Leadership, Legacy & USA Swimming: Cyndi Gallagher’s Story

Whispsoas the voice of Women's hi and welcome to the first episode of Behind the
Blocks. I'm your host, Caitlin Sandino. Make sure to follow us on
social media at Caitland Sandino and at WHISP Sports. Before we hear from this
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Always read and follow label directions. Before we get started, Here's a little
bit about myself. My name is Caitlin Sandino Hogan and I competed in the
two thousand and the two thousand and four Olympic Games. I'm a former world
and American record holder, World champion and also recently an author of my very
own book, Golden Glow. How Caitlin Sandino Achieved Goal in the pool and
in Life. Currently, I am the general manager of the DC Trident Professional
Swim team that just got kicked off last season. I'm a motivational speaker,
a coach an MC and I love love, love giving back to the community,
especially being the national spokesperson at the Jesse Reees Foundation, which is all
about spreading hope, joy and love to children fighting cancer. On this show,
I'm excited to just highlight and celebrate the incredible women in our sport of
swimming. I am absolutely thrilled to kick off my podcast with legendary coach Cindy
Gallagher. Cindy was UCLA's women's swimming and diving head coach for thirty one years,
but spent a total of thirty eight years of head coach, assistant coach,
and student athlete. A graduate of UCLA, Cindy has had an impressive
swimming career of her own before becoming one of the few coaches in the nation
who coached at their alma matered She set several school records as a Bruin,
earned All American honors, and it was even recognized as the university's most valuable
athlete. Not to mention, Cindy was also USA national team member. She
competed at the Olympic Trials in nineteen seventy six, in nineteen eighty and was
a bronze medals an eight hundred meter freestyle at the nineteen seventy eight World University
Games in Mexico City. As a coach at UCLA, Sindney produced eleven Olympians,
twenty one pack twelve champs, and ninety one All Americans. Sindney was
one of only three female head coaches of Division one top twenty five schools nationwide.
Currently, Cindy is the head coach for DC Trident, one of ten
teams in the i SEL Swim League, the first professional swimmy league that kicked
off last season. Cindy, Welcome to My first episode of behind the blocks.
Thank you. I'm excited. Oh, Cindy, it's us a blast
to connect with you. We have such an interesting history as a Trojan myself,
always going against the Bruins, crosstown rivals, and now here we are
together with DC Trident, breaking barriers, expanding the sport. It's so cool
to come full circle with this what I call very small swimming world. No
kidding, no kidding. Yeah. I always remember you as just being a
fantastic athlete, full of Trojan pride and just getting your team fired up to
swim against the Bruins. And I was so happy when you finally graduated.
I didn't have to face you anymore, you know, but it was really
really fun to be on your team. And the fact that, you know,
when you called me to ask me if I wanted to be your head
coach of DC Trident, I was like, you know, I am a
Bruin, right, But I'm glad we kind of put that behind us and
just the love of the sport and our friendship kind of trumps everything. Absolutely,
So we're making reference to DC Tridents. The DC Trident is part of
the ISL, the International Swimming League, which kicked off last season, something
pretty iconic and special for our sport, really trying to grow the professional side
of swimming, which you know, as we're familiar with, doesn't really exist.
Cindy was the head coach of an all female staff, which is pretty
iconic in itself, especially for a co ed team. Now, what was
that like for you being you know, predominantly a college coach and then coming
into what is quote unquote the first ever professional swim league, not only coaching
professional athletes, but also having professional men athletes. What was that experience like
for you? It was really great. You know, I had just retired
from UCLA after you know, being at UCLA forever, and it was a
really gut wrenching decision for me to retire from coaching because I still loved it.
I still I love the sport, and so when I was offered this
opportunity by you, it just I jumped at it because I love the sport
and competition and I really enjoyed, you know. I we used to have
a men's team at UCLA, which was fun, and we never trained with
them. We were a separate program, but it was fun just you know,
being around men's summers. It's part of our culture. We grow up
with men, boys and the girls sing together. So um, being a
part of that and then just um, you learned so much from athletes and
being there with other athletes from other countries and men and women together, it
just was it was so different because it was all professional athletes. You know,
I wasn't really responsible for their training. Um, I didn't, you
know, I just would was there to you know, lead them and cheer
them on, and they pretty much knew what they were doing, or highly
motivated athletes, and it was really it was actually really fun to coach men
or you know, to be surrounded by men. It was it made it
you know, kind of complete for me that I got a little bit of
that too in my coaching. Absolutely. Susy, you've been in this sport
for gosh, over probably forty years. How have you seen the sport evolved?
I mean we kind of touch faith on the professionals, I mean aspect
right now. But what is it that really sticks out in your mind that's
really evolved over these last you know generations? H Well, you know some
are still some really hard, they train hard, they do everything, you
know, they do everything hard. But I think there's more focus and so
you know, I know when I was coaching, instead of having two and
a half hour practices, it beat an hour and a half or two hour
practices, and it was just you kind of get it all in and you
work a little harder and you rest a little more, so there's more recovery.
Definitely being in great shape, great physical shape. I mean we did
a lot of running and spinning and yoga pilates. All of that was you
know, I never did that when I swam. I just swam. You
know, um waits something that women really didn't do that much of when I
when I swam, and that's a big part of it, you know,
for your speed and for your fitness and so you don't get injured. And
um, you know, technique that's always evolving. So if you can just
continue to learn about technique and how to reduce drag, you know, that's
always important. But that's totally changed. I mean when I swam, I
we had different suits, sweet some of us didn't have caps or goggles time
ago. But really the most the biggest inness evolved is you know the mental
side, and um, you know, having a sports psychologist being on staff
and having that really separates the good from the great, and it really helps
everyone, the coaches included, because they need to have that too. So,
um, you know the mental side. You know, I never really
talked about or thought about myself talk and so we did a lot of that
at UCLA. You know, your thoughts determine your future, and you can
have a choice of positive thoughts or negative thoughts, and you have to script
those those thoughts into positive and have affirmations. And you know that's um and
that's really important in swimming and getting up in the morning and being grateful and
uh, talk about what you're grateful for and have an attitude of gratefulness and
then have your positive affirmations and then also learn how to quiet the noise.
Yeah. Absolutely, So that's what has changed, the mental side being more
available and um mainstream instead of just uh, you know not you know,
not talked about this sports psychology part. Right. I love that you bring
up the mental side of it, and it really leads to what I wanted
to talk to you about next. You know, we're in this very challenging
uncertain time with you know, the quarantine and the lockdown, and you know,
it's a very rollercoaster for these athletes out there that were, you know,
thinking that they were going to go to their empty two ays and that's
canceled, and they think they're going to prep for the Olympics trial or the
Olympic trials because the Olympics and the Olympic, the Olympics are postponed and then
childs are postponed. If you were still coaching at UCLA, what would you
be advising your brew and athletes to do in this time of quote unquote lockdown?
Uh? Ye had the great Pause. Um, we had a little
bit of this in nineteen eighty when they when they canceled the Olympics, right,
So we um that I had a little bit of experience of having to
change your mindset. And I feel terrible for the athletes, especially the seniors.
You know, the kids were ready to go and ready to break records
and and be with their team and have all those celebrations you have at the
end of your your career and it just came to a screeching hold. And
then the kids that you know, do they swim another year or do they
go out and try to get a job or no one can really get a
job right now. So, um, you know, I just I would
tell them, you know, there's a lot of unknowns and I know that's
scary. Um, you don't know when you're going to swim, when you
can train, and you know, some families are losing jobs and that's really
scary. So you know what I tell them all the time, focus on
what you can control and let go of the uncontrollables. Just and do the
best you can every day and get a new routine, get new habits,
develop new good habits, you know, and connect with family and friends.
And that's really something that I've done a lot with all these Zoom meetings.
Is you know, I yesterday I connected with a group of alumni you know,
when was some Hong Kong was in Denmark, m you know, all
over and it was awesome. And I never would have done that if it
hadn't been everyone's sitting around not doing anything. So um, you know,
just really invest in yourself, learn more about yourself, and and invest in
others to make when you do come back, you can you can know your
teammates better, and the coaches get to do that too, they could too,
you know the kids better. You never spend this much time talking on
the phone or you're always like coaches, you're always like making up the practice
and recruiting, and so this is really a good time to get to know
your team better. And also what's really important is to recover, you know,
sleep for coaches and for athletes, they never get enough of that.
So yeah, I mean it's the first time you don't have to get at
five o'clock in the morning, you know and jump in the pool, but
you know, get your habits going and learn something. There's so many things
to learn from all these master classes and all these podcasts you can listen to
and you can improve yourself and you know, do something that you don't normally
do, maybe yoga or meditation and get a new skill, right. And
I think that's interesting too because you had touched on how the sports evolved more
the out of the water side of you know, the sport, the yoga,
the polate is the weight training, which a lot of these athletes you're
seeing videos of them getting after it on land. So I think right now
they could really take this time to improve their dry land activities. Let it
be in your house or in your front yard or wherever your safestone is,
you know, And I think for us Sinney and I have been looking at
our DC Trident athletes and seeing them putting in the work outside the pool.
I mean, that's motive that motivates me. And I'm not even training,
So I think it's a perfect opportunity, like you said, to work on
yourself. But then you know there are still some activities to enhance. What
is you know, lacking what you think in the water, but you may
be doing so much more on land, right and you're never going to have
this opportunity again to do nothing. You can't do anything. You're staying at
home at least, you know, you're in California, and so it's you'll
never have this again. So you have to kind of turn it around in
your head like, Okay, this is never again. You never have enough
time to do everything you want to do, and here's your time. So
um, you know, just really focus on what you can what you can
control, and for you know leaders out there, you know, captains or
people that want to help the team get better, you know, doing the
I love looking at all those dryl end things that people are doing. Yeah,
it doesn't inspire you, you know, and and that's how you can
inspire yourself. And inspire your teammates and help everyone around you get better.
Excellent. Yeah, I totally agree. So yeah, I feel like some
priceless kind of little nuggets of knowledge would be for our student athletes in high
school listening right now, What is it that college coaches look for when they're
recruiting to bring into, you know, their next class, Like, what
is it, as had head coach, what were some attributes that were really
important to you when you were recruiting for your UCLA? Well, you have
to be a great student and it has to be important to you because you
know, if you have to focus on the most important thing, which is
school, that's what you're going to school for. And you don't want to
not focus on it because then you're gonna be worried about it when you're swimming.
So that for sure, school and you know, having a joy of
swimming and competing and you know, really loving the sport and loving the challenges
sport. I think that's really important because it's a grind and for four years
it could be a grind, and you have to know within yourself like,
Okay, this is hard right now, but I know it's going to make
me better, So I look for people that not necessarily you know, I
would have loved to have you on our UCLA at seventeen, right, you
know, I look for kids that still have a lot of potential and have
a lot of love for the sport, and that are leaders that are positive
and and really embrace what are they going to bring to our team? Are
they gonna you know, bring positivity and enthusiasm and leadership. I think that's
really important. And um, just uh, showing who you are when you
to the coaches is really important. And that's why these you know, when
you're recruiting. Now you can do these zoom calls recruiting and really show off
yourself and look people in the eye and look coaches in the eye and and
um, you know, be grateful for the opportunity that these coaches are taking
their time to talk with you. And also you know, look to see
if it fits with you. You know, if you've been a big fish
in a small pond and you're going to go to UCLA or stan Stanford or
USC you know, are you gonna get lost? Is that what you want?
Or do you want to you know, continue to be You have to
figure out what you want because you know, everyone wants to go to Stanford,
for instance, not everyone can go to Stanford. There's only twenty athletes
there. So you have to fit figure out where you're gonna fit and where
you're going to contribute, and how you're going to how it's gonna be best
for you as well, and how you can contribute to the team, because
you know, you can't have four hundred people on your team, although it
seemed like sometimes I had four hundred on my team, but you know,
I just I really felt like, you know, I was. I was
really excited on the kids that that loved swimming and that love to compete,
and um, I got excited when they made junior nationals for the first time
or you know that that really fired me up. Is they just they were
so like I had a kid when I first started summing. We'd be in
practice and she said, I just did my best time and work out,
and like she got everyone fired up. And just just having that love for
competing and being driven. Um, that's important. I really enjoy hearing that.
It's really refreshing, and you touched on it. You know, you're
looking for athletes that are good leaders. As a head coach, what do
you what do you expect out of your leaders? What do you think makes
a good leader? Well, being authentic, and that's when you're authentic.
You have to know yourself, and that's really hard. I mean you're always
changing too, you know, all through your life, and so that's something
that you always have to try to work on, knowing yourself. But just
being positive, being joyful, being compassionate, that's something really important. Empathetic
and compassionate, putting yourself in other shoes, you know, And we did
a lot of that by getting to know your teammates. If you don't know
your teammates story, it's hard. You can judge them quickly, and you
don't want to judge them. You want to know their story. And when
you know their story, you have to listen. You can't talk. And
so being a good listener, being a good communicator, being resilient. But
you know, you know, one of our things is you know, make
others around you better. And I really felt like our yeah, and our
team at DC tried and really did that. They which was awesome. They
just embraced that and they would jump up and do anything to make the team
score points. And uh, you know that's the kind of attitude that you
have to have and those are those are the great leaders, and there can
be more than one leader. Just because you're a freshman doesn't mean you can't
be a leader. You know, you kind of don't know what's going on
as a freshman, but you still can be open to suggestions and be positive
and figure out how you're going to make it better and find solutions for sure,
find solutions and not complain. You know, no energy Vampire says John
Gordon, has a great book, The Energy Bus. And you know you
have to always kind of put yourself in check and coaches too, because you
know you can kind of get thrown down. You know, you have ten
people complaining and all of a sudden you go crazy on the whole team,
and you know you're set yourself sometimes like right, gosh, right, I
know I heard a really great advice. I can't remember who it was from
because I listened a lot of podcasts and talk to a lot of people,
but they said, when you walk out of practice, ask yourself what I
have wanted to be coached by me today? Oh yeah, that, like
there was a lot of that was There's a lot of times when I walk
out, I'm like, oh god, I sucked. I just you know,
I mean, you know, so you want to get better and you
always want to get better, but you know, you're human. You have
to give yourself that um grace to say, Okay, I can do better
tomorrow. You know that's not my best self. Um, but uh yeah,
definitely having you know, coaches or humans and we have to continue to
get better and be better and lead our teams and we're not always going to
be great, but um, you know, kind of accepting that and just
trying to come out every day and be the best thing you can be.
Absolutely. Wow, that was That was really special. Thank you for sharing
that. I literally got the goose bumps. That was so raw And I've
never really thought of that flip side, you know, really asking yourself that
question. What drew you to coaching in the first place? What made you
gravitate towards that profession. Uh? Well, I loved the sport, you
know, I loved tell I know, I totally love it, and I
love competing and I loved racing. I always have. You know, I
just was super competitive as as a kid, and um then you know,
you'd you'd watch people improve even when you're swimming, and it was like a
drug. It was like, oh my god, that's so awesome. They
just improved and you know, you can never let go of that, at
least with me. I just I just really loved watching people improve and um
get better and become confident, and uh, you know, just it was
an easy uh for me. It was easy just to kind of go into
being an assistant at UCLA because I still really loved the team and I was
through with my eligibility, but I still had some more school to do,
and so it was just easy and fun and I loved, you know,
people, and it was really the relationships, um that kind of drew me
in. And you know, I always thought I was going to be a
teacher, and coaching is teaching, so it just wasn't It was a natural,
a natural transition for me. So, yeah, did you face many
challenges being in a profession that is predominantly occupied by men? I mean you
don't really hear of all too many female head coaches and let alone in this
board of swimming. Well, and when I started, there was you know,
a handful female coaches. But luckily, you know, I was kind
of naive, you know, I got the job when I was twenty eight.
I had a one year old, and I know, and I had
been an assistant, and I'd been out for a season because I just,
you know, I couldn't really as an assistant. I couldn't really. I
wasn't getting paid very much. So I had for my daughter in a daycare,
and I wasn't getting paid very much. So it was like I was
paying to be an assistant coach and that didn't really make sense. And so
I took a season off and then the head coach, my mentor, one
of my mentors left, and the woman athletic director at that time, Judy
Holland, offered me the job. And I was like, are you kidding?
Are you crazy? You know, but I had some powerful people in
my life, my parents some of my summers just say, you know,
go for it. This is UCLA, Like this opportunity is not going to
come again. So I just kind of jumped in, and you don't know
what you don't know. So I just kind of jumped in and I thought,
well, I'm just going to go for it. And I really like
when we were great that year, and I just it was I was so
naive and raw and knew, but you know, we did great, and
I just kind of I didn't really you know, a lot of the male
coaches didn't talk to me because I didn't have relationships with them to begin with
because I was so young and I was an assistant, so it didn't bother
me. I just kind of did my thing, and I never really you
know, people will say, well, what does it like to be a
female coach. I'm like, well, I've never been a male coach,
so I don't really know. Yeah, so you know, I just I
was a coach and that was it, and so I never really looked at
it. I never looked at it as a barrier. I wish there was
more female coaches. And I have had some kids on my that I coached
that are now coaches, which is pretty cool. One of them, Kate,
was Rachel, who swam for me and then she coached with us on
DC Trident, which was awesome, So that was kind of fun. So
what advice would you give women who are considering or that want to get into
coaching, because I do feel like the jobs tend to go to the males,
and we've seen that. I mean, we've talked about this before,
So what what advice would you give? Well, yeah, I mean there's
male athletic directors hiring male coaches, and male coaches are hiring male assistants because
they're going to hire who they're comfortable with and they know more males and females.
And I mean I would tell any coach. I don't think I would
necessarily tell a woman something different than I would tell a mail. So I
would tell any new coach. Um, UM, let's see what would I
tell them? I know, Um, you know, first of all,
I think it's important to know your definitive definition of success. Uh. That
is really important because, um, your definition of success has to coincide with
wherever you're working. Um, and you know mine was easy. I coached
UCLA, so I had UM coach John Wooden's definition of success is that's what
I You know, success comes from knowing you are your best, do your
best to become the best you are capable of becoming. And um, you
know I always wanted to win, but that wasn't really you know, you
just do your best, and UM, my advice would be to know you
know, know your what your definition of successes, and then know your values
and share your values and bring them every day to you your team. So,
um, you know you as a coach, as a teacher, you're
a developer of people. You know, that's what you are. It's something
is sometimes you know, that's what we're hired for, but I felt like
something was kind of at the backside. It was really a developer of people.
Your job is to help them grow and empower them and also do it
with love. And so that's just you know, know your value is no
your definition of success. Understand that you're a developer of people. And one
thing also that I learned from Sue Anquist, she was a coach at UCLA
and she learned this from coach Wooden is you can't only love the kids on
good days. You must be with them when it gets tough. And I
just was like, oh God, of course, you know. Everyone loves
the winners, you know, and you're feeling good, you know, And
I tell this someone is the same thing with a sport. You can't just
love it when you win and when you feel good, and you have to
love the sport when it's tough and know that you're going to get through it
and find a way to grow and become better. And that's actually with anything,
you know, you can't just in relationships. You know, Oh it's
awesome on honeymoon stage, and then it gets tough. You're like bailing.
You know, you have to figure out how to get through it and how
to grow and become better. So that I was really moving and motivational.
I love it. I'm like, I want to coach. Why is where's
the Cindy Gallagher? I just absolutely love it. This one might be a
hard one for you, but I'm so curious to know. Do you have
the proudest moment in your coaching career. Ah, it might be. I
would imagine that it'd be tough. Yeah, you know you always think,
oh, it's the kid that made your first to love the team, or
when you won pack twelves or pack tens back there or whatever. But but
really what I think what it was when I was thinking about this, it
was and it always was. When I retired, I got so many letters.
I got overwhelmed by kid. I'm coaching for a lot of year year
and I got so many letters from coaches and from athletes that they coached and
you know telling me, you know, this is the lesson I learned from
you or this is what you taught me, And that is really what the
product moment I ever was. And whenever alumni would come back, and they'd
always come back to the deck, which was so fun to have them come
back. I'd always get the team out and they would say I say,
I'd say, okay, give them your words of wisdom, you know,
after leaving a sport for one year or five years, or twenty years or
thirty years. And you know, a couple of times I was nervous because
these kids sometimes you know, we didn't see eye to eye, you know,
and I think, oh god, what they can say. But I
was always really surprised that well not really surprised, but it was just awesome
to hear that they had learned. You know, I tried to emulate what
coach wouldn't taught and you know, they learned those lessons and so for me
to hear what they learned, and that really made me feel good. You
know, I believed in them more than they believed in them. That's that's
what your job is, you know, to believe in them and then try
to get them to see that, to see their potential. And uh,
you know, M empower them and inspire them. So I think that's probably
my best, my my definitely, my um proudest moment is knowing that I
did AFFECTU positively a lot of a lot of athletes. I'm just like sitting
here smiling just because I've gotten to know you so much over the last you
know, year, and it's like this, this is so you, and
you're so positive and you bring so much positivity to this sport. And what
I love about you, which I think we're pretty similar, is that we
know there's mortal life and swimming, so we're all about the relationships and you
know, creating good human beings. And it's just so refreshing to hear because
you know, I feel like a lot of times when you're a successful coach,
it's about when you're winning into hard work and putting into cycles and et
cetera, et cetera. But what I've keep picking up on a common theme
throughout our podcast today is that you always go back to the human being.
It's not really back to the swimmer. And that's what it's just so like
I said, refreshing and moving, especially in today's state, you know,
it's you know, there is going to be life after swimming, and a
lot of people they're swimming is on hold right now and they're so used to
that identity. But now's the time to really work on what is life after
swimming? So thank you for sharing those tidbits. I would like to conclude
today since the title of this podcast is behind the blocks, so for yours
is gonna be twofold? So did you have any superstitions or rituals that you
did behind the blocks as a swimmer? And then put yourself like, Okay,
you're at Olympic Trials and your star swimmers behind the blocks. How is
Cindy the coach reacting as their swimmers about to go off the block? So
yours is twofold? As a swimmer, what were you like behind the blocks?
And as a coach, what do you like as your swimmers about to
get on for a big race. Oh my gosh, I have not swammer
so long. Come on, you remember the feeling? I think? You
know. I can remember times when I was crying behind the blocks that I
had to do a sixteen fifty, you know, and I knew how much
pain it was going to be and I wasn't prepared. But you know,
when you're your best, you're in the zone and you're not. Your mind
is quiet and you're just in the zone and you have no thought. I
mean, the only thought is what you're doing now. You're so present.
And we talked a lot about that, trying to get behind the block and
having a ritual like looking up at your parents and waving like or looking up
at the for me, looking up with the American flag and being grateful that
I live in America. That's what I would do as a athlete, and
I still continue to do that as a coach. When we would you know,
you always do the star spangled banner, I'd sit there and I'd you
know, that was my time to just like deep breath and just be grateful
for the opportunity and to be at UCLA and to be competing, and so
many people would love that opportunity. And you know, I before I would
go out to some meats before as a coach, you know, when there's
some big, intense some meats, I would like, uh, turn up.
I loved Bruce Springstein, so I would turn the music up in my
office like full blast. This is like before I put headphones on, and
I just would like that kind of got me in the zone. I love
loud music and I love Bruce Springstein, and so I would do that.
I would just kind of fire me up as a coach, you know,
to have that energy. And then you know, then the star spangled banner
comes and I try to kind of bring it down. Um, but uh,
yeah, that would inspire me. And and you know, um kids,
different kids like different things. So you know Kim VanderBurg when a US
Olympian and bronze fentalist, she was on your Olympic team. Um she um.
She always had the same thing. She'd always would come up to me
and asked me how do I swim the tune or fly? And she'd been
doing that since she was like eight years old. And I don't even know
what I said, but I always did the same thing with her. You
know, work on your turns, you know, do five dolphin kicks,
you know, put your head down. Whatever it was. It was just
the routine for her, and that's what she did and that's what made her
confident. And then you know, but knowing that as a coach, what
they like. I went up to one kid before she swam over eight hundred
and I went up to her, I just to give her high five behind
the box because there was a little bit of a time something was going on,
so we had a little bit of a break or trying to move out
a touch pad or something, and and I'm like, I freaked her out.
And she come up came up to me afterwards and said, Okay,
don't ever come and touch me or talk to me before I swim, you
know. And I'm like, oh my god, I wish i'd known that,
you know. So I was like, you have to kind of know
what each kid likes. But I do try when they walk out. On
the walkout, I try to see, you know, who's ready, who's
ready to go, and I try to predict, like I can see if
you have, you know, deer in headlights, or if you're like to
trying to force being loose, or if you're just in the zone and present
president. It's kind of fun to see. I love watching people behind the
blocks. That's you know, that's just super exciting for me because I know
when they're going to kill it and if I know them and I know when
they're you know, just a little bit scared spoken like a true veteran right
there, you can pick them out. That's right. I try and I
love it. Cindy, thank you so much for sharing your you know,
words of wisdom, and you re just kind of reconnecting with the swimming world.
We're kind of in this little pause right now, as you said,
and it's been absolute blast getting to even know you more, even though I
feel like we've gotten to know each other so much. And I just want
to thank you for being my first guest on Behind the Blocks. Well,
thank you, Caitlin. Is my honor to be here, and I really
appreciate you asking me, and it's just been so much fun to get to
know you and to work with you because you know, we share the same
values and we want to have fun and we want to whatever we're doing,
we're gonna have fun doing it so and we're gonna be positive. Thank you
so much, Cindy, Thanks so much. I appreciate it. And that's
our show for this week. Thanks again to Cindy Gallagher for being my first
guest on Behind the Blocks. I'm so excited to have raining Anti te Women
Swimmer of the Year Beta Nelson as my next special guest. Thanks again to
our sponsors Highland Earache, drops. Please visit them on Highlight Highlands dot com,
slash Ear don't forget to follow and share on social media at Kaitland Sanda
note and with Sports, and you'll find the show notes to each episode on
with sports dot com. I'll be back in two weeks time, so until
then, thanks for listening and helping us turn up the volume on women's sports