Hello,

First time poster here, but I have been an occasional Cougarboard lurker for a couple of years now. Thought I would give some thoughts on the Utah Swimgate from the perspective of a BYU Swimmer. Obviously, I was not around the Ute swim team to validate the accounts given by the swimmers/parents on the YahooSports article, but I knew a lot of the Utah Swimmers and can say that my sources are good. I was also around their team multiple times each season for dual meets, invitationals, and the MWC Championship - enough to form an opinion of the slimeball. I also had a few teammates from Arizona who knew Greg during his years in Arizona. I swam during the Jimmer years and was even on the team when the 4 stupid freshman stole the car and went to jail.

Below are some random ramblings about Greg, the Ute Swim team, and some of the training methods he used. Hopefully, this will also give you some insight as to what is and what isn't a normal training drill for swimming. All the CB posters who think the parents should stop whining about the methods Greg used are ignorant.

1) I had heard about the account of Greg sexually harassing the girl in Arizona while I was at BYU. It was a rumor at the time, but was not news to me when the Yahoo article came out.
2) Greg cheated on his wife with the Utah diving coach - I believe he had some young kids at the time as well. Pretty sad.
3) After his divorce, Greg regularly partied with his swimmers and slept at their apartments. I know for a fact that a lot of the swimmers were not 21.
4) The last time I swam a dual meet at the U's pool, Greg did not give us a bleacher to sit on during the meet. The U has an upper seating section reserved for fans, but usually the pool deck is off limits for all people besides swimmers/coaches/media. This time however, he took the bleacher we usually sat on and had a "reserved for student section" sign on it when we arrived at the pool. We were left to sit on the ground in the far corner of the pool away from the competition pool, while the students sat poolside. Our spot was also near the warm up/warm down pool, which was soaking wet from people swimming in it during the meet. He also did not provide any jugs of gatorade/water for us (which is customary at every collegiate meet I had ever attended). Obviously, this may seem like petty stuff, but can you imagine going to a football or basketball game where there is no bench for the opposing team and you had to stand or sit on the ground the whole time? Swim meets usually last 3+ hours, so a long time to sit on the wet ground. Even U of Wyoming gave us a place to sit and Gatorade/water.
5) Underwaters are a common drill performed by swimmers, but never to the point of blacking out. If you couldn't make it all the way to the other end, you came up for a breath. That was not the kind of drill where you typically got yelled at for because of the dangers involved if you pass out (unless you came up after 5 seconds, which a 5 year old could do). I had some teammates who had asthma. If anyone was ever having an attack or any kinds of breathing issues, they were ordered out of the pool immediately to recover.
6) I have never been asked to swim with a bag over my head, nor ever heard of that kind of drill. We use snorkels for breath control, or wear baggy suits for drag resistance. We also did bucket swims, where you would have medical tubing tied to a bucket handle and to a waist buckle strap. You would clip the strap around your waist and then do "Bucket sprints" with the bucket dragging behind you. This kind of resistance training is very useful, but obviously not cruel or unusual. The parents had the right to be pissed about swimming with a mesh bag over your head. I assume the bags they are referring to are the mesh bags used to hold your swim gear in (paddles, fins, snorkel, pull buoy, etc.)
7) I have never heard of a drill using PVC pipe taped around your body to improve your stroke technique - that is straight up bizarre
8) Greg's team always got last at MWC Championships, and it was a frequent sight to see him yelling at his swimmers on the deck in front of everyone. The girls often walked off crying after getting yelled at. One time, I specifically remember him taking his whole team behind the bleachers and ripping them a new one for 20+ minutes at the end of one of the days at MWC Champs. Obviously, a coach has the right to demand more out of his athletes, but it's pretty embarrassing to do it right by the BYU bleacher. Swimming is different than football - the yelling is done during practice, but when the meet time comes around, positive reinforcement is your best friend. Swimming is such a mental sport, and when you are in a negative state of mind, it is almost a guarantee that you are going to underperform. Screaming at someone after a race for swimming slow is completely pointless.
9) When we went to swim the U, they had posters all over the pool deck that the swim team had made saying things like "Send the Pu**y's (in reference to a cat or Cougar) back to Provo". "Hope you said your prayers" and other statements trying to make fun of us for being LDS (although quite a few members of our team were not LDS).
10) Some of the Ute swimmers were cool, but most of them were very trashy (although Wyoming swimmers were the trashiest and the ugliest but that is a whole other post). There are too many stories to tell, but one example: Some of my teammates were in the lockeroom at MWC Championships getting changed, and the Ute swimmers knew they were in there. They started talking as loud as they could about dreams they had had the night before about the byu swimmer s wives, and all the different things they had done to them during these dreams (insert vulgarities). This went on for a good while. Luckily my teammates in the lockeroom were softies there would have been a brawl if others (including myself) had been there.
11) From what I understand, Greg was given a $10,000 (give or take a few thousand) bonus for beating BYU each year in our annual dual meet. It was during the dual meet that the points were contributed to the Deseret First Dual, which was the reason for the incentive. Greg would taper his swimmers before the dual meet, where at BYU we would train right through it. In the sport of swimming, you usually only taper a couple times per year, usually before your biggest meet of the year. Although the dual meet between BYU/Utah was a big deal, it was also 3 weeks before MWC Championships, which was really the biggest meet of the year for all swimmers. It was at MWC where you would shave and wear the special suits (which run for ~$500 btw) and would have the best chance of achieving NCAA cuts. MWC was the reason you swam and trained 4+ hours/day. Because Greg would taper his kids before the dual meet, they all swam slow at MWC Champs a few weeks later, which resulted in them getting last place and a lot of pissed off swimmers. He focused more on his monetary gain than the interests of his swimmers.