Assistant women’s swim coach Laura Peter is currently in her first semester at Hillsdale College. She moved to Hillsdale in February after spending 20 years in various coaching positions in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In addition to her coaching duties, she teaches a section of Physical Wellness Dynamics and coaches students in strength and conditioning.
How did you end up at Hillsdale?
I was in Virginia Beach for 20 years, but my oldest daughter graduated in 2014 from Hillsdale, and she loves Hillsdale, and decided she wanted to stay here, and my youngest one started last year as a freshman. My oldest one had committed to her job here, and my husband works overseas a lot, and it seemed like it was a good time to move here. When I arrived here, I just sent some emails and asked if they needed help somewhere. So I’m teaching the physical wellness dynamics class, and I’m doing strength and conditioning coaching. It’s a little bit different, mostly because the recruiting is really different. Before, I was always on the other side, working with high school kids getting ready to go to college, not finding them, so that’s really very different.
What’s the best aspect of your job?
Getting to know the girls. I think it’s when you make that connection. I really enjoy the teaching, so when I get a chance either in the weight room or on the pool deck with one of the girls to really get through and have them sort of have that moment where they say, “Oh, I can do this better!” To me that’s what it’s all about. I just really love that.
I have two young men — Jordy Smith and Nathan Prigmore — they both want to get into BUD/S Navy SEAL training. So I’m teaching them to swim, which is really a lot of fun. I want to have a class that’s a BUD/S preparation class. And they’re so different from the girls because they just do whatever you say to do. So I’m working with them a couple days a week.
How have you teamed up with swim head coach Kurt Kirner?
Basically, a lot of what I’m doing for him is providing a backup. He’s never really had a real assistant coach before. Some of that is a learning curve for him too — figuring out how to delegate and share some of the responsibility. Then there’s the aspect of bringing a mature woman into the equation — I bring different skills. I had a bunch of the freshman girls over for dinner last week — I’m providing that nurturing, and that’s a nice balance. The other thing is that what I do the best is a lot of technique work. That really was my main emphasis: stroke technique. And so, for example, I was working with the girls on turns and giving them a lot of feedback.
What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
Everything is new. It’s not just the team which is new, but a lot of the girls have been here for four years, so I’m new to them, but it’s kind of hard walking into an established program. Then, teaching a class which I haven’t taught before. It’s learning everything all at once. It’s no different from freshmen starting out here — you’ve got new people, you’ve got new surroundings, everything is just new.
How did you first develop a passion for swimming?
I ran track and cross-country when I was in college. Then after school I thought maybe I really loved exercise science, so I started taking anatomy classes and started doing triathlons. I really loved the technique aspect of swimming — that you could actually teach the right way to do it, and a lot of it carried over to me and made sense because of my running background. So I got into swimming because that was so specifically technique-oriented. I swam masters and then competed triathlons.
When did you start coaching swimming?
When my girls were little they needed a coach for some reason, and I started coaching at a YMCA. Then I started coaching age group club swimming (any kids between the ages of 5 and 18). Then I had the opportunity to work with a couple of really great coaches and got involved in coaching masters swimming, which was for adults. I had a program in Virginia Beach for about 15 years. What’s really neat about masters for me is it’s anybody between the ages of 18 and 80. So at any given practice you might be teaching 12 swimmers but you might be teaching somebody to swim, you might be working with a 70-year old who’s had a heart attack, you might be prepping somebody for a meet, all sorts of stuff like that. That made masters really fun. I did a lot in the 8-12 age group, and I worked with a young guy who was an assistant coach at Auburn, and he brought in a lot of very new ideas. He’s the one who convinced me to get my CSCS, which is certified strength conditioning specialist. So that was a lot of fun.
Do you have a coaching philosophy?
My philosophy with coaching is to aim to teach them all the things that they need in order to be responsible for their own training. To give them those tools, so that they know what they’re doing, they know how to do it, they take it on board so they can say, “Oh, my body’s telling me this, I think I need to work on this.” I want them to know what it is that they’re supposed to be doing and understand why they’re doing it so they can take it with them. And that’s not always true with a lot of coaches. You’ll see a lot of coaches that are very control-oriented, but that’s
kind of old-fashioned swimming. And that might work with some sports, but when you’re working with an individual sport, that you want them to do for the rest of their life, they really need to be able to know what it is that they’re doing, and to take responsibility for it. Then they become invested in it.
