Chat With Mark Taylor And Jane Figueiredo

Welcome to the UHCougars.com moderated chat room. On Wednesday, January 29, UH swimming and diving coaches Mark Taylor and Jane Figueiredo will drop by to chat about the 2002-03 season.

Taylor is in the middle of his first season with the Cougar program. Armed with a wealth of international experience, he has guided the Cougars to NCAA dual meet wins over North Texas, Louisiana-Monroe and New Mexico State this season. In addition, he has guided freshman Stacey Williams to a pair of Conference USA Swimmer of the Week honors during her first collegiate season.

Before coming to UH, Taylor served as head coach of Swim Team Odense 95 in Denmark. In that role, he supervised a program with more than 3,000 athletes, including several world-ranked swimmers.

He joined the collegiate coaching ranks as an assistant coach at Arizona State from 1994 to 1998. During his stay in Tempe, Taylor helped lead the Sun Devils to consecutive Top-20 finishes at the NCAA Championships.

Figueiredo is now in her 13th season as the diving coach at the University of Houston with an award-winning resume that has established her as one of the nation's finest diving coaches.

During her illustrious career, she has guided a Cougar diver to the NCAA Championships 12 times with current diver Yulia Pakhalina winning back-to-back NCAA national titles on the 3-meter springboard.

Following Pakhalina's sweep of the 1-meter and 3-meter boards at the 2001 NCAA Championships, Figueiredo was named the NCAA Diving Coach of the Year. In 2002, she was recognized as the Conference USA Diving Coach of the Year, joining her awards as the 1998 and 2001 National Independent Conference Diving Coach of the Year.

She also has served as diving coach for two countries at the Olympic Games, leading Russia in 2000 at Sydney and guiding Great Britain in 1996 at Atlanta.

Coach Figueiredo and Coach Taylor won't be stopping by until 11:30 a.m. CT on Wednesday, but you can submit your questions now and we'll save them for their arrival.

Click here for more on Cougar swimming and diving!

Moderator: Good morning everyone, Thank you for joining us today. We are fortunate to have UH swimming head coach Mark Taylor with us and Coach Taylor is ready to answer your questions. Some of you have already submitted questions so we will get to those first. But please feel free to ask as we go along. Thanks again and let's get started.

P. Hat: I have been following the teams progress throughout the season and I have seen a lot of recent improvments by all of the swimmers. How do you think your team will place at conference? Good luck with the rest of the season.

Mark Taylor: Thank you for your interest and for following the Lady Cougar swimmers. We are small in numbers t his year but the numbers are working very hard. We have set our goal all year long of peaking for the Conference USA Championships, and even though we have several good teams in the conference, we are hoping for a top three finish.

Grapevine: What are your short term goals for this team? Are you a sprinter, middle or long distance oriented coach? Why should a swimmer select Houston given its track record in swimming? How is your 2003 signee list looking?

Mark Taylor: Our short term goals for this team is to improve the ladies that we already have involved in the program and improve our recruiting class for next year. As a competitive swimmer, I swam middle to long distance events. As a coach, I have had success at the world level with swimmers from 50 to 1,500 meters. We coach the swimmers toward their strengths, not as one group. We actually break down the group we have into individual groups and work toward the need of each student-athlete. By doing that, each swimmer will have the opportunity to reach their own potential and contribute to the overall success of the team. Our recent track record is not as good as the history of the sport at this school. We hope to return Houston to being a Top 10 team in the country and NCAA. The reason a swimmer should choose Houston is because of the outstanding academic environment as well as great athletic opportunities. We are at a turning point with our team and with the caliber of women we are recruiting and the potential list of recruits for the 2003-04 season that we hope to have, Houston will make a huge stride forward in the near future. As a whole, we are looking at filling the spots. We have already signed a distance swimmer who covers that need for us and are currently recruiting some of the top prospects in the sprints, several of whom are Texas natives.

Grapevine: How would you depict your coaching style (swimming)? What distinguishes you from the Rice, TCU or A&M coaches? References (sprint swimmers)?

Mark Taylor: I believe that I am technically as sound as any of the other coaches in the areas of stroke techniques. I have been told that I am a lot of fun to work with. I believe the way to get the best from your athletes is to have a happy athlete. We work hard at having fun on our team because we all believe that a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer. The women that are currently swimming for us say they have never had as much fun as they are now, and they are all returning to the levels when they were at their best or are achieving new bests.

Moderator: Are there any more questions or comments for UH head coach Mark Taylor?

Moderator: Coach, how is the Cougars' new swimming facility coming?

Mark Taylor: The new facility should be open any week now. It is one of the best facilities in the state and the nation. It will allow both our swimming and diving teams to work simultaneously. It allows us to use more sports science in our coaching, because of the different pool configurations that we can use as well as the large areas to perform tests on our athletes to find the way to get the best out of our athletes.

Moderator: This is the last call for questions for Coach Taylor.

Moderator: That's all the time we have today. Thanks to UH coach Mark Taylor for joining us today. And as always, thank you for joining us in our chat. Without you, this chat would not be possible. Just a reminder, that the Cougar swimming and diving program returns to action this weekend with a pair of dual meets. The Cougars face Rice at 7 p.m. Friday at the Rice Pool and meet Texas A&M at College Station at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. Thanks again for supporting UH Athletics, and have a great day.

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