University of North Carolina Athletics
THB Q&A: Swimming Coach Frank Comfort
September 4, 2001 | Swimming & Diving
Sept. 4, 2001
UNC Swimming coach Frank Comfort recently sat down to answer some questions with TarHeelBlue.com. Here's what he had to say:
THB: You had 30 swimmers on the Dean's List for the Spring Semester of 2001, 43 named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll, and the College Swimming Coaches' Association of America (CSCAA) named both the men's and women's squads to its All Academic Team for this past season. Lots of coaches pay lip service to academic achievement, how do you achieve these kinds of results?
Frank Comfort: "Well first, nobody's going into pro swimming, [academics] is what you come to university for, and they were all accepted academically, so I know they can do the work. Further, there are high expectations, it's just institutionalized in our program that you do well academically and, to some extent, it keeps getting better and better."
THB: Do you have specific procedures and staff to monitor academic performance?
Comfort: "You'd be surprised how little we need to. It's an expectation, and that is expressed beginning in the recruiting process. I have the attitude that my kids ought to do well academically, and they know that. The department provides them with superb resources, and there's really no reason not to do well."
THB: The ancient Greeks had an ideal, "a sound mind in a sound body." Do you think participation in athletics can enhance a student's academic performance?
Comfort: Absolutely, utterly, and completely. I constantly hear [from my athletes], 'I do much better in the season than I do out of season, because I have to be disciplined and organized, and I can't waste my time.' I think of myself as a teacher, and I just have twenty hours per week to teach my class, where a chemistry professor might have only three. Everything is set up as if this is a class. Athletics gives a certain amount of discipline--I know this sounds 1950-ish--that the average student doesn't get in any other portion of their academic experience."
THB: Conversely, is there any correlation between classroom success and success in the pool?
Comfort: "To a great extent there is. For example, the CSCAA created in the middle '90s the Academic All-America Team, which I always say is the hardest All-America team to make. You have to have at least a 3.60 GPA and qualify for the NCAAs. Keep in mind that out of every sixteen division one swimmers, one will make the NCAAs. And we had three of our best swimmers earn that honor, Katie Hathaway, Jessi Perruquet, and Stephen Mohr."
THB: Graduation rates are often cited as one of the most tangible aspects of an athletic program's academic success. Talk about the swim team's achievements in this area.
Comfort: "In the last eleven years, we've had 136 four-year swimmers, and 135 of them graduated."
THB: You recently endowed a scholarship in the School of Education. What led you to do this?
Comfort: "It was something I really wanted to do. We're all involved in education, and I happen to have my master's degree in education from Carolina. And also I chose the School of Education because the business of the university is to educate, and if you're not interested in doing that, then what the heck are you doing here in the first place?"
