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The splashy art of celebration
With the sports world on pause during a pandemic, the Missourian asked a number of coaches in Columbia to share memories from the most meaningful game (or match, or race, or event) they have ever been a part of. Some chose formative coaching moments. Others preferred a highlight from their playing career. But each memory left a powerful imprint on the coaches, informing how they lead today. In this series, titled ‘The Moments That Shaped Them,’ the Missourian tells their stories.
Coach: Andrew Grevers
Title: Head coach, Missouri swimming
Moment: Feb. 20, 2020 — 100 butterfly final, SEC Championships
Politely knocking wasn’t going to do the trick; the first attempt went unnoticed. So freshman swimmer Meredith Rees tried again, louder this time — BANG. BANG. BANG. — and inside his hotel room, Danny Kovac bolted awake. The MU sophomore checked the time. Oh, shit.
Kovac packed his suit, cap and goggles in a panic. Five minutes after realizing he’d overslept, he was on the team bus, on his way back to Auburn’s Martin Aquatics Center for the nightcap at the 2020 SEC Swimming and Diving Championships.
The day had gone smoothly until then: Kovac swam in the 100-meter butterfly prelims and qualified for the finals that night. He returned to the hotel for lunch. He drank a lot of Pedialyte. He went to his room to study and nap before the finals, applying the crucial bird-by-bird attitude he’d been taught by his coach, Andrew Grevers.
Then Rees came knocking.
Now, the unusual double-header: an SEC Championship race, then an economics exam.
The plan was for Kovac to be escorted to Auburn’s proctored testing center after his event. It was stressful, almost overwhelming, but when it comes to the mental side of the sport, there are few who prioritize it like Grevers, who was just finishing up his first full season as Missouri’s head coach.
Grevers has been on MU’s coaching staff since 2010. He was made interim head coach before the 2018-19 season, and when the “interim” tag was removed after MU’s 2019 second-place SEC finish, he implemented weekly mental performance meetings with the athletic department’s sports psychologist. The men’s and women’s teams spend 30 to 45 minutes in a classroom every Tuesday at 6 or 7 a.m., using podcasts and other materials to analyze mental strategies. It’s part of Grevers’ “Zou Style” team culture initiative. In Grevers’ mind, swimmers practice that culture just like any other stroke: freestyle, butterfly, Zou Style.
Perhaps the most valuable element of Zou Style is the art of celebration. When you win a race, you cheer for yourself. You “throw up the M,” a hand gesture with three fingers pointed downward like the Missouri ‘M.’ You throw up the M for your teammates when they win, too. “We have to celebrate anything and everything that could be considered a success,” Kovac says. “I’ve never had a coach that makes me celebrate.”
Under Grevers, the Tigers have fun, and they make sure everyone sees it. Among their SEC opponents, they are known for their loud and proud team chemistry. They walk around the pool deck like they own the place, often making random boisterous noises: whooping, barking, shouting fake orders. “We’re very obnoxious,” Kovac says, “and we have a really good time doing it.”
When the bus delivered the team to Auburn’s pool, Grevers’ Tigers arrived with the same confidence. Kovac practiced his usual pre-race routine, pulling from a senior teammate’s advice: “Don’t make the meet bigger than it needs to be.”
That teammate is Daniel Hein, who had also qualified for the 100 butterfly finals. At the 2018 NCAAs his sophomore year, Hein had a disappointing meet. Afterward, he sat in the hotel lobby with Grevers. The assistant coach searched for the right words, preparing to console Hein for individual mistakes. Hein didn’t want that. He asked what went wrong for the team, not just himself. What was missing collectively? Was there any disunity in the team? Grevers was surprised. The two of them launched into an examination of team dynamics and self-encouragement. Grevers told Hein he shouldn’t overlook everyone’s accomplishments and jump to the failures. The healthiest way to improve, he said, is to reflect on both.
“That (conversation) was kind of the start of ‘Zou Style’ in my mind,” Grevers says. “There’s got to be a way to move past these uncontrollables, these things that can just tear an individual down or tear a team down, because they get so fixated on the results that they fail to acknowledge all the great things they have done.” Celebrating became the core tenet.
Neither Hein nor Kovac was fully rested for this SEC meet because they’d been training for NCAAs, unaware of the incoming pandemic that would end the season early. They had no way of knowing whether their opponents were rested or in the same boat. Either way, fatigue was the most dangerous enemy. So before the race, assistant coach Alec Hayden gave Kovac a plan: “I want you to take out that first 50 as fast as you can and pull away from the pack.” It was a green light to go full-speed and hope he could hang on.
When Kovac told Hein his plan in the ready room, the senior’s eyes lit up. He wanted in. Like children at recess, they eagerly agreed to sprint the first 50, unaware it would be one of their last schemes together.
The race is four pool lengths: down and back, down and back. True to his word, Kovac swam an impressive first 50 in Lane 6, keeping even with his Lane 7 counterpart, Auburn’s Santiago Grassi, who swam the 100 fly for Argentina in the 2016 Olympics. The two pulled away from the pack in the next 25 meters while Hein fell behind in Lane 1. Grevers’ eyes were on Kovac as he entered the last turn. Grevers tells his team the best way to beat fatigue is to push off the wall at a substantial depth that allows strong underwater kicks. Kovac executed the turn perfectly. OK, he’s not going to give the race away here, Grevers thought. This guy’s in it.
Kovac expected pain in the last 25. He loves pain. “It’s kind of fun when you’re just dying at the end of a race,” he says. Grevers puts it this way: “This guy is one huge muscle.” The coach could see Kovac’s muscles tighten in agony during his last two strokes, laboring to reach the wall. He was still stroke for stroke with Grassi. In that little in-between space before the wall, each had to make a decision. Kovac reached for the wall. Grassi took one last half stroke and splashed into it.
Years of experience and instinct told Grevers to turn and look at the scoreboard for the final results. Never had he not immediately looked to the board. It’s just what you do. But this time, Grevers turned his eyes to Alec Hayden, a lifelong friend and groomsman at his wedding. Grevers still doesn’t know why he did it. Maybe he subconsciously decided it would be easier to take the news from a trusted friend rather than the cold clock. Hayden tensed up, sort of like Kovac had. But this wasn’t pain. It was relief. It was exultation.
The scoreboard showed Kovac’s time first, 45.29 seconds, then Grassi’s, 45.32. Grevers never looked.
In the pool, Kovac threw up the M, but his coach’s eyes skipped to the opposite side. The swimmer in Lane 1 looked as if he had just won the SEC championship. Hein immediately gave an animated scream and smacked the water. He leaned over the rope between lanes and took off his cap, using it to salute his teammate six lanes away. “I was splashing the water in the lane next to me, and the kid was like, ‘What is this guy doing?’” Hein didn’t even know where he finished; he was seventh place out of eight. He rushed to meet Kovac for a bear hug.
Grevers will never forget the image of a senior role model celebrating a teammate’s triumph; it transcended even victory for Grevers as a coach. “A perfect example of everything I hope for in an athlete,” he says. “Everything I want my team culture to be, everything you could ever dream of out of a leader — all came together in this one moment from these two athletes.”
Kovac was swarmed by teammates as he got out of the pool, celebrating in true Zou Style. He found and hugged his twin sister, CJ, another MU swimmer. “That kind of made me tear up a lot,” Kovac says. “That was the greatest feeling in the world, just giving everyone hugs.”
The moment has added meaning for him now in the era of social distancing, when it’s easier to realize hugs are a commodity so many take for granted. But not that day, because when you swim for Andrew Grevers, you celebrate properly.
Kovac was still processing the emotions as he was crowned SEC champion, still processing on the way to the testing center, still processing as he tried to focus on his exam, still processing as he finally saw his countless phone notifications on the ride back to the hotel.
It was late at night when he got back, so he was unsurprised — proud, even — to find no one waiting for him. Grevers wouldn’t have it any other way. Rest now. Celebrate again tomorrow.
This article originally ran on columbiamissourian.com.
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