“I owe him everything. He taught me…” – When Caeleb Dressel opened up about his former coach
US swimmer Caeleb Dressel became a household name with his triumph at the Tokyo Olympics. He bagged five gold medals in Japan and established himself as one of the best swimmers of the present generation.
However, it came as a shock to everyone when Dressel changed his coach, from Gregg Troy, who had been training him for seven years, to Anthony Nesty in November 2021. Troy had continued training professional swimmers like Ryan Lochte and Caeleb Dressel even after retiring from the University of Florida.
In an interview with Graham Bensinger for 'In Depth with Graham Bensinger' in April 2022, Dressel spoke about his equations with Troy.
"He's my dog. That's my boy. Coach is my boy and what a very interesting relationship from start to end."
He went on to reference the long years that the two had worked together in, from high school to the Olympics.
"Just the progression that we've made as swimmer and coach and as man to man, I look up to that guy so much. The amount of his time in life he has invested in myself, the potential he saw in myself, as all the way back from high school."
Dressel also pointed out a very important lesson that he had learned from Gregg Troy.
"I mean, I owe him everything he taught me. There's more to life in swimming and he also taught me how to wring out every bit of talent you have in swimming (and) in life. And just learning along the way like, cool, I can swim fast in a pool, [but] that doesn't matter at the end of the day."
He added that every learning he will receive from here on, he will "give credit" to coach Troy for it.
"What am I learning from the water, what am I applying to my life where I'm learning about myself and moving forward and I give credit to coach Troy on that one."
Why did Caeleb Dressel leave Gregg Troy?
Athlete and coach dynamics differ from person to person. While some athletes like Michael Phelps have stayed with one coach for the entire duration of their career, there are athletes like Katie Ledecky who have a pattern of making timely changes in their coaching programs.
There are no conclusive results on which is more effective since the needs of every athlete are unique.
It came as a shock to the world that Caeleb Dressel was moving on from Gregg Troy to Anthony Nesty for coaching. He explained that it was due to a burnout after the Tokyo Olympics. He needed the change to feel motivated again.
"The months after Tokyo, I was fried. I needed something different to be able to get back in the water and the mindset that I wanted to be able to look forward to something. So our group fizzled out a little bit like a lot of people retired from our group. So I needed to be around people again. I think one-on-one is a bad dynamic."
He called swimming "a pretty boring sport" and how the energy often shifts between the training group and the black line.
"Swimming's already a pretty boring sport, you're just looking at black line going back and forth. He draws energy from the group and they draw energy from him and so it's kind of a two-way street."
Caeleb Dressel further added that he also wants to give back and be a good mentor to young swimmers training with him.
"So coming back, I wanted to be able to give back. I want to be able to look at the freshman sophomore kid next to me and like 'Hey, try this or good job on that', like I genuinely feel like a coach, an in-water coach."
As Caeleb Dressel trains with Nesty for the Paris Olympics, he has some brilliant training partners in Bobby Finke and Katie Ledecky. The latter shifted bases from Stanford to Florida last year.