Q&A With Florida Gulf Coast's Dave Rollins

Q&A With Florida Gulf Coast's Dave Rollins

New Florida Gulf Coast women's team coach Dave Rollins participates in a Q&A session with FloSwimming on his background and plans for the Eagles.

Sep 24, 2016 by Willie Saylor
Q&A With Florida Gulf Coast's Dave Rollins
By Adam Mania

I'm hangin' with Mr. Dave Rollins here, the new head coach of the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles women's team. Previously, he was the associate head coach at Ohio State, an assistant at Northern Arizona, and coached as well at Tucson Ford, and the Cincinnati Marlins. As a competitor, Rollins was a multiple All-American rockstar at the Arizona.

AM: How would you wrap up your coaching philosophy in six words?

COACH ROLLINS: Relentless effort, focused details, family, fun.

AM: What is your favorite aspect of college dual meets.

COACH ROLLINS: Dual meets are the ultimate test of a team. Nothing brings a team closer together than competing against one single foe. That energy that is created before the meet even starts (before the first relay) is my favorite part of every dual meet.

AM: Yeah, especially when you're racing beaten up in-season. Without team togetherness, it's almost impossible. OK, so what's your optimal training trip duration?

COACH ROLLINS: I believe that a training trip should be between seven and 10 days. It also depends on the location of the trip (altitude, vs. beach will affect the duration and the training) but there are benefits to each location.  In that 7-10-day window you can accomplish so many things in training as well as in team building activities.

AM: Yes yes and yes. We went for 23 days once. Ill advised. Now here's something super important, do you believe in get out swims?

COACH ROLLINS: Sometimes there is a time and place for a get out swim.  I like to challenge the athletes with races at the end of a solid week of training.  An athlete will be selected where they have to choose who they want to race.  Then the coaches determine what the race will be.

AM: What is the most prized possession in your office?

COACH ROLLINS: While it is not in my office, my most prized possession is my college diploma. Anyone who knows me and knows how hard I had to work to accomplish the ultimate goal of graduating, seeing that diploma framed and hanging on the wall is constant motivation to work smarter and harder to help all of those around me.

AM: Do you think the culture of NCAA DI swimming has a tendency to put athletics ahead of academics because of the demanding hours of swimming and workload?

COACH ROLLINS: While I do believe that there are programs at the DI level who value what an athlete can do for the program more in the pool than what they do in the classroom, I do not think that it is a culture of the swimming community as a whole.  While, I will always be excited to have athletes achieve incredible success in the pool, I am much more interested in what they could do after swimming.  Swimming results speak for themselves, but when an athlete gets into medical school, lands their first teaching job, calls me and tells me that they just got promoted, or comes back to campus with their family, those are the moments that make me proudest.   I love nothing more than being able to brag about a student-athlete's accomplishments out of the pool.

AM: So how do you help your swimmers to balance academics with swimming?

COACH ROLLINS: The first year for a student-athlete is always the hardest.  Regardless of the high school or prep school they are coming from, the transition to a college environment is the biggest challenge they face.  I want to make sure they are provided with every opportunity to be successful from day one.  We will meet with student-athletes as a staff to help ensure they are transitioning well.  I like to make sure they know they can come to us with anything they might need.  Some students have never had to do their own laundry (I was one of them and had no idea you had to separate lights and darks). Some have never had to budget their own money before.  There are a lot of things as adults we assume they might know, but they could be struggling with.  It's helping them understand the small things that not only continues to build the student-athlete's trust in the coach, but helps them with making the transition into to college.

AM: Yea I can relate to that. I turned a lot of my shirts pink in the laundry my Freshman year. Also, my Freshman year, I didn't know we had Saturday practices. It was an awkward moment for me. What's the most noticeable difference in college swimming from when you competed at Arizona to now?

COACH ROLLINS: Swimming has become A LOT faster.  When I am asked what my times were, what it took to win NCAAs, or what we split on relays, they seem slow compared to the times that are being thrown down now.  In 2005, I placed third in the 200 IM behind two incredible athletes and Olympians, with a time that today would not make the cut for NCAAs.  It is amazing how fast people are swimming.  I saw the first 18 second 50 freestyle flat start in 2005. Eight years later, I saw the first 17-second relay split.  We are about to see the first 17-second flat start 50 free. In a span of 12-15 years, the 50 free has dropped an entire second.  It is simply incredible.

AM: Thanks coach for taking the time today. Now do you have a team catch phrase yet? Eagle up? Eagles attack? Fly high? Cawwww?

COACH ROLLINS: We here at Florida Gulf Coast University are the Eagles, and we say:

Wings Up!