Swimming - Diligence everything for star coach

You somehow get the impression that Mike Lee takes his job seriously.
The Aquahawks Swimming Club coach is not too keen to divulge his age but when asked how long he has been coaching, a pensive Lee pauses momentarily before telling SportToday: "Nine years, 10 months, nine days and some hours ... put it this way, it'll be 10 years on August the first."
Surely having produced world short-and-long course record-holder Callum Joll, of Hawke's Bay, should be testimony to any coach's ability to impart knowledge on flip turns and flutter kicks.
No. For the meticulous Lee, of Napier, whose diligence is always dependent on how sharp his tools are, good luck has little to do with it.
"Even if I have a world record holder my swimmers won't ever be good enough," says the Rotorua-born man, who collected his second consecutive national provincial coach of the year at the national Swim Coaches and Teachers (Scat) awards in Wellington a fortnight ago.
"I'm never satisfied with my own performance and always want them to be better. For them to do that I need to coach better."
Okay, so how does having back-to-back accolades grab his fancy? Quite well, it seems.
"Two years in a row means the first time wasn't a fluke and I'm doing something right. I'm doing the best job in all provincial areas of New Zealand."
That probably explains why he has been media shy for the past few years.
It's a befitting accolade for a man who wakes daily well before the crack of dawn to ply his trade. It helps that he lives a stone's throw away from the Onekawa Aquatic Centre pools where Aquahawks is based.
His mental pool of resources has no boundaries. He belongs to a network of several swim coaches (two Australians and an Asian, an American and a Briton) who religiously exchange trade skills and test them under intense brainstorming sessions via email for the benefit of their students.
"It took me 18 years to develop those contacts."
Wife Robynne is also a self-employed coach, operating from an 8m x 3m heated and covered pool in the backyard of their home. The sounds of children from as young as 3 squealing in delight during the interview attests to the Lee family's dexterity.
Their only daughter, Anna, 20, indubitably is a swimmer, having competed at national age-group level.
Lee regrets putting his family through a "weird lifestyle".
"When Anna was at school I was at work. When she finished school I was at work so she became a swimmer to spend time with me."
Understating his prowess as an athlete, Lee reveals representing New Zealand as an a 200m individual medley swimmer in the mid-1970s during a tour through the United States, cramming in six races in three weeks.
"I got better all the time in my PBs," he says. The then Government's decision to boycott the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, among other things, killed his motivation to carry on as a competitor.
A physical education graduate from Waikato University, Lee didn't have the desire either to grace classrooms.
"They decided that beating kids with care wasn't a good idea.
"I know how obnoxious children can be, going from one extreme to another.
"I don't want to say there should be a compromise because I certainly don't when I'm coaching."
Instead his big OE beckoned - but Lee didn't want to swim with the current to Britain. Instead he skirted the Pacific Ocean, working as a lifeguard, learn-to-swim teacher and pool-plant operator before returning home in the mid-1980s.
Selling tyres over the counter in Rotorua wasn't exactly his idea of an enjoyable job so, thanks to his contacts and word of mouth, he took up swim coaching as a volunteer.
"By coaching I don't get wet, you see," says Lee whose professional apprenticeship took root in Thames, although he couldn't picture a career then.
He was aware the halcyon days of compulsory swimming at schools and free bus rides to pools was on the decline.
So he picked up the children on the fringes and as his reputation grew he coached in Taupo for five years and Waipukurau for 18 months as well before moving to Napier.
In his day a dozen fulltime coaches lived off their earnings in the country but now he believes about 25 of them do.
Moving to Aquahawks was a godsend because he didn't have to carry the burden of pool management, as he did in Thames and Waipukurau, instead channelling all his energy into coaching.
It wasn't easy considering there was no career pathway when he started. A swim-coach course was non-existent.
The most rewarding aspect of his career is watching children metamorphose into "well-rounded" adults.
"Coaching is not about me - of course, I do know how to - it's all about swimmers and seeing them achieve," he says.
It puzzles him why Englishman Chris Mellors, of Trojans Swim Club in Clive, uses him as a mentor but acknowledges by helping others he's also broadening his horizon.
Retired coach Pic Parkhouse, of Tauranga, was pivotal in helping him and so was the late Duncan Laing, coach of two-time Olympic gold medallist Danyon Loader.
"Duncan never answered a question but provided enough information so you were able to work out answers for yourself," he says of Laing, who preferred phone calls to emails.
During national meetings, Lee was the "pesty guy" asking him all sorts of questions - "A question from day one grew as the week went on".
Robynne, a trained hairdresser, started coaching only when they moved to Taupo. She worked for Bev Mitchell, of Napier, before going out on her own.
Wife aside, it has worked for Lee as an Aquahawk employee although financial constraints have upset the rhythm.
"Clubs don't charge enough fees to cover pool hire and to pay staff wages. If they did then there won't be enough swimmers," he says of the club that boasts 250 members of which 100 train two to nine times a week.
No doubt the key to his success has been a supportive committee and a fertile club programme.
Boys and girls are different species: Girls prefer personal interaction and boys don't.
"Girls standing beside a pool think you're talking to each of them and they tend to take things personally but boys think you are always talking to the guy next to them."
It is difficult to retain top swimmers here and he believes Joll is rarity in returning to live and work in the Bay considering a lion's share of funding is invested in Auckland.
He probably could have found a job that paid more but he still doesn't know what it is.
"I don't buy Lotto tickets and I should."
He is forever thankful to his mother, Ngaire Lee, who is sports co-ordinator at Rotorua Girls' High School and who has been a life member of basketball association in the region.
His late father, Roy, was a dairy owner who played and refereed rugby.
His sister, Tanya Lee, is a schoolteacher in Vietnam and is looking forward to her second consecutive Ironman Hawaii stint in the age-group world championship this year.
Older brother Kevin coaches age-group Bay of Plenty representative rugby.
Lee is eternally grateful for having parents who let them play in a nearby park in Rotorua with more than a dozen other boys and girls from the neighbourhood.
"We played rugby, soccer, softball and cricket and came home only when it became too dark to see the ball. We'd say we'll finish the game tomorrow."
In that vein, Lee's still playing the game of life, albeit in the pool and hundreds of kilometres away from his birthplace.