Champion’s Mojo Podcast: Andrew Seliskar Talks Passion For Racing

Champion’s Mojo Podcast (Andrew Seliskar)

Andrew Seliskar loves to race anyone, anywhere, anytime. Known by his friends as being competitive, hear how this trait has served him in his swimming career. Having been on the United States National Team since 2013, his resume includes a World Championships medal and Pan Pacs gold medal. While at Cal Berkeley, he won more PAC-12 titles than anyone has in the conference’s 58-year history. He has won individual NCAA titles, was selected as 2019 NCAA Male Swimmer of the Year and was a big factor in the Cal men winning the 2019 NCAA Title.

Seliskar recently visited with the popular and superbly conducted Champion’s Mojo Podcast, hosted by Kelly Palace and Maria Parker. Below is an abridged Q&A of the interview. This show was recorded before the Covid-19 pandemic. You can listen to the full podcast episode #58 at https://championsmojo.com or by clicking here.

Champion’s Mojo: So let’s start off by just telling us what you’re up to these days.

Andrew Seliskar: I’m training at UC Berkeley. I just finished up a busy fall in the ISL and I’m really looking forward to these next few months leading up to Olympic Trials. I have a few competitions coming up at the two Pro Swim Series meets and I’m going to be spending some time in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. So I’ve got a lot on my plate, but I’m happy and just kind of moving through the day to day training for Olympic Trials.

Champion’s Mojo: So what does a day or a week look like for you?

Andrew Seliskar: My favorite weeks are the ones where I’m not traveling and I just get to kind of lay low in Berkeley and focus on the day to day. I have 10 practices a week, with doubles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So usually a normal day is to wake up for morning practice, come home and nap, and then get ready to lift and swim in the afternoon. I feel like I do my best in training when I’m consistent. I feel like I have a good routine where I can show up everyday with a lot of energy and try to knock it out of the park.

Champion’s Mojo: So you have a band? Are you still doing your band right now?

Andrew Seliskar: A little bit. We have a couple guys on the Cal team who play instruments. Me and another guy play guitar. Carson Sand and Nick Norman were two seniors on the team with me last year who play drums and bass. So we’ll get together from time to time and jam out.

Champion’s Mojo: What kind of music is it?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Andrew Seliskar: Punk rock. Anything we can try to cover. We’ll take songs we like on the radio like Blink-182 or The Killers or something like that and try and put our own spin on it. We have a little bit of stuff in the works, but nothing online yet or anything like that.

Champion’s Mojo: How does that love of life apply to your swimming?

Andrew Seliskar: I think it’s similar in a lot of ways. When we play music, it’s kind of like swimming in that I’m getting up in front of people and performing. I like to look at it like that. It’s almost like practice in a way. You get up and play for your friends. You get up and swim and race for your friends. Anytime I can express myself in something I do. I like to go all out.

Champion’s Mojo: You swim for your friends and teammates?

Andrew Seliskar: I think being at Cal Berkeley with both the college and pro swimmers, even though we’re in separate groups, the bond we share is really important. It is really like swimming for your teammates. I get up on the block and there’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot going on. I can always look to the side of the pool and see 20, 30 guys cheering for me that I know have my back, win or lose. That’s really important to me and something I try to reciprocate back to my teammates when they see me as well.

Champion’s Mojo: Can you tell us a little about NCAAs while you were at Cal?

Andrew Seliskar: 2019,my senior year, was really perfect in a lot of ways from a swimming perspective. Whereas, looking back on my junior year, there were definitely some mistakes and falters. I was coming off an injury and, not that that’s an excuse, but I was working my way through training for months and months from September to December. Some of my confidence was a little shot having been out of the water for a few months and then trying to get back into the swing of things. We sort of joke about that year because I think we fell short. Texas won the team title that year. They swam great, but we were back by like eleven and a half points. Like literally one final swim. We were so close and, for me, that was the third year in a row getting second place as a team. So coming into my senior year was really back against the wall. We have one more shot to do this. I was really excited to be a part of that team in 2019 and to be a senior captain. I’m really proud of that senior class. We had six guys that all swam four years and we all kind of contributed in our own ways. We all kind of worked together to get there as a team. We showed up ready to swim and everyone was hitting times. Everyone was in a good mood. It was a ton of fun. It was a dream come true to put it together like that senior year after getting second as a team three years in a row. That made up for it in a lot of ways. I’m still psyched about it. We got our championship rings a couple of months ago and we’ve worn them ever since.

Champion’s Mojo: Did your mindset change your senior year?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Andrew Seliskar: I think my confidence has always been consistent more or less. The big thing for me going into my senior year was learning how to put the blinders on and seeing my own race. That’s something Coach (Dave) Durden talked with me a lot about, honing in on a very specific race strategy that works for me in all situations. A lot of swimmers can relate. We love to race. I love to get into a heat with guys and battle in that sense. But it can be really beneficial to swim the race the exact same way over and over rather than playing the field. I learned to hit kick counts. Hit stroke counts. Move through turns well. That was something I hadn’t really been doing before. I had just been going out and racing. I had to kind of learn to work smarter and move in a more efficient way.

Champion’s Mojo: You are so talented in so many things, what is your favorite race?

Andrew Seliskar: I feel like it changes every two weeks. I love being competitive in all four strokes. I feel like every time I step up on the blocks for a race, I want to be competitive. Whether it’s the 50 free or 200 breast. But the thing that I love most about competing is just being in the water. I was always one of those kids that would beg to go to the beach in the summers or spend all day at the pool just hanging out. I’m really excited to get in the water. I love to just get in and splash around, whether it’s a crazy hard practice or I’m just at the beach. I feel that same drive to be in the water no matter where I am. I think that kind of is applicable in racing four strokes. Just trying to be a good athlete and trying to translate that drive to do well.

Champion’s Mojo: Have you had any obstacles?

Andrew Seliskar: I haven’t had a specific wall in my life that I’ve come to yet. I think the biggest thing for me the past four or five years has been just growing up. The transition into college and then the transition out of college. It’s weird. Seeing friends move away from Berkeley or people go off and get jobs. Go and get married. It’s all really exciting, but it’s a huge change of pace. Just growing up and trying to be my own man, regardless of what’s going on around me is always something I’m striving to be better at. And while there isn’t like a huge obstacle that’s shut me down yet, if something comes I think I’ll be ready.

Champion’s Mojo: How hard was it going from Virginia all the way out to California?

Andrew Seliskar: It was tough. I wanted to get far away from home and do my own thing. Berkeley was a great opportunity for me both for swimming and to get a great degree but it was definitely a huge change of pace. Living on the West Coast. How everyone interacts here is a little different. I think I really hit my stride sophomore or junior year when I settled in. It was really difficult and definitely that homesick feeling was something I kind of had to work through over the course of my college career.

Champion’s Mojo: Have you adapted to the California culture?

Andrew Seliskar: To some extent. Now that I’ve been living here, I don’t really want to go back to northern Virginia winters where there’s a foot of snow. I think it’s definitely a totally differ

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

ent environment than anything I’ve grown up in, especially being so close to San Francisco. It’s very much an urban area. Berkeley is a big city. That kind of change in lifestyle is huge. But I enjoy it just because there’s so much going on and there’s so many different things to do on a day to day basis.

Champion’s Mojo: Do you have any routines or rituals or things that you do consistently that you think have helped play a role in your success?

Andrew Seliskar: I actually learned this from Ryan Murphy. Having really consistent bedtime routines and then routines when you wake up in the morning That has been huge for me the past year and a half. If I’m in heavy training I take a shower, stretch, and read a book before I go to bed. Then I wake up, listen to music, have a good breakfast and stretch before practice. I have those two bookends each day. I feel great in the water. I feel like I have a lot of energy heading into practice every morning. For me it’s been huge and something I think has played a role in my success recently in swimming.

Champion’s Mojo: So you’ve just worked out those routines over the last couple of years?

Andrew Seliskar: It’s been a lot easier now that I’ve graduated from Berkeley. I’m not cramming homework at night or studying for a test. I can slow down and relax at night and get ready for bed. I cook a lot of meals. I wouldn’t say I cook well, but I definitely cook a lot. For me it’s always about keeping it simple. If I can just cook chicken and rice and throw together a salad or something like that. I definitely enjoy doing that most days.

Champion’s Mojo: So do you go to bed at a set time every night?

Andrew Seliskar: I try to get to bed and get eight or nine hours. But if I take a nap after morning practice and I’m kind of wired for the rest of the day, I’ll stay up.

Champion’s Mojo: Is there a routine or ritual that you wish you could adopt that you have not yet gotten there?

Andrew Seliskar: I think that’s going to be more so when I finish swimming. My older brother swam in college, but is now just working day to day. He actually just got married recently. He always talks about his gym routine and his after work routine. I have a coach telling me what to do when I’m at the pool or telling me when to be there. So right now I’m pretty happy with my routines. But I know, in the future, there’s gonna be a time when I have to learn how to regiment myself more.

Champion’s Mojo: So your older brother swam at Purdue, right? Was he one of your mentors? What other role models have you had that you looked up to when you were growing up as a young swimmer?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Andrew Seliskar: Steven, my older brother, was definitely the first. He was a few years older than me, but we were close enough that we went to school together and swam on the same high school team. He was a state champion in the 100 back. When I was young that was a huge motivation to get me going in swimming. After that, my coach John Flanagan has played a huge role in my life as a mentor in swimming and just in all areas of life. I’m sure a lot of people who have been to Nationals or Pro Swim Series meets have met him on deck. He’s always keeping a positive outlook and always pushing me to do harder things. Pushing me to strive to be better. Even though I don’t swim at Nation’s Capital, I still keep in touch with him and always look forward to seeing him whenever I’m at a meet.

Champion’s Mojo: What is your mindset in tough races?

Andrew Seliskar: I think for me it’s trying to be competitive, whether it’s at an age group meet or a World Championships. There’s a lot of value to just go in headstrong when I want to be competitive against anybody I swim against. Whether it’s the best in the world or a small college meet, I’m going to bring my A-game no matter where I am. I think that’s the mindset that myself and a lot of teammates have where we want to give a 100 percent no matter the situation.

Champion’s Mojo: How do you balance that with your racing strategy?

Andrew Seliskar: Honestly, I feel like I’m still trying to figure that one out myself. It’s all about keeping that balance between doing my own thing and also being aware of what I need to do to succeed. I just put the blinders on and then autopilot the races like that.

Champion’s Mojo: How do you deal with pain in a race like the 200 breast?

Andrew Seliskar: I feel like in a lot of my races, I don’t feel it till afterward. I’ll swim my race. Good. Bad. Whatever Five minutes later, in the warm down pool, I won’t be able to put my arms above my head or anything like that. I’d say just don’t slow down. My advice for a lot of people is, if you’re moving well in a race, just don’t think about it. Don’t think about how this back half hurts. My 50 wall was bad. Whatever. Just swim your race and then if it hurts afterward, it hurts afterward.

Champion’s Mojo: What do you say to yourself when you’re swimming?

Andrew Seliskar: I just go into a space where I’m just focused on swimming and I’m not really having an internal monologue. I’m just going off instinct. It’s like I’ll push off a wall and say, I gotta go right now.That’s something Coach Dave Durden talks about a lot. Trying to remove the periods of hesitation in a race where you may be second guessing. Just flip the switch and go when you know you have to. I think I’ve gotten better at that the past couple of years and it’s something I’m always working on. Just going off instinct and having the experience to know when it’s time to really turn it on.

Champion’s Mojo: What commonalities do you think that champions possess?

Despite swimming the 400 freestyle less than a half hour earlier, Andrew Seliskar prevailed in the 200 IM.

Andrew Seliskar: I think the best swimmers in the world, and the best athletes in general, are really smart about the way they compete. If you look at guys in the NBA or the top swimmers in the world, they’re all training really hard. Swimming with good technique. Being smart in the way they’re approaching each meet. Making sure to emphasize recovery or emphasize the mental game that they face when they compete. Being smart and being objective about your performance is very important. Being able to remove the emotion from a bad swim and then watch the film and realize where you can get better. That’s something I’ve kind of learned the past year watching guys at the top level.They’re still learning and still trying to improve in everything they do.

Champion’s Mojo: What about the emotion around a win?

Andrew Seliskar: My freshman year I got third in the 200 fly at NCAAs and I celebrated harder than anyone else. I was so excited about it. Then I’ve had times where I go a best time and I am kind of annoyed with how I finished the race or a split in the race. It’s very hard to know the right times to be excited or to be upset. When in doubt, I can always just get fired up by going and seeing my teammates. I remember at NCAAs in 2019 I finished my race facing the left side of the pool where the Cal Bears were sitting and they’re all flipping out and they’re all going crazy after my race because they saw my time. To me that was better than winning the race. It was getting to hang out with them afterwards. And just being so excited about everyone’s successes that week. That emotion is unparalleled to anything.

Champion’s Mojo: Thank you so much for being with us today and best of luck!

Andrew Seliskar: My pleasure, thank you for having me!

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