Pepperdine swimming and diving head coach Nick Rodionoff’s season outlook entails more than determining what individuals in which events give the Waves their best shot at winning. He’s also making sure his student-athletes are balancing their lives outside the pool, his recruits are being sold on the school in a positive fashion, and his non-traditional scheduling methods will help Pepperdine advance in the postseason. Rodionoff’s commitment to the student-athlete in all facets of their lives helps ensure they’ll continue to improve in and out of the pool.
How do you define this program’s philosophy?
"The basic idea is improvement. In other words, if you’re continually getting better, and you’re feeling a sense of accomplishment, then everything will work out for the best.
"If we, as coaches, keep the student-athletes happy and healthy, the swimming becomes relatively easy. However, if they’re having a tough time finding sleep, or difficulty in their social life, then we’re in deep water. I believe one has to be in a good place mentally and physically in order to keep improving, and there’s nothing better than being able to consistently exceed your expectations."
As head coach of both swimmers and divers, how do you ensure both groups that they’re going to get the attention they deserve?
"It’s all about awareness. I have to be aware of what each student-athlete is going through on a daily basis. When the student-athlete is sullen, I have find out why, and usually it doesn’t take much other than a couple of sentences on the deck each day. We’ll be OK as long as we’re communicating and aware of what’s going on with everyone on the team. I can’t afford to let anyone feel ignored."
You’ve been at this for such a long time so what keeps bringing you back to the deck year after year?
"It’s just the opportunity to keep getting better. As we get better, and as long as we’re improving and we’re doing things better than we’ve ever done them before — then I find that’s really exciting. We had 23 of our 28 swimmers — that’s 92 percent of the team — swim one or more of their lifetime personal bests during this past season, and I’m looking forward to improving on that figure this year.
"The school has helped us continue to improve. The reputation of Pepperdine has grown tremendously, so the type of recruits that we’re getting now are ones that we wouldn’t even think would come a few years ago. They’re really good swimmers or divers on top of being good students."
Who are the team captains and what do they bring to the team in terms of leadership?
We don’t have team captains as such. What we do is depend completely on the seniors to become the leaders, and if they can make it through four years, and they’re happy swimming, then that’s when we and the rest of the team look toward them for guidance. If I’m new to the team, I’d want to know how they keep doing it, what kind of attitude they possess, and mentally, how do they prepare?
"We talk to the freshmen right off the bat and encourage them to go and talk to a senior if they have those types of questions. And we tell the seniors they have to lead us.
"Most of the seniors are pretty quiet kids and they lead by example. Michelle Fadley (Malibu, Calif./Northwood HS) is a mother of a two year old, so she’s kind of the mother of the team, and she will definitely speak her mind when she’s convinced something not quite right.
"What the seniors do really well is that they’re aware of everyone on the team and they don’t let anyone feel like they don’t matter. Even the girl that barely makes the team, they’ll go out of their way to make sure she feels like she belongs. That’s really important."
Pepperdine finished second to Loyola Marymount at the PCSC Championships, so do you still consider LMU the team to beat?
"It’s a crazy conference. We have Northern Colorado, and a team from Alaska (Fairbanks) in addition to, I think, a couple of new teams. This conference has teams coming to its championship meet from all over the country, so we really don’t what we’re going to expect until we get there.
"LMU and San Diego are both very good, although last year was the first time we beat the Toreros.
"I think what we have to do, and this kind of works into our philosophy, is to go into every competition swimming really well and then just see how it all turns out rather than paying attention to one school or another. Let’s just make sure we do our job and then we’ll take the results."
What do you view as the purpose of competing mostly at invitationals?
"The big format is to get away from boredom, in other words, not swimming the same events week after week. We want to try and encourage student-athletes to swim off events and to swim against a lot of different teams, so it’s a much bigger spectrum of swimming than they’ve had in high school — or if they came over from another college.
"We swim almost all of our meets in the variety format, because it helps student-athletes find odd events for the conference meet. For example, maybe they didn’t think about the 200 butterfly as an event, but if they have a chance to swim it in competition and all of a sudden they swim it pretty well, then they start thinking, ‘I can’t make in the 100 freestyle, it’s too fast, but I could make it in the 200 fly.’
"There’s just more opportunity and excitement to be found for everyone at these types of meets."
Do you expect this program will continue to cut down on the number of dual meets?
"Yes. We just do better when we swim against a lot of different schools in a different format. We get to swim against all the Pac 10 schools, we get to swim against Big Ten schools at the Irvine Invitational, and we swim against everybody at the Nike Cup.
"These are really good experiences for our student-athletes, much more so than meeting the same school. For the most part, a lot of the other PCSC schools do the same thing, so we often end up swimming San Diego five times a year at these different meets, so the purpose of swimming against them again in a dual meet doesn’t make that much sense to me."
For people coming to Pepperdine from out of town, what kind of weather can be expected for a outdoor January swim meet?
"We’re basically at 70 degrees, although the Santa Ana winds have been a nemesis since they cool the pool off really quick. The swimmers wear seal shirts three to four times a year to make sure they don’t get too cold. The drag shirts are a thin water-repellent fleece that’s great for open water swimming and makes the water about 10 degrees warmer. Those shirts help us especially in January as we’re getting ready for the conference meet.
"We used to travel during the Christmas Break but we couldn’t find weather or a facility that was good as the one we have right here."
Event Breakdowns
Freestyle: Senior Haley Wilson (Carpinteria, Calif./Santa Barbara HS), who was seventh in the 100 free at last year’s PCSC Championships, serves as the Waves’ top sprinter. She’ll be joined in the 50 and 100 free by sophomore Kayleen Hicks (Chico, Calif./Chico HS) and junior Dani Kimmel (Chula Vista, Calif./Eastlake HS), who are also very dangerous in the breaststroke events.
Junior Brianna Blanchard (Agoura, Calif./La Reina HS) and freshman Madison Krall (Pueblo, Colo./Pueblo Centennial HS) give Pepperdine a strong one-two punch in the 200 and 500 freestyle, while junior Marissa McDaniel (Oak Harbor, Wash./Oak Harbor HS) and Chapman University transfer Alyson Loyd (Orange, Calif./Esperanza HS) appear to be the Waves’ top distance options following the graduation of Loriann Mark.
Veterans Kelly Donovan (Bethany, Conn./Hopkins School) and Robin Lindsay White (Jacksonville, Fla./Bolles School), who combined to post 14 personal records last season, and freshman Lauren Cutler (Saratoga, Calif./Valley Christian HS) are expected to add depth to the sprint freestyle, while Melissa Schmidt (San Diego, Calif. (Rancho Bernardo HS) will do the same for the distance events.
Backstroke: Rodionoff expects Alison McLeod’s school record in the 100 backstroke of 56.24 to fall very quickly to freshman and Hawai’i native Rachel Cote (Honolulu, Hawai'i/Punahou School), perhaps even in the first weekend of the season. Of Cote, Rodionoff said, “She’s going to take off quick.”
Not to be overlooked in this event are senior Lauren Meagher (Eagan, Minn./Eagan HS), junior Jillian McGrath (Ventura, Calif./Buena HS) and junior Ali Chester (Riverside, Calif./Riverside HS), who last year, reached the PCSC finals of both backstroke races and took third in the 200 at 2:07.67. Rodionoff also said freshman Brooke Longuevan (Salt Lake City, Utah/Brighton HS) could make an impact in the 100.
Breaststroke: The combination of veterans Kimmel and Hick along with senior Sara Kallman (Franklin Lakes, N.J./Immaculate Heart Academy) and freshmen Samantha Jacobi (Aurora, Ill./Waubonsie Valley HS) and Joanne Perry (Charlotte, N.C./Charlotte Latin School) makes this a very good stroke class for the Waves.
Kimmel and Hicks were second and third, respectively, at the 2007 PCSC’s in the 100 breast, and fourth and seventh in the 200. Kallman also was heard from at the meet with her 10th place finish in the 100.
Butterfly: Like the breaststroke, Pepperdine also is loaded with talent in the butterfly. Conference finalists from a year ago junior Amy Nightingale (Paradise, Calif./Home Tech Charter School) and sophomore Francesca Cyphers (Lake Oswego, Ore./St. Mary's Academy) lead this group, which also features freshmen Patty Sullivan (Darien, Conn./Darien HS) and Martha Murphy (Lakewood, Colo./Green Mountain HS), and Fadley – a 200 fly specialist.
Despite the loss of McLeod and Jamie Lyon from this group, the Waves could score three individuals at the conference meet in each of the two butterfly races.
Individual Medley: Pepperdine has a pretty good group of IM’ers with Loyd, Wilson, Perry and Fadley leading the way; although Fadley is the lone returning Wave who scored in this race (400 IM) at the 2007 conference meet. Of this squad, Rodionoff said, “They’re what you’d like to see in this event because each of them is very strong in the breaststroke – it’s not a hit or miss stroke for them – and everyone can swim the fly, back and free pretty well.”
With a year's worth of experience competing in the sprint free, butterfly and backstroke, sophomore Jessell Owens (Winnemucca, Nev./Lowry HS) is another name to watch for in the individual medley.
Relays: Half the spots on the 200 and 400 medley relays are up for grabs. Rodionoff is convinced Cote will lead off in the backstroke and Wilson will anchor, but he couldn’t say yet if he’ll go with Kimmel or Hicks on the breaststroke leg, or Nightingale, Cyphers or Sullivan for the butterfly. Sometimes too much depth is a good problem to have as Rodionoff noted, “it’s going to be fun to see who makes the team at the end.”
Pepperdine has five people for four spots in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays with Krall, Blanchard, Wilson, Tanya Thomforde (Northfield, Minn./Northfield HS) and Jenna Sheeley (Honolulu, Hawai'i/Punahou School) all looking to help the team. In the 800 freestyle, Rodionoff expects to send out Krall, Loyd, Wilson and Fadley.
The Waves’ relay teams were key to their runner-up finish at the 2007 conference meet, as none placed lower than fourth and the 400 free relay of Mark, Kimmel, Wilson, McLeod finished second in 3:30.59.
Diving: The whole diving group could be very strong with senior Amanda Pond (Wayland, Mass./Wayland HS) coming back looking to improve on her third-place conference meet finish off 3-meter. She is joined on the springboards by classmate and former distance swimmer Jessica Brakulis (Munster, Ind./Munster HS) , as well as conference finalist Tiffany Martz (Folsom, Calif./Folsom HS) and Shannon Hedman (Fair Oaks, Calif./Loretto HS) .
Martz scored off both boards with her fifth and eighth-place showing off the 1- and 3-meter. Hedman came in seventh on 3-meter.
Rodionoff refers to freshmen Leslie Wade (Atlanta, Ga./The Lovett School) and Kristin Scribner (Bonney Lake, Wash./Bonney Lake HS) as his “90-day wonders,” because each is learning a whole new list of dives.
“They are going to have their rough days,” he said. “But I’m confident they’ll be very good by the conference meet.”
