Pepperdine University Women’s Swim team is determined to do just that this season. Long-term exhaustion, or burnout, is a common side effect to many of the swimmers who have been swimming season after season.
Head Swim Coach Nick Rodionoff shared his plans to keep the swimmers happy in the pool and hopefully win the Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference Championship in February.
“Swimming is a weird sport in that most of the kids have been swimming for 10 years or more,” Rodionoff said. “So the biggest factor in collegiate swimming is burnout. They have been doing it so long that they’re tired of it. The killer in any sport is boredom. So we have to eliminate boredom, reinvent the wheel and make it exciting.”
Pre-season workouts consist of strengthening, sprinting, adding yards and improving technique. Rodionoff has reduced any chance of burnout for his swimmers in preseason workouts by keeping practices interesting. The environment allows the girls to laugh, work hard and have a good time.
“Basically the concept when we recruit someone is No. 1 they have to be happy,” Rodionoff said, “which seems a little bit simplistic but if they’re happy then their times will drop, they are gonna be good students and they’ll also have a life. So what we try to do is balance those three things.”
The coaches make practices fun by embracing each swimmer’s personality, and offering silly rewards, like playing games in the pool at the end of a challenging practice, junior business major Nicolette Barreiro said.
The women joke around with the coaches and coaches pull individual swimmers aside during practices to check in on how they are doing and to deal with individual needs.
Coaches push the ladies to their limit, exhausting them, but the swimmers trust their coaches that their hard work will pay off, junior psychology major and individual medley swimmer Jessica Mosbaugh said.
“We have really been practicing what it feels like to be in a race this preseason,” junior media production major Allison Naasz said.
Preseason workouts have built up to the main swim meets of the season: the Arena Cup Nov 20-22, the AT&T Winter National Championships Dec. 4-6 and the Pacific Collegiate Championship Finals Feb. 18-21, Rodionoff said.
“The Arena Cup is coming up and that’s where we will swim against all the best teams in the state, which means the best in the country,” Rodionoff said. “That’s when we try to make national standards.”
Making national standards at the Arena Cup would mean the swimmers swam at times that qualified them to be in a more competitive race, like the AT&T National Winter Championships.
In past years the Pepperdine team has won 22 Top-Five Pacific Collegiate finishes, 27 Pacific Collegiate individual championships and nine National Collegiate Athletic Association qualifiers.
“For Pepperdine specifically, I would say that the entire season is dedicated to building up to the PCSC Championships (conference championship) in February,” Associate Director of Athletic Communications Dena Meiste said. “Everything before that is just dress rehearsal. I would say that the team has no rivals, but a line I hear lots from the team and coaches is ‘Beat somebody, beat everybody!’”
Mosbaugh became a 2014 Pacific Collegiate champion last season in the 200 breaststroke. Mosbaugh ranked fifth amongst the entire championship field, and won the Pacific Collegiate Division I Swimmer of the Year for the second season in a row, according to the Pepperdine website. This means she has already qualified for the national standards. She has very specific goals for the upcoming season.
“My goal would be to make NCAA Division 1 cut in either 200 breast stroke or 100 breaststroke,” Mosbaugh said. “I already made it last year at nationals that I get to go to in December.”
Mosbaugh has been swimming competitively since age 7 and has battled exhaustion and boredom in her swim career. She said she has struggled with burnout as a college student despite the support from her family and fellow teammates.
“It [burnout] comes in waves,” Mosbaugh said. “Every once and awhile I need to take a break and reinvent and readjust my dreams.”
As team leader, Mosbaugh shared team goals.
“As a team, honestly we have just been working on pushing each other a lot harder in the water and a lot harder this season, in practice at least,” Mosbaugh said. “And creating a very encouraging and supportive atmosphere at meets, being there for each other whether it’s a good race or a bad race.”
The ladies hold high expectations for the season.
“I think collectively we all just want to place in events and you know get a top 20 finish for everyone,” Naasz said. “That would be amazing.”
Naasz has worked to beat the school record for 100-meter Freestyle. She currently is a second away from beating the 51.29-second Andreea Trufasu set in 2000, according to Pepperdine records.
The team is very promising this year and the best in a long time, Rodionoff said. The women are connected with one another and supportive of each other’s aspirations.
The student swimmers often have classes together, work together, sweat together and laugh together. Mosbaugh and Naasz said they are best friends in and out the water, supporting each other in all their ambitions.
“We like them to have eight hours of sleep, we like them to lead a Christian life, a strong life, an independent life where they call the shots,” Rodionoff said. “And make good decisions all the way through and that’s the hardest part.”
Rodionoff has had more than 30 years experience coaching women’s diving and swim teams, according to the Pepperdine website. He has worked at Pepperdine for the last 15 seasons with his wife and Assistant Swim Coach Carrie Rodionoff.
The swimmers keep Rodionoff young, he said. When he comes to the pool and sees them goofing off, he knows the girls’ friendships are what keep the team going. He can switch up the workouts or make it an easy day, but the girls come to pool to get better and be around their teammates. Friendships are the key to relieving boredom on the swim team.
“My friend Jessica, we support each other through everything,” Naasz said. “We swim right next to each other and get competitive with each other. She helps me get faster.”
Cassandra Claudios completed this story in Dr. Christina Littlefield’s fall 2014 Jour 241 class.
