Interview: Coach Brian Peresie

Welcome again to SwimLife! For today's post we have a very special guest:

The Akron Swim & Dive Head coach Brian Peresie!

I wanted to bring you another perspective of swimming, in this case the outside of the water work and thoughts that goes into it. The coach role is the most important since he is in control of everyday's practice, organization and environment of the team. Let me tell you a little bit about Brian's career since he came to Akron in 2013.

Brian Peresie is in his eighth season as the head coach of the University of Akron women's swimming and diving program. He has now led the team to win the Mid-American Conference Championship for seven straight years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) and has been named the MAC Swimming Coach of the Year for six years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019), since being named head coach May 2, 2013.

He guided 94 Academic All-MAC Honorees and 54 Scholar All-American Honorees. Coached 50 Mid-American Conference Individual and Relay Champions. Under his coaching 42 Mid-American Conference Records has been broken and 127 Akron Zips School Records.

For more information: https://gozips.com/sports/womens-swimming-and-diving/roster/coaches/brian-peresie/914

First of all I ask him why Akron, from all the colleges programs that are out there he decided to come here. It might seem like some answers are long but trust me it's worth your time to read it! Plus he gave us a little piece of advice at the end!

Why did you choose Akron?

"I coached in a Division II college before Akron and I really wanted to coach in a Division I program. So I started coaching in Ohio University and then I decided to come to Akron. I swam in the MAC (Mid-American-Conference) and I knew that I wanted to coach in a MAC program. I chose Akron because I like a lot of things here. Akron has great facilities and academies. It has all the tools a student-athlete needs to succeed. In the swimming program I saw a lot of potential, it was like a sleeping giant when I took over and I knew I could turn this place around"

Why did you decide to start coaching?

"In high school I decided I wanted to coach and I started thinking about it in my junior year in college because I felt like there was a better way than how I was being coached. I was a sprinter trapped in a distance program so I felt like I could make a difference. I continue to coach because I like to make an impact in peoples lives, I like seeing improvement, I like taking some thing and making it better and this could be in any industry, I believe. But, coaching is the one where I can take a stroke and I can try to find ways to make it better and then if it gets better it gets me excited when somebody has a breakthrough and understand something. But, the things I like about coaching the most is the technical aspects and just really trying to figure out a better way, or finding a different way. If somebody tells me to do something certain way or that they do things a certain way I don’t necessarily do it unless I completely understand if I don’t understand in my own thinking then I don’t wanna do it"

What do you love most about swimming/coaching?

"I really like the relationships. I like watching somebody come in as a freshman who is in a new environment and that it may be a little immature not necessarily in a bad way, grow into somebody that is going to be a successful adult. When they come in they’re not equipped to maybe take on the real world but when they leave the program I can see a dramatic change from when they begin to where they are when they graduate and that’s pretty cool"

What is your dream/goal that you envision for Akron?

"Win an NCAA championship at the University of Akron"

Finally I asked him to give a piece of advice for younger people

"Don’t be afraid of failing. More so if you feel like you get stuck and you’re not sure where your life‘s going or what you’re gonna do next, understand that everything is worked out the way it supposed to this point in your life. And I think that if you look at it from that perspective and you look in the past you’ll realize that you haven’t had a lot of really really difficult moments, and the ones that you did have, you persevered through them and you might not have known how you were going to get out of that challenging time but you did. So when you’re in a challenging time and you’re trying to figure out what you wanna do with yourself, trust yourself that you’re going to figure it out even though the answer might not be right in front of you in that moment"

He made an Instagram takeover this past summer during the US Olympic Trials on the Akron swim & dive official Instagram account so if you want to know more about him and get a behind the scenes, check it out:

Instagram