Get To Know The University Of Tennessee's Matt Kredich

by Josh Huger (MrUtopia)

This interview is with the University of Tennessee's Matt Kredich. Coach Kredich's career at Tennessee can be summed up in one word - incredibile. During his time with the program the Lady Vols have produced one Olympian, an American Record holder, broken 18-of-19 team records, earned over 120 All-America awards, and have finished top-15 at the NCAA Championships for five consecutive years.

In this SwimUtopia interview Coach Kredich tells us about what caused him to go into coaching and what he expects from his Tennessee squad this season.

Let's get started!

What team do you currently coach for?
The University of Tennessee Women’s Swimming and Diving Team

What made you choose to take the coaching position?
The University of Tennessee is in a beautiful part of the country, not far from where I grew up. The university has also made an extraordinary commitment to excellence in swimming and I wanted to be a part of the vision that they shared with me during the interview process.

What do you expect from Tennessee this upcoming season?
I expect our team to be very competitive in every meet. I expect that all of our swimmers will have significant improvements in their best times, and that our team will be outstanding at the SEC and NCAA Championships.

What other teams or schools have you coached at before coming to the University of Tennessee?
My first job was as a club coach in Durham, NC. I also helped out with the Duke team as a volunteer graduate assistant. From there I became a volunteer assistant coach with the Stanford women under Richard Quick, an then an assistant for the Harvard men under Mike Chasson. I coached age group swimmers at each of those places as well. My first head coaching job was at Brown University, where I coached for 9 years, first with the women and then with the men as well. I started the USA Swimming team Ocean State Squids during my tenure at Brown.  From there I moved to coach the University of Richmond women’s team for four years before being hired at Tennessee.

What would you say your biggest accomplishment has been in coaching?
Oh man, that’s tricky. Well, the highest level of achievement would be helping Christine Magnuson win two silver medals in Beijing. The biggest accomplishment changes from year to year. Every year I coach, I feel like I accomplish something really big. It might be figuring out how to teach freestyle better, or it might be helping someone make a really big leap forward in the way they think about themselves. Sometimes that big accomplishment is painful but all of these big accomplishments help me move to the next step in my coaching.

Is there any particular moment that stands out in your mind from coaching?
Yes. I’ll never forget winning the first conference championship when I was at Brown. We were not the favorites that year, and had been fourth to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale for a while. No team swam particularly well that year but our team was really tough and we squeaked one out. That is a feeling that is simply intoxicating. I’ve felt it since, but that first time is pretty special.

What motivates you as a coach?
I love the idea of “the Quest”.  I don’t believe that we were put on this earth to be timid in our goals and dreams, so I love being with people who have the courage to dream big and to share those dreams with me and the rest of our team. Chasing these goals demands that I be creative, work hard, laugh, and compete. Competition to me is the heart of what we do – its simply looking for the best in ourselves through striving with others who are doing the same thing.

What do you do to motivate your swimmers?
Sing, dance, tell jokes. I’m not sure, actually. I assume that our swimmers are very motivated and its my job to remind them of this. Loss of motivation comes when an athlete loses sight of the connection between the “now”, like what we’re doing in practice right NOW and that really big goal that they’ve set.  Sometimes they lose that sense of connection by not understanding, sometimes by not focusing, other times by actually being so focused on the current result that they become hopeless. Each situation requires a different kind of reminding, and each person does as well. That’s why coaching never gets boring. Ever.

Do you have any personal routines before the start of a swim meet?
Other than normal personal hygiene? I like to exercise on the day of a meet. I like to eat a good meal too. The main thing I do to prepare for the meet is to visualize each race in the meet so I know what I’m looking for. Dual meets are especially challenging to prepare for because we have 4 in the water at a time, and its difficult to see everything I want to see in that situation. Preparation definitely helps.

What caused you to go into coaching?
By the end of college I knew I wanted to be a teacher. When I reached my “crossroads” I was in a graduate program to become a high school teacher and was coaching the club team in Durham at the same time. I got to compare the two jobs side by side, and I knew that while I enjoyed teaching, I loved coaching.  Now coaching is teaching and teaching is coaching.  Whether teaching biology or swimming, we teach by challenging people, and thus helping them grow mentally in a classroom or in a pool. In coaching, however we also get to challenge them emotionally and physically, which we really don’t get to do as readily in the classroom. When I got the opportunity to be a volunteer with Richard Quick’s 1991-1992 team, which included Summer Sanders, Janet Evans, Janel Jorgensen, and many others, I couldn’t pass it up.  I have loved this profession ever since, and love it more and more every year. 

What are some things that people may not know about you?
I live in a very musical household. I have three sons and an amazing wife, each of whom plays between 3-6 instruments. My contribution to this is some semi - rhythmic clapping now and then. One of my goals is to be able to play music with my family. I’m still picking out my instrument, however.