In a tribute to now-retired swim coaching legend Jon Urbanchek, Michigan’s mid-distance group swam the last workout Urbanchek wrote for the program today.
Urbanchek has been a longtime Michigan swimming icon, coaching the Wolverine men from 1982 to 2004. Urbanchek continued coaching at the club and professional levels after his time at Michigan, and served on the coaching staff of six separate Olympic teams. He officially retired from coaching on August 31 of this year after a storied career in which Urbanchek put names like Mike Barrowman, Tom Dolan, Tom Malchow, Eric Namesnik, Eric Wunderlich, Gustavo Borges and Brent Lang onto Olympic rosters.
After his retirement, Urbanchek won the prestigious USA Swimming award for his years as one of the country’s most successful and most respected swim coaches.
The Michigan swimming program tweeted today that the men’s mid-distance and distance groups were swimming a practice written by Urbanchek – the workout attached to the tweet appears to show the workout originally being written in March:
Came upon the last workout @jonurb ever wrote.
So we’re doing it. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/K1TbqUJUne
— Michigan Swimming & Diving (@umichswimdive) October 14, 2020
Urbanchek responded with some specifics about the workout:
https://twitter.com/jonurb/status/1316460818657992704
The workout is in long course meters, for those looking to put the intervals and distances into context.
Enjoy life Jon. Godspeed to you and family. I still think beets taste terrible!!!
Jon is truly one of the all time greats and there will never be another coach like him. He was unique and one of the classiest and funniest people I’ve ever met. I hope he has a long and happy retirement!
Odd… was expecting to see “Sharks & Minnows”….
There about a dozen of Jon’s last workouts floating around; spanning 2000 – 2020. Maybe this one is the real one, maybe?
Congrats to Urbanchek on a great coaching career!
Why does this article make it sound like he died?