Athletic Director Larry Dukes, varsity swim team coach, answers questions about his experience swimming and coaching.
Q: Did you swim in high school?
A: No, I swam [on] club [teams] up through the beginning of high school because in high school, I got pretty big so I played other sports. I played football, basketball, a little bit of baseball, and I wrestled.
Q: How did you get involved in swimming?
A: Actually, I had swam earlier, and then my son ran into a friend of his that was swimming and asked if he could try it out. When I went to his club to have [my son] try it out, it reacquainted me with a bunch of people that I swam with when I was younger and they coerced me into helping them coach. That was about 15 years ago, and I’ve been doing it since.
Q: What do you like about swimming?
A: You can very easily see an individual seeing the pay off of their work, and I like the fact that it’s something from an individual standpoint; you’re measuring yourself against the clock. There’s always another level that you can take yourself to. It’s much like track and field or those sports where it’s you and time or you and a bar where you can always raise the bar and always get a faster time. So, in essence, there’s never a plateau. You can always do better.
Q: Did you start coaching at John Carroll?
A: No, actually, I started at the club level for the Harford Hurricanes and the North Harford Neptunes. Then, I came to John Carroll as a swim coach. I think it was nine or ten years ago, now. I was coaching and teaching a course here part time and then eventually became the athletic director. It’s been a good run.
Q: How would you describe your coaching technique?
A: It’s understanding the goals of each one of the individuals, each one of the swimmers, and understanding the strengths that they have in their particular strokes. I guess my prowess is helping them with mechanics. We build mechanics before we build the endurance. We can worry about swimming fast after we learn how to swim correctly.
Q: What is your favorite stroke?
A: My favorite stroke to watch is butterfly and my favorite stroke to swim is the breast stroke. It was my fastest stroke when I was growing up, but I always envied the good butterfliers because to me, it’s the most interesting and exciting stroke in swimming.
Joey Hoff can be reached for comment at [email protected].