This week the ASCA World Clinic has been underway down in New Orleans, Louisiana. Tonight the annual awards banquet and hall of fame presentations were on the schedule, and Bruce Gemmell was announced as the ASCA Coach of the Year.
The ASCA Coach of the Year Award is given annually to coaches who have contributed the most towards American swimming excellence on the world level. The ASCA Board of the Directors votes on the winner of this award each year.
Gemmell is the first coach other than Bob Bowman, Eddie Reese or Greg Troy since 2002 to win this honor. Teri McKeever won the award back in 2002, still the only female coach to win the award. Gemmell took over as the Head Coach of the NCAP Georgetown Prep location, when Yuri Suguiyama took the Cal Men’s assistant coaching job.
Gemmell was instrumental in guiding Katie Ledecky to four gold medals in Barcelona this past summer, where two of her swims were new world records (8:13.86, 800 freestyle & 15:36.53, 1500 freestyle). She went on to be named the Female Swimmer of the World Championships.
Gemmell has also has coached his own son, Andrew Gemmell, to an Olympic berth in 2012 in the 1500m freestyle.
There were four finalsits for this award this year, include Gemmell. All the finalists had coached their American swimmer to a World Championship gold medal this past summer. They included:
Rick DeMont (Matt Grevers, 100 back gold)
Todd Schmitz (Missy Franklin, six gold medals)
Greg Troy (Ryan Lochte, three gold medals)
The first ASCA Coach of the Year was given to James “Doc” Counsilman in 1961.
Lucas, Bruce Gemmell also coached his son Andrew Gemmell to the open water worlds team. Also, Ledecky made drastic improvements from 2012 to 2013 after what was already an incredible performance in 2012. Missy had a great performance this year as well, but nothing out-of-this-world compared to her 2012 year. Ledecky broke 2 WRs and was first to break 4 mins in a textile suit. Ledecky won 3 individual golds and broke 2 WRs, Missy won 3 individual golds.
Katie improved just as much from 2011 (not really considered to be on the map by most) to 2012 (gold medal). I believe Andrew Gemmell currently goes to UGA and is trained by Harvey. At any rate, he wasn’t listed as one of Bruce’s athletes at the banquet last night, since the criteria for the award is athletes who excell at the highest level (meaning, at its core, that only medals or reccords at the selected competition count). The decision between those two coaches did come down to Missy vs. Ledecki.
As I said before, I think both ladies did fantastic, and in my view with performances that were similar in terms of level of awesomeness – relay gold… Read more »
Bruce acknowledged Yuri in his speech and on twitter afterwards. I can tell you are a Cal fan. Make sure when Teri or Dave wins an award, they thank all the club coaches that helped developed their swimmers before they went to Cal. They are handed some pretty good talent, just like Bruce was but doing an outstanding job with them is not always that easy. Congratulations Bruce!
Gemmell thanked Suguiyama in his acceptance speech
Bruce Gemmell has done a great job with Katie Ledecki, that’s for sure. But, from a coaching perpective, he’s been with her for less than a year (got to NCAP in October 2012), while Todd Schimtz has coached Missy for about 7 years. I find Ledecki’s and Missy’s World Champs performances about the same (2WR on Ledecki’s side, most golds ever by a woman/girl at the competition on Missy’s), but I think a coaches association should recognize the long term work of one coach, despite this being a yearly award. Truth is, Todd probably had a lot more to do with Missy’s performance than Bruce had with Katie’s. This is not to diminish Gemmell’s work with Katie at all, but… Read more »
No mention of Yuri Suguiyama?… The real coach who got Katie to this level in the first place. Nice gift.
Congratulations to Bruce! Terrific coach.
Well deserved award for Mr Gemmell.
This could not have gone to a more deserving coach. Bruce is all about the swimmers- very unassuming, dedicated to the sport, and doesn’t need the spotlight. It’s not easy taking the reigns of an Olympic Gold medalist, but Katie blew last year’s results out of the water.