Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Stadium was 85,000 deep. A breeze blanketed the July night as boxing legend and 1960 gold medalist Muhammad Ali treaded across the stage. His body trembling from Parkinson’s disease, the champion slowly raised a dancing flame to the crowd. They were roaring. Ali then bent down to light the torch for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, creating one of the most powerful and gripping opening ceremonies in history.
Only 50 yards away, in the midst of the athletes and coaches representing 197 nations and 26 sports, was then-assistant coach to the women’s U.S. Olympic swimming team, Gregg Troy. Though the ’96 games were his third in an Olympic arena, Troy clutches the moment as one of his most extraordinary.
Flash forward 15 years, and Troy is gearing up for more Olympic moments after his December 2010 appointment as the head coach for the U.S Olympic men’s swimming team for the 2012 games in London. Now, the University of Florida’s head swimming and diving coach is balancing the thick of the collegiate season with what’s looming across the pond.
While Troy has had his hand in coaching for the games in years past, as the assistant coach for Guam, head coach for Thailand and assistant coach for the U.S. women’s and men’s squads, never before has he lead his home country’s team — an honor he dubs as the “pinnacle of coaching in swimming.”
“You have the opportunity to represent your own country, in a once-every-four-year type deal, with only the very best athletes. It’s the best of best,” Troy said.
Troy’s no stranger to coaching elite athletes. He’s mentored about 70 Olympians throughout the span of his 34-year coaching career, including former Gators and 2008 gold medalist, Ryan Lochte. Lochte has been taking the swimming realm by storm, recently adding the award of Male Athlete of the Year and Race of the Year at November’s prestigious USA Swimming Foundation Golden Goggle Awards. Troy, who nabbed the awards’ Coach of the Year accolade, said Lochte is an athlete whose accomplishments invigorate a special sense of pride for him. Lochte was just hairs behind Michael Phelps in Beijing, nabbing bronze in the men’s 200 and 400 individual medley behind Phelps’ gold.
“He’s worked real hard to accomplish what he has,” Troy said of Lochte. “Any time you’re swimming against Michael Phelps, you’re swimming against the absolute best. And Michael, he’s beatable, but he’s also the absolute best.”
Lochte still trains in Gainesville, along with a few of Troy’s other post-graduates with their sights set on London.
“For so many athletes, it’s a one-time shot,” Troy said.
Yet, some of Troy’s collegiate athletes are getting one more stab and are yearning to be repeat contenders at this summer’s games.
In 2008, current University of Florida senior Sarah Bateman competed for Iceland on the Olympic stage. With London peeking around the corner, she’s prepping for the international competition once again. She explained Troy’s coaching has proved to be especially beneficial for her training this year due to his specialization in long-course coaching, emulating the style of the Olympic events.
Another seasoned veteran on the Olympic stage is Gators’ sophomore and North Kingstown, R.I., native Elizabeth Beisel. The elite athlete has been making waves in the swimming world since age 13, when she first made the U.S. National Team. At 15, Beisel competed in the ’08 Olympics in Beijing, placing fourth in the 200 individual medley and fifth in the 200 backstroke. She remembers being behind the blocks in Beijing and realizing the nerve-wracking reality of millions of people watching on their television screens.
“It sort of hits you like this big train,” Beisel said. “It’s a ton of emotions, but if I could do it again, I definitely would. It’s so much fun.”
With the U.S. Olympic trials in June, Beisel will know if she gets her second jab at an international honor come the heat of summer. But if she makes the trek again this time, she said she would enter the experience with a more relaxed sense of being. When she was 15, she said, she was trying to take everything in while watching what swimming icons such as Phelps and Lochte were doing.
Thoughts were racing from wall to wall in her mind.
“Am I doing this OK?”
“Is this going to affect me?”
“I wasn’t really focusing on what was going to make me better. I was just watching what everybody else was doing,” she admitted. “I couldn’t stop. It was so cool. I was with all these athletes who are amazing.”
Beisel noted that one of the most difficult aspects in competing in the Olympics is working under coaches who differ from those you are used to at home. While Beisel’s coach back in Rhode Island was sending her workouts during her ’08 voyage, she said it was still trying not being in the company and comforts her usual training partners and coach. Yet, at the ’08 arena, one of the U.S. coaches took her under his wing — Troy, who was an assistant coach for the U.S. at the time.
“He helped me out a lot and tried to make sure that I was feeling OK and was comfortable with all the situations,” she said. “He was looking after me.”
She said Troy can tell if someone’s not comfortable and works to fix the situation to ensure everyone’s happy.
“He has a relationship with everybody,” Beisel said. “It’s not just a blanket over the whole team. He knows what a certain person needs and wants—and what will work for somebody but not somebody else. I think that’s what makes him so awesome.”
In the six months leading up to the games, Troy said he’s been focused on building such relationships with the potential Olympic contenders who will be joining him in London.
“There has to be a comfort level established,” he said. “Getting to know some of the athletes, just saying, ‘hello.’ Having a rapport with them is very, very key because you want to open the lines of communication, because they may not have the coach there that they’re comfortable with.”
For Troy, this means establishing contacts with athletes excelling in the world championship competitions. At the colligate competitions he takes his University of Florida swimmers to, he’s been making a point to get around the pool deck to interact with other athletes and coaches to get a feel for where they’re at in their training.
A few of his swimmers attribute Troy’s ability to connect well with his athletes, in part, with his personal life. The 60-year-old, with wife Kathleen, is father to three former student-athletes with his sons Patrick, Geoffrey and Ryan. Patrick and Ryan were fixtures on the UF Track & Field team, while Geoffrey, a current pilot for the U.S. Marines, played football at the Merchant Marine Academy.
Close in age to his sons is London hopeful and sophomore fixture on the University of Florida’s men’s swimming team Brad deBorde, who pins Troy’s understanding of the life of student-athletes to his empathy toward his athletes at the pool.
“It’s nice knowing that he kind of knows what (his sons) went through versus a detached coach who might just be killing you in practice every day,” deBorde said.
DeBorde added that Troy’s also comforting and reassuring, always available to chat in his office, on deck or at a team dinner. It was Troy’s words of encouragement that helped boost his confidence during the times he was unsure about the college swimming experience.
“He spoke a lot about potential,” deBorde said. “He has a really good eye for seeing potential in swimmers and really developing that talent into being phenomenal.”
Troy helped unveil deBorde’s potential during the fall of last season. DeBorde admitted he was getting drilled at every practice, describing that his head was “in the ground the whole time.” But Troy would meet with him to invigorate a sense of drive in the swimmer, saying, “You know you’re going to succeed.”
“He was telling me all these things that nailed me in the heart in the right way,” deBorde said. “It really lit a fire there, and it completely refocused me. I definitely attribute whatever success I’ve had in college so far to those conversations.”
It’s those ties Troy has weaved that have instilled a drive for the Gators to make it to London alongside their coach. Beisel said Troy even brings up the Olympics in practice when he wants to get the athletes serious about their training.
“He’ll say, ‘Well, I’m going to London. I don’t care if you are or not. I already have my ticket,’” Beisel joked. “We want to be there with him and we want to share that experience. He’s been with us all the steps of the way, and we want to finish it on a good note.”
Until then, the athletes, and Troy himself, are preparing for what he considers “The Super Bowl of Olympic sports.”
“You either win or you lose,” Troy said. “There’s three people who are successful, but really it’s all about who wins. There’s a very, very fine line that distinguishes between those people.”
When that unmatched moment happens, when all the pieces fall together for your athletes as they emerge breathless from the pool realizing they’ve reached their goal, something special emerges for the coach, too.
“Seeing the fruition of all that hard work is exciting for the athlete, and you just hope you had some positive impact in what happened,” Troy said.
Trials for the U.S. Olympic swimming team begin June 25 in Omaha, Neb. Until then, it’s anyone’s stroke, but the team has its leader in Troy, who’s gearing up to take on London.