Michael Norment and His Journey to Notre Dame: ‘The People Make This Place Special’
Michael Norment was happy at the University of Georgia. After swimming for the Bulldogs and spending the past two seasons as the program’s Associate Head Coach, Norment enjoyed being part of what Neil Versfeld was building in Athens.
So, when the head coaching role at Notre Dame opened in early May, Norment was intrigued. Not intrigued because he felt he needed to be a head coach. Intrigued because he wasn’t looking for a job, which allowed him to look at the Notre Dame position in a different light.
The light that has shone on Norment’s path to Notre Dame has also illuminated his entire journey as an athlete, and now a coach. It has also shown glimpses of what is to come during his tenure in South Bend.
The Foundation
Michael Norment was brought to the water through a learn to swim program in Hempstead, New York. After two summers in this program, Norment made the transition to the local club team, run by Robert Trotman. It was during his time swimming under Trotman that Norment, at the age of 11, qualified for an All-Star meet in Buffalo, New York. The meet, which included swimmers from states across the northeast, allowed Norment to see what was really possible to achieve in his swimming career.
“Going to the All-Star meet at 11, I was like, ‘this is amazing,'” Norment said. “There were times that I had seen people do, and I didn’t even know people could go that fast.”
This meet, however, showed a young Norment a different side of the sport. A side that showed a number of black athletes achieving feats in the water that many in the general public had said weren’t possible. One of the individuals leading that charge was coach Jim Ellis.
Ellis, who was the head coach of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation, known as PDR, had built a reputation for developing high-level swimmers while also creating the first Black swim team in the country. This reputation intrigued Norment, who reached out to Ellis. The veteran coach extended an offer to Norment to come swim with his team for the summer.
After that summer, Norment wanted more. After sitting down with his family, and with the help of his father getting a job at Temple University, Norment moved to Philly to train with Ellis full-time.
Norment swam with Ellis through high school, where he learned not just about being a better swimmer, but what it took to be the best. Norment decided to take the next part of his swimming career to the University of Georgia.
Early Coaching Days
During his time in Athens, Norment was a 16-time All-American and a key piece of Georgia’s climb up the national rankings. After twice being named to the U.S. National Team, Norment retired from the sport in 2000, following a disappointing Olympic Trials. When he walked away from swimming, Norment was ready for something different. With the birth of his first child in 2001, he was enjoying his newfound life away from the pool.
By 2005, Norment’s wife, Toeanzar, encouraged him to get back into the water, this time to teach his daughter to swim. What started out as simple one-on-one lessons soon blossomed into something bigger. When Norment was in a facility for his daughter’s swim lessons, a large group of young black boys formed a contingent around him. These boys also wanted Norment to teach them how to swim. The lasting effect this had on Normet was profound, and it again left him wanting more.
“My wife saw how engaged I was, and she also saw how important it was for me to be around a group of people to help them,” Norment said. “In Philly, swimming was huge because it was able to pull kids off the streets. It was able to pull kids off the corners. It was able to get kids to focus on education.”
With permission from his wife, Norment started coaching. Starting with only a few days a week, Norment eventually started his own club, the Metro Atlanta Aquatic Club (MAAC). Creating MAAC played a substantial role in forming the coach Norment has become today. It taught him countless lessons, such as meeting athletes where they are now, while also developing complete athletes. These lessons also prepared him for the next stop in his coaching journey.
The Collegiate Ranks
Neil Versfeld and Michael Norment
After coaching on the club level for more than a decade, an opportunity at Georgia Tech opened in 2018 that piqued Norment’s interest. After discussing the opportunity with his wife, Norment decided to take the leap and joined the staff at Tech.
The opportunity to coach in college allowed Norment to see collegiate swimming and coaching from a new vantage point. Norment was able to learn what goes into coaching athletes who are not only high achievers in the water but also in the classroom. Most importantly, it helped teach him how to create a winning culture. From increasing the number of athletes that trained over the summer from three to more than 25, Norment and the Georgia Tech staff had things clicking in Atlanta.
“The process of changing culture is literally moment to moment,” Norment said. “It’s not even day by day, and it can’t be a slogan that’s put on a wall. It is your actions. They have to be consistent.”
Coaching at Tech also provided Norment the opportunity to coach rising breakstroke phenom Nic Fink. Norment started coaching Fink immediately after his run to the Tokyo Olympics, and he learned he could coach athletes at different points in their senior careers.
“Working with Nick forced me to really understand how to get the most out of every workout, and really understand what his strengths were and where he could show up,” Norment said. “It’s really thinking outside of the box. He is the center of the formula, and what formula do I need to design to make sure that I’m training him in the right way that keeps him in the water and actually makes him faster?”
The formula that Norment created helped Fink reach new heights in his career, including numerous international medals and a rise to status as the top breaststroker in the United States.
Following five years at Georgia Tech, Norment took the opportunity to return to his alma mater as an associate head coach. During his two years in Athens, Norment played an important role in the rise of the Georgia program, similar to his role at GT. After two seasons with the Dawgs, a new challenge was suddenly awaiting.
A New Era at Notre Dame
Courtesy: University of Notre Dame
When Norment was officially announced as the head coach at Notre Dame on June 26, the support from the greater swimming community was profound. Rarely is a coaching hire almost unanimously praised, but Norment’s was.
Now, as he settles into the head coach’s chair, the countless lessons that Norment has learned across his different coaching stops have molded him into the head coach he is now. At the foundation of that is a commitment to being the best both in and out of the water.
“It’s important to understand the commitment to this process,” Norment said. “Yes, you are a student, but you are a student-athlete, and it’s important that you are able to manage the two. That commitment means you are committed to excellence, to your teammates, to your own self-care, and a commitment to being a part of this program.”
As Norment gets ready to begin his first season in South Bend, he is aware of the challenges that lie ahead, but is eager to face them head-on. With Notre Dame returning to competition this year, following the suspension of the men’s team last season for gambling activity, Norment is ready for the path ahead. It is one of the reasons he wanted to be a part of the Irish family.
“The culture here is one that is academically sound, but at Notre Dame, there’s an energy here that I don’t know how to describe to other people,” he said. “I think the level of support and kindness that you have when you come here is amazing. The people make this place special.”
Throughout his journey, Norment has surrounded himself with people who have made him a better coach and person. The lessons that he has taken from the different roles in his life have prepared him to make something special with the people around him at Notre Dame. As the season gets started, he is ready to continue to build a once-forgotten program into one of the premier household swimming names in not just the NCAA, but in all of swimming.
“We have the tools and the resources to do really well and to be a household name from a swimming standpoint, not only at the NCAA level, but also internationally,” he said.
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