Duncan Hamilton

Favorite or funniest or most embarrassing swimming memory:

• James Lavender getting kicked out of practice anytime we did underwaters.
• The bathroom remodel of ~04-05 and the ensuing turf wars.
• Ed Spencer: “You better get in the weight room [blank] you don’t want to look like that for the rest of your life”
• Locker room impressions by Robert Griest, Casey Mckenna, Andrew Withers and more.
• Any Pep talk by Brian Jennings
• Fitting 3-4 swimmers in a single cab truck for trips to East Cobb, Athens, or a lake house.
• Anything with Marshall Taylor
• Being able to observe AB from safety as a Chamblee swimmer

How has your time at Dynamo impacted your life:
I wasn’t very good and didn’t amount to much in swimming, but I’d like to think I worked hard. That work ethic was shaped entirely by the teammates I trained with and the coaches who pushed us every day.

The enemy always has a vote; you can train the hardest, do everything right and still fall short. Regardless of the outcome, you have to get back up and keep grinding because your teammates are counting on you.

In my career, those who have always seen a direct link between hard work and success often struggle in training or get easily disheartened in conflict. In swimming, you give everything, twice a day, for months, only to fail by a hundredth of a second. You can quit, or you can show up to practice Monday morning because your team will still be there.

That mindset, persistence in the face of uncertainty, was forged by my teammates and coaches at Dynamo. It’s the reason I made it through training, and the reason I came home from deployments.

Where are you today?
After high school, I went to the U.S. Naval Academy. I graduated and spent almost 13 years in the SEAL teams, deploying multiple times to Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Africa. When I left the military, I went to business school and then worked in consulting before starting a company that buys and runs maritime trade schools.

I live in Atlanta with my wife and our two young boys, Remi and Declan. Declan currently swims at Chamblee Dynamo, and both boys are Village Mill Vipers.

Are you open to helping other Dynamo alums with networking?
Yep