Where we are, it's pretty standard for kids who are already involved in the pool to be coming up. Swimming is pretty big in Quebec. We get a lot of kids who come through the swimming program, either in the summer or the winter. Usually those kids will end up becoming lifeguards, and it's always the lifeguards who have to coach as well in the summer. These are not separate jobs; you're coaching during the morning and you're lifeguarding during the afternoon.
So it's always the lifeguards coming up, but most of the lifeguards are either former swimmers—synchronized swimmers, or water polo players, or whatever it might be. We're really lucky in Quebec that we have the outdoor pool program. It really helps develop not only the athletes but also the coaches.
As to having something at the university level, I don't know whether I agree or disagree with it. I think one thing that's lacking in development of coaches is a program itself. In the NCCP program, at level 1 or level 2, before you hit level 3—people may agree with me or not—you don't really start to learn much; at levels 1 and 2 it's really just paperwork. You're in a classroom setting for maybe a weekend, and then you may have some hands-on for a weekend.
There's really not much being learned at the NCCP formal coaching certification clinics, in my opinion. The most I've ever learned as a coach is when shadowing with more experienced coaches for entire seasons. It's there that I think all the learning really takes place.
It's harder to retain coaches, I think mainly for financial reasons. Retaining coaches is really hard: there's not much pool time available for any club; every club has so many programs, they're all fighting for the same pool time. If you end up coaching 10 or 11 or 12 hours a week, even if your hourly wage is great you're still not going to be making enough to continue with it for a long time.
Speaking for myself, as I said, I am a career coach, but I have to coach four or five workouts a day just to be able to coach for a living.
I think a university program would be great, but I don't know how many people would follow it to completion, knowing that even if they go through a university program, the same world of coaching is waiting for them when they're finished. There's still going to be that financial problem there.