One Week Out: The Priceless Small-Group Sessions with Herbie Behm & Gregg Troy at the 2026 ASCA World Clinic

The Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando is not yet crowded, but I can hear coaching shoes scraping against the granite floor. Next week, from September 9 to 12, 2026, this place will become the center of a silent transfer — not of athletes, but of those who stand behind the starting blocks. I have been following swimming for over ten years, and I know: the most important moments of this sport are not in the final sprints, but in those Tuesday mornings when no one is watching, when a coach whispers something into the ear of a trembling twelve-year-old at the water's edge. The ASCA World Clinic this year carries the theme "Grassroots to Podium: It Starts With Us." But I don't want to talk about slogans. I want to talk about two specific people, two three-hour small-group sessions that the organizers deliberately limited in numbers, and about a certification system standing at the threshold of its biggest overhaul in the association's history. Herbie Behm is not a name that swimming fans usually mention. He has no Olympic medals, no television appearances. But at the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, he has built a training program that many in the industry call a "golden forge" of American swimming. Behm does not teach technique in the conventional way — he teaches how to think about technique, how to plan for each stage of an athlete's development, how to look beyond a single season. His small-group session at this clinic will focus on training philosophy and planning — things you cannot learn from a lecture in front of a hundred people. Gregg Troy is different. He is a legend. As the head coach of the 2026 US Olympic team, he guided Ryan Lochte, Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky — names that have written history. Troy needs no introduction. But what is interesting is that, at his age, with everything he has achieved, he still shows up at a clinic for coaches — not to receive an award, but to sit in a small room, for three hours, talking to lesser-known colleagues. That is what I admire most about true teachers: they never stop passing on knowledge. I remember the first time I commentated on a swimming race, I mispronounced an athlete's name — completely different. I blushed, but my colleague next to me just smiled: "No problem, you called the wrong name, but the ball — or the water — still calls the right name of the race." That sentence made me realize that in sports, what matters is not the label, but the authenticity of effort. Just like this small-group session: they don't need loud advertising, they don't need impressive numbers. They only need three hours, one room, and people who genuinely want to learn. But behind the beauty of knowledge, I see a bigger story. ASCA — the American Swimming Coaches Association — is preparing to launch a completely new certification system on November 2, 2026. This clinic is the last opportunity for coaches to be certified under the old system. "Last chance." It sounds urgent, but I wonder: is this a revenue strategy? Will the new system be more expensive, require more, and make coaches with existing certifications worry about whether their credentials still hold value? I don't have the answer. But I have a perspective. In ten years of observing the sports industry, I have seen too many times large organizations use "last chance" as a tool to drive sales. That is not wrong — it is business. But it raises a question about transparency: why does the promotional article not clarify what the new system will look like? Why is there no information about costs, requirements, or whether old certifications will be recognized? That silence, in such a long article, is a notable gap. I remember an evening in 2026, when the pandemic halted every competition. I went to Hoa Xuan field in Da Nang, where only twelve people were present — players, referees, and me. I recorded the sound of the ball hitting the ground, the breathing of the center-back, the creaking of empty seats. The article I wrote that day was titled "A Million Empty Seats and the Breathing of a Center-Back." It was shared over five thousand times. And I realized: what is not said is sometimes the most important thing. Just like this article about the clinic — it talks about scarcity, about last chances, about priceless sessions. But it does not talk about the specific content of the sessions. It does not mention the curriculum. It does not mention the maximum number of participants. It does not mention the price. This makes me think of a paradox: in a world where information is increasingly accessible, the most valuable products are the scarcest — and that scarcity is deliberately manufactured. The three-hour small-group session with Herbie Behm and Gregg Troy is not just a session; it is a statement. It says: true knowledge cannot be packaged into mass lectures. It needs space, interaction, questions asked and answered directly. I have followed Gregg Troy's career for a long time. I remember the 2026 Olympic finals, when he led the US team to a dominant victory. But I also remember the lesser-known stories: how he spent hours talking to an athlete in a mental crisis, how he believed that a coach not only teaches swimming but also teaches life. Troy is one of the rare people who understand: to build a big program, you must start with the smallest details. And this small-group session is exactly such a small detail — but it can create big changes. As for Herbie Behm, I have never met him, but I have read about him. Bolles School is one of the best high school swimming programs in the country. Behm does not train Olympic athletes — he trains thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, children who may never swim at the Olympics but will learn from swimming lessons about discipline, perseverance, and facing failure. He is a silent hero — exactly the kind of person I always want to write about. Behm's session on training philosophy and planning will be a rare opportunity for coaches to understand the mindset of someone who has spent a lifetime building a program from scratch. And Troy's session on program building will show them the bigger picture — how to take a program from average to world-class. This combination — from micro to macro — is something I believe no mass lecture can offer. But I also want to point out something the article does not mention: the certification system change in November could be a shock to many coaches. If the new system requires additional courses, higher costs, or stricter standards, then those with old certifications will face a difficult choice: either accept new costs or accept that their credentials are no longer valid. The article does not address this, and I think that is a regrettable omission. I also want to talk about timing. September is the start of fall in the US — the time when high school and club swimming seasons begin to ramp up. Holding the clinic at this exact time means coaches must leave their teams during a critical period. This could be a barrier for those considering attendance. But at the same time, it shows that ASCA has calculated carefully: they want this clinic to be a milestone before the new system launches, and they are willing to accept schedule conflicts to achieve that goal. I cannot help but remember a story I once wrote about Ali Al-Bulaihi, the Saudi Arabian center-back who blocked a crucial ball in the match against Argentina at the 2026 World Cup. Al-Bulaihi was not a star; he was born in a small fishing village and had to work twice as hard to be recognized. My article about him reached 150,000 views — seven times the previous record of the website I worked for. And I realized: stories about silent people, those who have no name on the scoreboard but are the soul of the game, always have the strongest appeal. Just like Herbie Behm and Gregg Troy in this small-group session — they are not celebrated athletes, but they are the ones who create athletes. They are supporting characters in the big story of swimming, yet they are the main characters in the story of the sport's development. I want to end with a question, rather than an answer. When you walk into a three-hour session with a legend like Gregg Troy, are you truly ready to listen? Are you ready to ask hard questions, to admit what you don't know, to change the way you think about coaching? Because the real value of the session is not in what Troy says, but in what you hear — and what you bring home. The Rosen Centre Hotel will soon be more crowded. Coaches from across America will converge here, carrying their hopes, worries, and questions. And in some small room, Herbie Behm and Gregg Troy will sit down, look at the eager faces before them, and begin to speak. What they say may not appear on any news bulletin, but it will spread — through each coach, through each athlete, through each lane of water — like small ripples that never stop. And I, a sports writer from Da Nang, will not be in Orlando. But I will listen. I will read stories from attendees. I will search for small details — moments no one notices — and I will tell them. Because that is my job: not to comment on scores, but to tell stories about the people who created the scores. And in this case, those people are the coaches about to step into the small-group sessions at the 2026 ASCA World Clinic.