About the Montrella Swimming Calculator
Swimming has always been honest.
You either hold the pace, or you don't. You either do the work, or you don't. You either go the time, or you don't.
But for a long time, there's been a gap of understanding between what swimmers do in practice and what actually happens in a race.
The Montrella Swimming Calculator closes that gap.
Built on decades of elite coaching and real training data, the calculator takes what a swimmer can actually hold in structured and standardized test-sets and translates it directly into predicted, realistic, and scientifically grounded predictions in all 14 competition events in SCY swimming — with the goal to soon add SCM and LCM.
It answers a simple question:
If you can do this in practice… what does that mean for your race?
And more importantly: What do you need to be able to do in practice to achieve your goal time?
Practice stops being just hard work and becomes proof of how fast you can swim in a meet. Because when that connection is clear, confidence changes. Preparation changes. Results change.
How It's Used
Predict Performance
Enter test-set paces and get a full event table of estimated race times and ranges for all 14 SCY events. See what your current training translates to in competition — a clear starting point based on where you are right now.
Track Progress Over Time
Every test set starts to mean something. Log your sets and watch your pace change over time. See how improvements in practice carry into performance, and how different training methods work for you. Coaches verify results so everything stays accurate.
Measure Against Goals
Set a goal time and compare it to where you are today. See the gap between your current level and your goal, understand what kind of pace it's going to take to get there, and turn long-term goals into something you can train for daily.
Compare to Real Competition
Upload results from a meet and see how your training stacks up. See where you or your team would place based on current test-set predictions, how close you are to finals cuts, and which events give you the best opportunity to score.
Support Coaching Decisions
See how swimmers are performing in real time, test different lineup combinations, spot when someone is progressing or when something might be off, and see how your training methods are working over time. College coaches can use test-set predictions as another lens in recruiting.
Align Training With Performance
Connect daily training directly to race outcomes. Give swimmers a clearer sense of what they're working toward, and make progress easier to see and understand. It answers one question: what does it actually take in practice to swim a certain time in a meet?
The Team
Competitively swam for 11 years and has a deep passion for supporting the sport — making it faster, more accessible, and keeping swimmers in it longer. Jacob attended ASU in the W.P. Carey School of Business, and this project was his thesis at Barrett, The Honors College. His goal is to make data-driven coaching and self-understanding accessible to every swimmer and program.
Jim's story doesn't start with gold medals — it starts in 1959 with a 19-year-old coaching a team at the Lakewood YMCA. From those humble beginnings, Jim spent the next 60 years becoming one of the most influential figures in the history of the sport. He had a gift for seeing potential where others didn't. He famously taught a five-year-old named Susie Atwood how to swim; she would eventually grow up under his guidance to set 18 American Records, a World Record, and compete in two Olympic Games.
By the time he founded the Lakewood Aquatic Club, Jim was a builder of champions. His club team alone accounted for 21 American Records and over 50 National titles. That success caught the eye of the US Olympic Committee, and Jim was tapped to be assistant coach of the 1976 USA Olympic team. Under his watch, eight of his own swimmers made it to the Games, bringing home a staggering eight medals, four of them gold.
But Jim's legacy isn't just about the elite swimmers he coached to the Olympics. He took his philosophy to the collegiate level, first winning two NJCAA National Championships at Indian River, and then spending 17 years transforming The Ohio State University into a powerhouse. At OSU, he led the Buckeyes to five straight Big Ten Championships and mentored 48 All-Americans. Perhaps more importantly to Jim, he insisted his athletes were students first, maintaining a team GPA of 3.31 and seeing 50 of his swimmers earn Academic All-Big 10 honors.
Inducted into the ASCA Hall of Fame and the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame, Jim developed the test set protocol that empirically covered all events — connecting training data to competitive performance across every stroke and distance.
If you want to understand the standard of excellence behind this calculator, you have to look at Beverly Montrella. Bev wasn't just a witness to swimming history; she was a pioneer who broke through the sport's highest glass ceilings. In 1992, she became the first woman in history to serve as the Chef de Mission for the U.S. Olympic Team in Barcelona — a role that required managing the logistics, operations, and well-being of the entire American delegation, earned after serving as an assistant manager for both the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games.
Beverly has spent her life in the high-pressure environment of international competition, managing over 20 US National Teams across the globe. From the World Championships to tours across South America, she was the steady hand that ensured the world's greatest athletes were in the best position to win. She understood better than anyone that championships are won through preparation and precision.
While Jim was the voice on the deck at Ohio State, Beverly was the architect of the data. She spearheaded the effort to track the training of elite college-aged swimmers, meticulously documenting the metrics of athletes grinding through 45,000-yard weeks. She looked at the numbers behind every stroke, collecting the raw data that would eventually become the heartbeat of the Montrella Swimming Calculator.
Beverly hasn't just managed the sport from the deck; she's lived it in the water. As a U.S. Masters swimmer, she has set numerous records in individual and relay events, proving that the drive for excellence doesn't have an expiration date. Her commitment to the concept of "TEAM" and her legendary attention to detail are why coaches can trust this tool.