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A different feel to the Village
University of Georgia swim coach Jack Bauerle will serve as an assistant coach for the U.S. women's Olympic swim team in Sydney. In his twenty-one years at Georgia, Bauerle's swimmers have won 17 NCAA individual titles and three NCAA relay titles, and the women's swim team won the NCAA championships in 1999 and 2000. Check in with Bauerle on CNNSI.com throughout the Olympics.
September 15, 2000
What has the atmosphere been like leading up to the Opening Ceremonies?
Today has been really exciting. Everything has been more electric, and there is a buzz round the Village. We're excited to be a part of all this. There's a different feel to the Village today. They about rocked us out of our housing when they were practicing for the fireworks display. Some people thought we were being bombed and ran outside. If that's how it's going to be tonight, it's going to be spectacular.
Have you had a chance to see any of the other athletes?
We had an interesting day. I was walking earlier with Courtney Shealy, and we had a chance meeting with Teresa Edwards. (Georgia women's basketball coach) Andy Landers and I started the very same year at Georgia, so I go way back with Teresa. We used to play some pick-up ball together. What a wonderful spirit she still has. Courtney was literally speechless.
You do get to see a lot of people that you haven't seen in a long time at the Games. There is a friend of mine from Switzerland that I hadn't seen in 10 years and then all of a sudden we were sitting next to each other on a bus. It's a great atmosphere.
What has the team been doing in terms of preparation since arriving in Australia?
We checked in on the fifth and got settled into the Village. We went up to Brisbane on the seventh for some training and came back down on the 13th. Brisbane was nice. There were several good pools up there, and the weather was a little warmer. The kids loved that. We feel like you can get stale if you just sit around the Village too long, but we wanted to get settled into our rooms before we went to Brisbane. When we got back all that was finished and taken care of. Since then we've just been resting up. There's not much you can do now as far as training goes. We've just been trying to get them prepared mentally. Tomorrow it's important that we get out of the gates fast. Every session is important.
A lot has been made of the swimming rivalry between the U.S and Australia. Have you talked to the team about that?
Over here it's been interesting with the build-up as an Australia vs. U.S. affair. I'm not sure if many Americans realize what swimming means to the Australians. Swimming to them, is like football or basketball to us. It's their mega-sport, and we are the bad guys. But that can be good if we feed off of it correctly. On the other hand, we have talked to the team, and they realize it's not just between us against another country. There are some remarkable athletes and gold-medal contenders from other countries here as well.
We had a very exciting and rousing team meeting today. I've never been in a team meeting like that one, even before NCAA Championships. We are excited, and we feel good about the team.
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