Coach Brian Luke has been in charge of the Ponies swimming and diving teams for 50 years, leaving behind a long legacy. His passion for the sport, combined with his commitment to learning his athletes has brought the Ponies to hundreds of wins throughout his career. He is a Hall of Fame coach for mentoring the girls team to win 11 championships and the boys team with multiple individual state champions.
“He thinks of every aspect of the meet and who can score where, what the best order might be for the team and for individual contenders,” assistant coach Torie Buberl said.
His coaching style gives the athletes the opportunity to show their best effort while getting just enough points to secure a win over the entire meet. Junior varsity swimmers and divers are encouraged to experiment so they can find their spot in the competition and develop skills in every stroke. This also helps find any diamonds in the rough since at the high school age, bodies are changing and muscles are improving in different ways.
No matter if someone swims JV or varsity or a 50 yd freestyle to a 200 yd individual medley, coach Luke expects all of his contenders to push themselves as far as they can. Even if they are always going to come in third place for a race, he expects nothing but their absolute most potential.
“He pushes you more than you think you can push yourself, but that’s good for everyone because we’re very privileged and we don’t usually push ourselves as much as we can… it’s good for everyone,” freshman Josh Severson explained.
Creating disciplined athletes makes the team stronger by having them not give up when a race comes down to being neck and neck. From one athlete being motivated to do their best, their goal spreads to other swimmers and divers. There are no excuses or days off for the teams. Everyone wants to put in their best work not only for themselves, but for the team and the overall standing and reputation. While the discipline may sound harsh to some with six days a week of two and a half hour practices of drills, it is necessary for the swimmers a divers to get comfortable with their feel for the technique. The repetition built goes a long way come race time. Of course not every race or dive is going to go as planned as some of the best contenders do not have everything come together for the meet. The demoralizing aftermath can destroy athletes motivation and purpose.
“Coach Luke tells athletes to stop underselling themselves and to just go out and perform,” junior Noah Vu explained.
A win is always the end goal but the final outcome is something athletes have to look past. Roadblocks are always going to come up and coach Luke has seen all kinds of them in his career. He expects his swimmers and divers to move on and learn from their mistakes so they can grow into better sportsmen and better people.
“They are an athlete, so treat them as such and they will respond as such,” coach Luke said.
Coach Luke has the primary focus of teaching swimmers and divers as athletes. They are also learning all kinds of other life skills along the way, such as self discipline and staying on top of things. Overall, coach Luke and his coaching philosophy have created 100 teams of hard working individuals who do the most for their team.
