprint-Assisted and Sprint-Resisted Swimming on Stroke Mechanics,” and the latest, presented this summer at the International Swimming Federation Congress in New Zealand, “Some Observations on the Anaerobic Threshold Concept of Training.”

If that all sounds esoteric, it is actually theory and hard fact distilled from his studies and coaching dating back to the 1960s. Maglischo attempts to analyze and improve stroke technique through the use of videos and computers, and some of his techniques at Bakersfield are radically different from those used by most other coaches.

But they work. Last year, in his first season at Bakersfield, he won the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title and placed second to Cal State Northridge in the NCAA Division II meet, where his team scored the most swimming points but didn’t have any divers.

This year, he says, his team will be even stronger, and he has added a diving coach. Maglischo’s coaching is so highly respected that he has been able to attract two foreign swimmers, one from Iceland and one from Denmark. The team will begin competitive swimming in November, and the season will end in March.

Some of Maglischo’s findings:

--Most swimmers aren’t doing what they think they’re doing when their strokes are analyzed. For example, most swimmers think they use their hands as paddles, but good swimmers actually use them more as foils to divert water resistance.

--Many coaches believe in pushing their swimmers to exhaustion in practice, what Maglischo calls the valley of fatigue. This works for the ones who fight through it, he said, but also results in a high-burnout factor. “The problem is, you never know if they’ll come out of this valley,” he said.

The latest controversy in the swimming world, he said, concerns breaststroke technique. Although the United States has successfully produced champions, Maglischo said that European coaches are having success teaching a completely different technique. “But every stroke is involved and they all have aspects that are difficult to analyze,” he said.

Maglischo, 47, is an Ohio native and swam at Ohio University, where he was influenced by the scientific approach of Coach Bob Bartels. He got his master’s degree at Bowling Green and his doctorate at Ohio State.

Until recently, Maglischo was coaching at Cal State Chico, where his wife, Cheryl, also worked. They began working as a team, using Cheryl’s interest in the hydromechanics of the sport and her expertise in computers to “digitize” swimmers’ strokes--translating their technique into computer illustrations “to determine what kind of forces the swimmer is generating.”

He quit as coach at Chico because of a dispute with administrators and used the time off to write his book. It was greeted with such acclaim that he has been on the lecture circuit ever since. Meanwhile, looking for another job in California, he ended up at Bakersfield.

His team’s second-place finish in the country in his first year drew a lot of good comments on campus. “The people into swimming here have been very supportive. The community has really rallied around us.”

Maglischo said that the success of his book has made the program attractive to recruits, even outside the United States, but the lack of scholarship money limits him largely to recruiting within the state. “We’re not going to get the great ones,” he said. “But my stock in trade has been to spot raw talent and develop it.”

The University of Redlands raised women’s soccer from club status to a Division III intercollegiate sport this season, and it may become a league sport in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in a year or two.

School officials credit Stephen Hankins, dean of admissions, with suggesting the upgrade. Hankins said that while he was visiting high schools, he was frequently asked about an intercollegiate program. Then, he said, he was shocked when he saw a Redlands club practice.

“There were as many women out on that field as there are men on our entire football team,” he said. He quickly suggested varsity status to Athletic Director Ted Runner.

Runner hired Coach Joe Texter from Redlands High in August. Texter managed to put together a 17-member team that lost its first game, 12-0, to UC San Diego, but has since played league rivals Occidental and Whittier to ties. The Bulldogs will play host to Pomona-Pitzer at 3 p.m. today and will complete their 12-game schedule Nov. 5.

Troy Turnbull, who led Chapman College to the NCAA Division II tennis title last year, won the Western regional of the Small College Tennis Championships last weekend, qualifying for the national tournament in December. Turnbull, a three-time All-American, defeated teammate John Soldat in the final, 6-2, 6-4.

Cal Poly Pomona’s Mary Holycrosswon the women’s title, defeating UC San Diego’s Jessica Vernon, 6-2, 6-2.

Lightning may not strike twice, but for the third time in five games Azusa Pacific’s football team scored on its first play from scrimmage. The Cougars have broken long runs on the first play against Whittier, Claremont-Mudd and Redlands. They waited until their second play to score against La Verne. Occidental is the only team that has stopped them on the first set of downs.

The Cougars (5-0), who have the weekend off, rank third in the NAIA in total offense, with an average of 462 yards a game. They are allowing opponents only 205. Running back Christian Okoye figures to approach Jim Farmer’s season rushing record of 1,132 yards. He has 766 yards and is averaging 7.8 a carry.

College Notes

For what it’s worth, Redlands’ athletic director is Ted Runner. The associate athletic director is Pam Walker.