He slept through classes and fought his way through afternoon workouts. "I spent the first six or seven weeks on campus grinding through workouts, learning about what these guys were doing, trying to get in shape." I couldn't even keep up with these guys in warmup," Kendricks said. And Kendricks battled through workouts with some of the best athletes in the country as best he could. Texas was one of the top programs in the country at the time. "Without thinking about the consequences I said, 'yes sir I'll do that.'" He had been around the pool but had not done any kind of real training. Looking back on a summer spent lifeguarding and doing other work to try to save up money for school and get through his senior year, he knew he wasn't ready to swim with the guys on the Texas roster. Why don't you try walking on?" Reese said. "Well you always had pretty good technique, pretty good skill. ![]() "When was the last time you were in the water training hard?" Reese said. He walked into Reese's office and was met with a question he never expected. He didn't know anyone in the program and didn't really know what to expect or what was going on. Kendricks arrived in Austin with the ambiguous instruction to look Coach Reese up. Reese responded by telling him that if he could get into school, he would find a place for Kendricks with the managerial staff and they would get him started with that. "I said I had been accepted at Texas and if he was willing to let me, I'd do anything he wanted me to do, but I'd like to start working with the program and learning what being a coach is all about." "I reached out to Eddie probably about the beginning of my senior year in high school and basically asked him for an opportunity," Kendricks said. He never put too much thought into swimming in college. Kendricks worked his way through high school hoping to get some academic scholarships and get back to Austin. They taught me some things and opened my eyes to the sport in a way that nobody here in Dallas has." "Eddie Reese and these people down there in Austin they're transformative. "I came home to my mom and I said, 'I think I know what I want to do, I think I'd like to coach,''' Kendricks said. Kendricks and about 20 other kids were part of the first two-week session of the Longhorn Swim Camp. As it turns out, that was coach Reese's first session of camp in Austin after his arrival from Auburn. A local coach told his mom he had some ability and she used that as a springboard to get him and his brother into swimming.Ĭollegiate swimming was not on Kendricks' radar until he won the opportunity to attend the University of Texas swim camp by raising the most money in his club team's swim-a-thon. Kendricks and his brother already spent a lot of time around the pool in the summer and some local kids talking smack is ultimately what got him to try out competitive swimming. "Coming out of that the doctors told my mom, 'no more contact sports.'" "I don't want to say I was at death's door but I was in pretty bad shape there for a couple weeks," Kendricks said. Growing up in Texas, he loved football and got really into the sport as a kid, until, at age 11, he came down with a case of spinal meningitis. He got his start in the sport through some difficult circumstances. "We certainly weren't poor by any means but we had to scrape by a bit."īy his own admission he was somewhat of a late-bloomer in the sport of swimming. "My mom was a single parent raising my brother and I," Kendricks said. ![]() Kendricks grew up in Irving, Texas between Dallas and Fort Worth. Texas went on to dominate the meet, and despite getting on the nerves of Florida head coach Randy Reese,Eddie's brother, Kendricks went on to periodically call meets after that. "Go call the meet, do your best, and don't be a homer." Reese said. The Texas men won the NCAA championship in 1981, UCLA won it in 1982, and Florida would go on to win it in 1983. It was a dual meet between three championship teams. Legendary Texas all-sports announcer Wally Pryor, who swam for Texas in the 1950s, was under the weather and wasn't going to be able to make it to the meet. In 1983, University of Texas men's swimming coach Eddie Reese walked up to student assistant Sam Kendricks hours before the biggest dual meet of the college swimming season and said, "Hey Sam, you're going to announce the meet today." In this feature, Kendricks also discusses the role Eddie Reese played on his life and career. He brought his usual passion and perfect delivery to every race – from prelims to finals. If you watched any of the streaming coverage of the NCAA Championships, Kendricks' voice could not be missed. With the NCAA Championships concluded, Swimming World reaches into the archive for this feature on Sam Kendricks, the longtime announcer whose voice is synonymous with the sport. The Sweet Sounds of Sam Kendricks: The Voice of Swimming
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