Marquette swimming begins its inaugural year this month, entering unchartered waters as the university’s 17th varsity sport.
The Golden Eagles will host one dual meet at the Wellness + Helfaer Recreation facility, matching up with Northern Iowa on Friday, Oct. 9, and will compete in nearby Brown Deer as part of the Wisconsin Showcase on Saturday, Oct. 17. The campaign culminates with the BIG EAST Championship, Feb. 17-21.
“What’s really nice is that we’ve gone out of our way to make sure we’ve brought in people from all over the country,” says Joel Rollings, women’s swimming head coach. “We really represent the national character of Marquette. We have people from Florida, Arizona, Oregon, Ohio, obviously Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Even though they’re from different states, they all appreciate the core values of Marquette.”
Marquette Today caught up with Rollings to discuss the process of launching a new program, his core philosophies and Marquette swimming’s connection to the greater university community.
What has the experience been like starting the swim program from scratch?
What’s been great with Marquette is the alumni connection. We have one woman on the team, one of the big draws was that her grandpa met her grandma here. She’s in Florida, her mom is originally from Rhinelander, so for her walking the campus that her grandfather walked is pretty cool. We had a recruit in the other day, when we were showing her Humphrey Hall, her mom got a little misty eyed because we passed her dorm room in Humphrey from when she was here.
Those kinds of stories are what make Marquette pretty special. Everyone somehow knows someone who went to Marquette, whether they’re from California or Muskego. The connections are really deep and really strong. It’s really special to be a part of that community.
I was actually just talking to a recruit and told her one of the things we’re looking for is people that want to be a part of Marquette. I really want people that love Marquette. I think if we have that kind of tie to the community as we build a program, it’s a stronger foundation. We’re a part of the community, even though we’re a brand new program.
Could you tell me a bit about your connection to Marquette?
The whole reason we live in Wisconsin is because my dad was employed at Marquette as a psychology professor. For us, we would go to all the basketball games all the time. When they won the national championship, we were around all the time. My favorite player growing up was Butch Lee. We were always a Marquette household.
In high school, I had a bunch of friends who went to Marquette, so the pressure is that I don’t want to let those people down either. I don’t want to let the student-athletes on the team down, I don’t want to let the administration down, and I don’t want to let friends and neighbors down. That’s also kind of the fun part. It’s such an honor to have that kind of pressure.
Are there any core tenets or principles that guide how you’re building this program?
I worked at Phillips 66 in Oklahoma for a little bit, and one of the guys I knew was one of the world leaders in a petrochemical. He’d talk about what to do when you’re hiring people, and he’d say, “Obviously they’re not going to know what I know, but I can teach them. I can’t teach them how to be on time. I can’t teach them to be honest. I can’t teach them how to be inquisitive. But if we have those three foundations, we can do anything.”
Here, it’s kind of the same thing. We’re looking for people who are energetic. People who have high aspirations, academically and athletically. If they’ve got those goals in place and they’ve got that energy and want to be a part of this community — the Jesuit tradition and being a part of this city and invested in the community — then we can teach them anything as far as the mechanics and race strategy.
Sometimes I’m asked about the goals for the program. I think when we focus on the outcome we might lose sight of those three things.
What are you most looking forward to in this inaugural season?
I’m looking forward to what we do in February. I just want to see what we can do when we get to the conference meet; how they come together at the end. That’s the thing that is neat about coaching. You have to look at the day, but also what you’re building to in the future. So, it’s the little steps, how they do at the first meet, the training trip that we’re going to do, all those steps that come along the way during the season.
