Seton Hall University

"Head line says it all.. if you’re looking to go to seton hall for swimming, don’t. If you see Derek’s number pop up on your phone it’s best not to answer. You could get so much more from another school.. the best part about the team is just that, the team. We really hold ourselves together but there is still so much divide and it’s easy to see. You have the swimmers who work hard and keep there heads down and eat s**t from him, and then have the ones who just complain to him until they get what they want, but then it just hurts the rest of the team… Training is mid at best. I have friends at other school who improved so much in one year and I barely improved my PRs from HS this season. Felt like I trained harder in HS than here… Training sessions are repetitive, felt like I’ve been doing the same practice over and over again a every week… The one thing I will say that’s positive about him is that he is accessible but seldom listens to what you have to say unless you complain over and over and over again. Then he just folds and is whiny about it to everyone behind your back.. He has a lot to learn to be a good HC.. Not sure how he’s made it this far."

"No softball IQ. Simply loses games with a talented team by horrible coaching. No organization. Does not value players as a human unless they perform well on field. "

"Derek is a good guy with a nice family who overall does care for his athletes. He is understanding about athlete's mental health, flexible when it comes to class schedules, and supportive of professional development. Many people on the team are active members of the campus community because unlike at many other places, Derek allows you to be a full-time athlete, student, and person. With that being said, Derek is not a good coach and often a difficult person to work with. While I got along with Derek, I know others who continuously clashed with him. He is scattered in everything from the way he writes practices, to his inability to get an itinerary out on time, to his communication. He is not a detail-oriented coach, and once he identifies something wrong with your stroke, he repeats it for many years. He rarely comes up with an original idea for practice, and week after week, the team finds themselves doing the same things, on the same intervals, on the same day. Derek does not recruit intelligently, and the quality and number of recruits has decreased significantly since I joined in 2019. Recruiting is unbalanced, resulting in huge sprint and stroke groups (leading to frustratingly crowded practices) while IM and distance swimmers often have lanes completely to themselves. Worst of all, Derek treats full-time coaching like a part-time job. He struggles with childcare more than you can imagine. He routinely misses practices for personal issues, and has little to no availability during school hours. Swimmers are expected to work around their busy schedules to accommodate his limited availability- trying to schedule a meeting with him is impossible, and half the time he ends up cancelling it anyways. It is too bad that Derek is the head coach of this team, because the school is a great place filled with great people and supportive teammates. Admin allows these issue to persist, in part because the team practices at times when no one else is in the rec (and thus issues are not recognized), but also because they just don't care. Swimming is clearly a low-revenue sport not worth their time or effort, no matter the show of support they put on. "

"I had a great 4 years in a swimming sense. I improved, had okay years, and had bad years. It is part of the sport. but I genuinely believe I could have done better with a different head coach. For example, I had made a mistake senior year. A mistake that could have been moved on from quickly if Derek had the mental and emotional capacity to forgive someone of their mistakes. Instead I was met with rudeness, death stares when I walked past derek (I had a friend notice and inform me). I would ask a simple question, and he would yell the response back to me. There is no room for learning from your mistakes, you must be perfect at all times. Along with this, the lack of transparency is worrying. Itineraries are sent a day or two before a travel trip, if you question what is being done it is usually met with "because I said so" or "Because this is the right way", and worst of all, if there are any swimmer suggestions, they are met as though it is an insult. In any sport, once an athlete cannot communicate openly with a coach, the relationship is pointless. Looking at the results also, it seems like administration does not care for this program. It is sad to see a coach destroying a program with an administration that doesn't care. He will try to clean up his act from not showing up this year, but will return to his normal immature behavior come the fall. He did not show up to practices this year due to child care responsibilities that should have been taken care of out of work. It is not clear how much administration knows about this. This is all before the lack of swim knowledge and recruiting he does, which can speak for itself when you look at results."

"I think it just goes to show that after this year at Big East Champs, it should be his last as HC. Consistent decline in points scored over the last 3-4 years. Not many individual or relay champions… Childish behavior and definite anger issues… leaves practices early or doesn’t show and tells us it’s an emergency with his kid. Idk what kind of upper management would allow a highly paid coach to just come and go as he pleases. The point of you being paid is to coach and impart knowledge, but tbh I don’t want his knowledge… Team holds themselves together. Good team culture despite."