Coach turning team around

Dorsey Tierney seems organized. Emphasis on the word "seems." \nFor the most part, the women's swimming coach likely is -- she's rebuilt IU's women's swimming program, radiates a hard-working persona and receives praise from her swimmers.\nBut she's a tad disheveled in a few departments. Take her four gold medals, for instance. Most people would put the death grip on those treasures, place them in an air-tight case and put them on display for every Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to stroll by. \nNot Tierney. She doesn't even know where her gold medals are. \n"They are somewhere," Tierney said, rummaging through her thoughts. "I'll be honest, I don't know where they are ... Actually, one of my brothers may have one."\nMaybe. Oh well, it's only a gold medal. More important things clutter Tierney's brain now -- such as this weekend's Big Ten Championships, which IU will be host to beginning Thursday. \nThanks to Tierney, the Hoosiers have a chance to compete for one of the toughest swimming conference titles in the country. She served as a graduate assistant in swimming at IU in 1995, left to take an assistant coaching position at Southern Methodist, then returned to Bloomington in 1998 to take over the head coaching job for IU. \nSince then, IU has climbed up the Big Ten standings, placing eighth in the 1999 Big Ten Championships before moving up two spots to sixth at last year's meet. The Hoosiers scored 96 more points in 1999 than in 1998, the biggest point improvement by any Big Ten team. IU's 330 points were the most scored by a Hoosier squad in the Big Ten meet since 1985.\nTierney's swimmers credit her with the improvement.\n"I'm sad I don't have another three years here," senior sprinter Jennifer Cristy said. "By that time, this team is going to be phenomenal. When (Tierney) came in, the program was mediocre. She's done an amazing job."\nArguing with Cristy would prove difficult, as would trying to disprove Tierney's sometimes-rigid, sometimes-easygoing demeanor and coaching style. Swimmers appear to love her approach. Cristy and freshman Sarah Fiden noted Tierney's laid-back yet fiery personality as one of her many strong points. Tierney agreed, putting stock in an elementary formula.\n"To be successful, you need to work hard every single day," Tierney said. "I'm pretty intense. Your competitors don't care if you have a bad day."\nCristy reciprocates her mentor's convictions.\n"She's pretty tough," she said. "She kicks our butts, basically. She doesn't take any prisoners."\nThat simple yet honest attitude evidently works; it carried Tierney to those four gold medals, two NCAA team titles at Texas, an NCAA record in the 200-yard breaststroke, 16 All-American honors and being named the captain of the U.S. Swim Team at the 1991 Pan-American Games. \nNow, she deflects comments and compliments about her collegiate and amateur success, concentrating more on her situation at IU and the lessons those experiences taught her. Tierney translates her own lessons to her team in what has become a bit of a Hoosier swimming tradition. Each Wednesday, she sits down with her team and tells a story -- sometimes with trivial implications, sometimes with heavy implications -- in an attempt to spark motivation. The tale-telling works, Fiden said. \n"They're pretty motivational," Fiden said. "The stories are about ex-Olympians who were her roommates in college."\nTierney incorporates her stories into a rigorous schedule in which she rarely relaxes. But she enjoys it, she said. She's single and has no family in the immediate area. Most of her relatives are in Louisville, where Tierney attended high school and began her swimming career. Tierney's brother, Jimmy, attended Louisville and now coaches the women at Northwestern, where the Wildcats are a perennial Big Ten and national power. IU upset the Wildcats in their own pool early this season, exposing the Hoosiers to success Tierney said they hadn't seen before. \n"A lot of these guys has never tasted success like that," she said of her team. "They didn't even know what to do. Oh, wow, we beat a ranked team. I want them to get used to doing that."\nHow close are the Hoosiers from consistently beating up teams such as Northwestern? \n"Not close enough," Tierney quickly retorts. "I'm pretty hard to please. Winning is addictive."\nTierney and her Hoosiers are inching closer. \nCristy credits Tierney's personal relationship with each swimmer for the majority of the success. Tierney said she tries to maintain a perspective on each swimmer and how she ticks. She yells at some. She calmly explains to others. She's grown, Cristy said, each season, becoming more in-touch with the team. Cristy said she feels comfortable with Tierney, be the two be discussing swimming, school or boys. \n"I know if I have a problem," Cristy said, "I can go to her."\nTierney has navigated many of the bumpy roads her young swimmers have or will encounter, which helps improve her coaching ability and curb her learning curve, she said. Cristy and Fiden said they think Tierney will remain in Bloomington for some time, but Tierney isn't as sure. She maintains an open-minded approach and freely discusses her potential career possibilities beyond her tenure at IU. \nShould she stay, it's likely the program will continue to shake up the Big Ten. Tierney said she wants to get to the top, saying the Hoosiers are "headed in the right direction." \nStill, she admits she's always searching for new challenges, and an opportunity to take the reigns at a top-10 school would interest her. So would moving on, should she maximize what she can accomplish at IU. \n"At the moment," she said, "I'm pretty content here."\nNow, she steers IU into the Big Ten Championships. She said she never thought she'd coach -- she originally attended law school, and paid for it by coaching. She fell in love, and now she's head-over-heels involved, spending hour after hour, day after day in Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center enjoying her job, her swimmers, her life. \n"I'm one of the lucky ones. I come in here every day and get a kick out of what I do," she said. "To work with the age group I do is rewarding. I can't imagine doing anything else. I hope I can say that in 20 years"