If you only saw the promo for episode one, you probably think this series is about parents ruining swimming. It isn't. In episode two of The Long Course, Mark goes looking for who's to blame for the sport's drift — and finds there's no villain at all. Parents still love their kids. Coaches still care. Programs still want to thrive. What changed is the technology we use to share the sport: it made results instant, constant, and easy, while the deeper stuff — growth, belonging, the daily experience — got left behind. The result is an always-on leaderboard that quietly became the only measure of success. Nobody chose it. And that's exactly what makes it so hard to fix. Keep your heads up.

The Long Course - Episode 1 : Heads Up

No coach will ever tell a swimmer to lift their head up — head down is how you go fast. In the first episode of The Long Course, Mark does the opposite: he asks you to look up at the sport and tell him if it's the best we can do. After a full swimming career and a twenty-year break, he came back as a parent and a coach — and barely recognized what he found on the pool deck. This is what he saw, and why he thinks the sport has quietly drifted. Keep your heads up.

It's always refreshing to hear about a school or a community adding a pool, but it's not easy and it's not a short term investment of time. Wayzata Boys Head Coach David Plummer shares the work that went into getting it from an idea and hope to an approved facility