Swim Coach Takes a Dip From Top Athletes to Novices--and He Likes It

What in many cases would be a difficult transition has been relatively smooth for first-year El Camino swim Coach Corey Stanbury. The popular coach has slipped easily into his role of a teacher and recruiter of untrained athletes.

For most of his career, the 37-year-old has coached top-notch junior swimmers, many of them national titleholders. Now he works with semi-enthusiastic adolescents. Some had never competed before.

“I had a hard time making the decision to come here,” Stanbury said in his small pool-side office at El Camino. “It’s just different going from that level and coming to this. There’s a very different attitude in a national-caliber athlete and someone who has never competed before.

“But this can be very exciting. In a non-swimmer you see so much improvement and you get a lot of positive feedback all the time. It’s great to watch a swimmer go faster and faster and do better and better on a daily basis.”

Job security--and to a certain extent the challenge of turning a struggling program around--persuaded Stanbury to take the men’s and women’s head coaching job at El Camino in May. He came to the South Bay after a five-year stint at Class Aquatics, arguably the largest and best swimming age-group club in the San Fernando Valley. Stanbury coached numerous elite swimmers there, including Eric Weitz, a junior national champion in the 200-yard backstroke; Danish 100-meter national record holder Peter Rohde, and 1988 Olympic Trial qualifier Kelly Cox (100 and 200-meter backstroke).

“He’s a great stroke technician,” said 16-year-old Jason Stelle, who worked under Stanbury for five years and qualified for the senior national championships in the 100 and 200 backstroke this year. “He brought me up to the top. He really brought me up from the bottom. He’s very patient and he stresses self-motivation.”

At Class Aquatics, Stanbury helped produce 22 nationally ranked age-group swimmers and 15 junior national championship qualifiers. He was also the Southern California Swimming all-star coach three times (1985, 1987 and 1988). Last year eight of his swimmers at Class Aquatics qualified for the junior national championships.

With that in mind, one would think that coming to El Camino was somewhat shocking for Stanbury. He inherited a program that went 0-6 in the South Coast Conference under Coach Kiff Kimber. In order to form a team, he had to recruit from advanced swimming classes, a lot of them new to the sport.

El Camino swimmer Stephanie Mizuno says that lack of personnel and talent doesn’t worry Stanbury as much as it would most coaches. The 20-year-old competed in the butterfly at Carson High and was inactive for four years before a friend on El Camino’s diving team suggested she join the scarce swim squad.

The Warriors didn’t have backstrokers, so Stanbury introduced her to the event and now she’s one of El Camino’s only female backstrokers.

“He’s a great coach,” Mizuno said, “but the best thing is that he’s such a mellow guy. He’s always smiling, whether he’s mad or not. Sometimes the madder he gets the more he smiles. It’s great.”

Another good thing about Stanbury is that he treats his inexperienced competitors as if they were national-caliber athletes. Clad in jeans and a light blue shirt, Stanbury looked as enthusiastic pacing the pool’s side during a workout as he did at the quality clubs he’s coached.

“He does a great job with us,” said freestyler Marty Cassity, who had never swum competitively before this season. “He’s understanding and he knows it’s hard for us, but he still pushes us. I have a good time out here.”

So does Stanbury, and it’s evident in the grin that’s like a permanent fixture on his face. Despite it, however, he instructs with authority.

“Choppy! Choppy! Choppy!” He yelled to one of his swimmers as he looked at his stopwatch during a workout this week. “You’re half a second slower. That’s very choppy. That’s too choppy. We’re going to have to work on it.”

That’s Stanbury’s motto: work, a lot of it. Through work he lifted the El Camino women’s swimming program during a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In three years as a part-time coach from 1979 to 1981, Stanbury led the Warriors to one conference title, two second places in conference and a third-place state finish in 1981.

“I think Corey can make us top contenders in three to four years,” said El Camino Athletic Director James Schwartz, who hired Stanbury. “Our real goal this year was to get more people on the team, and he did. He’s been very successful with swim clubs and I feel he can do the same here.”

After leaving El Camino in 1981, Stanbury took a part-time coaching job at Foothill College in Los Altos where he had been a junior college All-American swimmer and an all-conference water polo player in 1971. In two years there he led the women’s swim team to a third-place state finish and one conference title.

During that time, Stanbury also coached youths at the Foothill Aquatics club, among them Stanford University’s Rick Gould, one of the nation’s top collegiate backstrokers.

Stanbury had coached briefly at the Manhattan Beach and Santa Barbara swim clubs before that. He attributes his success to things he’s learned from others in the sport.

“I have a good grasp on technique because I’ve had the opportunity to work with and swim under some of the best coaches around,” said Stanbury, who will start a water polo team at El Camino next season. “At Foothill I swam for Nort Thorton and at Class I worked with Mike Chasson. I learned a lot from guys like that.”

Now Thorton coaches Matt Biondi, who won five gold and two bronze medals at the 1988 Olympics. Chasson is an assistant coach for the Stanford women’s swimming team.

Stanbury also acquired a great deal of knowledge as a competitor. He completed his collegiate career at UC Santa Barbara where he was a backstroker and water polo player for two years. He qualified for the NCAA national meet in the 200-yard backstroke as a junior in 1972 and was a driver on the Gauchos’ 1973 water polo team that made it the NCAA nationals.

After that Stanbury won five national Masters titles in his age division. He competed in the 50, 100 and 200-yard backstroke. He’s satisfied with what he’s accomplished as an athlete and, until coming back to El Camino, what he’s done as a coach.

His new goal is for the Warriors to consistently be among the state’s top five swimming programs. This season the women finished 3-3 in the seven-member South Coast Conference and the men 1-5.

Next week El Camino will compete in the SCC championships at Cerritos College and perhaps a couple of Warriors will qualify for the state meet May 4-5.

Freshman Todd Douglas (Mira Costa High) has the best chance. He’s come within one second of qualifying for the state meet in both the 100-yard breaststroke (1:03.7) and the 200-yard breast (2:19.3). Freshman Nicole Standardi (Rolling Hills High) is also a contender. She’s come close to earning a trip to the state meet in the 50 and 100 butterfly.

“I’m confident,” Stanbury said, “because although I do not have a national qualifier, I have worked with them and I know what it takes to do it.”

A lot of work and a lot of patience.