In the week between the extremely hot champs meet and today, I've spent a good bit of time reflecting on the season. Sure, there were ups and downs along the way, and that last meet was a doozy, but through it all, I have no other conclusion to make than it was a GREAT season.
We saw numerous first-time swimmers grow in the sport and the team. We saw some of our veteran swimmers become real leaders in and out of the water and help their teammates to achieve practice and meet goals. We saw parents jump at the chance to volunteer to help meets run smoothly. We saw families and our community become closer through the support of our young ones. We saw our parents become more invested in our program, including in our boosters, who assist with running our meet concessions.
While we may not have come away with the League trophy, the list of accomplishments of our swimmers can not be overlooked. A win-loss record is a nice thing to tout, but it is not at the core of who I believe we are as a team. If our other goals of sportsmanship, improving self-confidence, improving fitness, increasing a love of sport, bringing the community together, and providing a positive environment for our youth to interact are met, then I would consider our season a success. Our win-loss record reflects a part of who we are as a program, but it does not tell the whole story of what takes place and what we all share between late May and late July. Certainly a championship trophy is nice and is something to be proud of, but it is icing on the cake. I would much rather hear consistently from our parents and parents of swimmers in other programs how impressed they are with the positive attitude and sportsmanship of our swimmers and our parents.
One of the great coaches in the sport, Eddie Reese of the University of Texas, puts it this way: "Winning doesn’t give you class, it just means you won. I
always want my teams to have class, and we’ll go from there. You have
to be good when you win, and when you lose. It’s an indication of who
you are as a person, who you are surrounding yourself with, and the
respect you have for other people and all the hard work they put in." I love this quote because I feel it captures the essence of what I hold to be most important as a coach. I could continue to elaborate on this, but I feel Coach Reese said it best, so I'll leave it with him.
There are certainly areas that continue to need improvement, but I am optimistic we will be able to address these areas and remain in a good position going forward. One area I have already started working with Rec staff on is continuing a relationship between the local schools and our team. This year we found ourselves somewhere we haven't been in a number of years, and that is with a lower number of 8 and Under and 9-10 swimmers. I fully take responsibility for this, as I was not as on-the-ball with getting registration forms to the schools. There are several ideas in the works to make sure this failure in communication doesn't happen again, and that we are on top of things with regards to getting information to the schools in a timely manner before team registration begins.
Along the same line, we had several swimmers join us later in the season as a result of learning about the team during their summer swim lessons. In an effort to strengthen the bridge between the swim lesson program and the competitive programs available in Valdese, the Rec is going to start sending team information for both Xcell and VTST to swim lesson graduates of levels 4 and 5. Hopefully this will help us continue to grow our younger ranks in future seasons and allow for a more consistent flow of swimmers into the program.
I know that many of you have your own thoughts on ways that we can continue to improve the team experience. I enjoyed having mid-season feedback from you all and beginning my "From the Coach" blog posts. I texted everyone on our remind list the link to our end-of-season survey this morning, and I hope you make use of it (Last year we had 41 responses, our most yet, and I would love to have even more this year).
I look closely at your feedback and see how I can work to implement changes or inform you of why we do things as we do. I already have a growing list of things to take to the fall meeting of the coaches and team reps, and it is my hope to get these things addressed or begin working towards a solution that works for everyone. Many of the league-wide changes we have seen over the years that you all have wanted have come as a result of the feedback you provide.
In closing, I meant it on Saturday when I said that you should all hold your heads up high for the effort put forth this season. I am incredibly proud of where we are as a program, and I can honestly say I am proud of each and every one of you. Thank you again for trusting me and the coaches with your children this summer, and I hope it has been as great a season for you as for me. It is my sincerest wish to see you all back with us again next summer as we embark on an even greater season.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Sunday, July 17, 2016
From the Coach...Part II: About the Conference Champs
Good morning, everyone!
One of the recent things to come to my attention has been questions regarding the league/conference championship meet, and how its location is decided.
Our league by-laws state that we rotate the location of the meet alphabetically every summer. On occasion, a team will decide to opt-out of hosting for various reasons. Transylvania never hosted, primarily due to it's distance from the other teams in the Tarheel Swim League. Others have declined due to facility issues, or even inexperience with running a large meet and wanting some time to see how it is done.
There have been discussions over the past years to keep the meet in Valdese and to work out some sort of hosting agreement where the host team still retains entry fees, while the Valdese Rec might charge a small facility charge per swimmer. This is not an uncommon arrangement for USA Swimming programs who rent out large facilities for their large meets. We do charge modest entry fees for the swims, mainly to cover the cost of awards and ribbons, and the money from those fees do help give each team a small infusion of capital every so many years. The fees currently stand at $1.50 for individual events and $4.00 per relay team entry. With each swimmer maxing out at 5 events (4 ind./1 relay, or 3 ind./2 relays), this means each swimmer contributes a maximum of $7 in entry fees, but when you add together all the swimmers who participate, it adds up. Before deducting costs on trophies, ribbons, and medals, Valdese took in just over $1,000 in 2014.
Other issues that have prevented a permanent location are concerns for local businesses who would potentially stand to lose money with the meet relocating permanently to Valdese. Local eateries, especially, benefit from the meets as the other teams don't have established kitchens and concessions as we do in the bowling area of the Valdese Rec. Two different eateries from Granite Falls will be setting up at their meet this year, and Forest City and McDowell have had several vendors benefit from their championship meets in years past. These businesses often help support the teams and are valuable relationships for the community. We want to support local business for all of our teams, not just out own. At the same time, the host team also gets the benefit of a percentage of the t-shirt sales from the mobile t-shirt vendor, which could happen regardless of location.
The coaches and team representatives are also aware that the champs meet takes quite a long time on days that are particularly hot, and we have discussed various ways to try to make the meet run faster (see the recent purchase of the Colorado Timing System Dolphin timing equipment by both Forest City and Granite Falls). Other suggestions that have been floated are to separate the meet into sessions by age group, where the older swimmers (11+) swim in the morning, and then the younger swimmers swim in the afternoon. This would present some difficulties, especially in events where swimmers may be swimming up an age group across sessions, and it wouldn't solve the issue of a long day for families with swimmers who would be in both sessions. It certainly would cut down on already cramped lanes for warm-up, which is almost useless when trying to get 60+ swimmers in three lanes as we will have to do this coming Saturday. As the overall number of swimmers participating in the meet has declined in the last several years, there has also been a decreasing urgency to consider the split-session approach.
One of the biggest things that can help us move the meet along is consistency, and more the familiar swimmers, coaches, and volunteers are with the various roles each performs in order to make the meet possible. If we are constantly training new people year after year, it means we will find ourselves facing familiar problems. Just as in an employment situation, having workers who are experienced helps with efficiency. This isn't to say that we don't welcome first-time volunteers, as we certainly do, but it also means that having a strong, experienced group of volunteers who have performed their jobs (computer operators in scoring, timing system operators, starters, stroke and turn officials) can seriously impact the quality of the meet. This has been a big part of why our home meets have been able to go smoothly this summer, and hopefully that will help translate into a more efficiently run meet this coming Saturday. YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA HOW THANKFUL I AM FOR YOUR VOLUNTEER HELP THIS YEAR!
Ultimately, as with most things, there are positive things that come out of our current system for the championship meet, and there are a few things worth considering to improve the meet quality for future events. The leadership of all the TSL teams have tried to preserve some of the benefits while also investing significantly in ways to improve the meet experience for everyone (for example, the Dolphin system with two watches for a six-lane pool costs in the neighborhood of $3,300, adoption of the Meet Mobile app, moving to timer sheets instead of cards, embracing more central training for officials, computer training). If you do have any suggestions on how to improve the meets, don't be shy. Let me know, and I will bring it to the League at our fall meeting for the consideration of everyone!
See everyone at practice tomorrow!
One of the recent things to come to my attention has been questions regarding the league/conference championship meet, and how its location is decided.
Our league by-laws state that we rotate the location of the meet alphabetically every summer. On occasion, a team will decide to opt-out of hosting for various reasons. Transylvania never hosted, primarily due to it's distance from the other teams in the Tarheel Swim League. Others have declined due to facility issues, or even inexperience with running a large meet and wanting some time to see how it is done.
There have been discussions over the past years to keep the meet in Valdese and to work out some sort of hosting agreement where the host team still retains entry fees, while the Valdese Rec might charge a small facility charge per swimmer. This is not an uncommon arrangement for USA Swimming programs who rent out large facilities for their large meets. We do charge modest entry fees for the swims, mainly to cover the cost of awards and ribbons, and the money from those fees do help give each team a small infusion of capital every so many years. The fees currently stand at $1.50 for individual events and $4.00 per relay team entry. With each swimmer maxing out at 5 events (4 ind./1 relay, or 3 ind./2 relays), this means each swimmer contributes a maximum of $7 in entry fees, but when you add together all the swimmers who participate, it adds up. Before deducting costs on trophies, ribbons, and medals, Valdese took in just over $1,000 in 2014.
Other issues that have prevented a permanent location are concerns for local businesses who would potentially stand to lose money with the meet relocating permanently to Valdese. Local eateries, especially, benefit from the meets as the other teams don't have established kitchens and concessions as we do in the bowling area of the Valdese Rec. Two different eateries from Granite Falls will be setting up at their meet this year, and Forest City and McDowell have had several vendors benefit from their championship meets in years past. These businesses often help support the teams and are valuable relationships for the community. We want to support local business for all of our teams, not just out own. At the same time, the host team also gets the benefit of a percentage of the t-shirt sales from the mobile t-shirt vendor, which could happen regardless of location.
The coaches and team representatives are also aware that the champs meet takes quite a long time on days that are particularly hot, and we have discussed various ways to try to make the meet run faster (see the recent purchase of the Colorado Timing System Dolphin timing equipment by both Forest City and Granite Falls). Other suggestions that have been floated are to separate the meet into sessions by age group, where the older swimmers (11+) swim in the morning, and then the younger swimmers swim in the afternoon. This would present some difficulties, especially in events where swimmers may be swimming up an age group across sessions, and it wouldn't solve the issue of a long day for families with swimmers who would be in both sessions. It certainly would cut down on already cramped lanes for warm-up, which is almost useless when trying to get 60+ swimmers in three lanes as we will have to do this coming Saturday. As the overall number of swimmers participating in the meet has declined in the last several years, there has also been a decreasing urgency to consider the split-session approach.
One of the biggest things that can help us move the meet along is consistency, and more the familiar swimmers, coaches, and volunteers are with the various roles each performs in order to make the meet possible. If we are constantly training new people year after year, it means we will find ourselves facing familiar problems. Just as in an employment situation, having workers who are experienced helps with efficiency. This isn't to say that we don't welcome first-time volunteers, as we certainly do, but it also means that having a strong, experienced group of volunteers who have performed their jobs (computer operators in scoring, timing system operators, starters, stroke and turn officials) can seriously impact the quality of the meet. This has been a big part of why our home meets have been able to go smoothly this summer, and hopefully that will help translate into a more efficiently run meet this coming Saturday. YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA HOW THANKFUL I AM FOR YOUR VOLUNTEER HELP THIS YEAR!
Ultimately, as with most things, there are positive things that come out of our current system for the championship meet, and there are a few things worth considering to improve the meet quality for future events. The leadership of all the TSL teams have tried to preserve some of the benefits while also investing significantly in ways to improve the meet experience for everyone (for example, the Dolphin system with two watches for a six-lane pool costs in the neighborhood of $3,300, adoption of the Meet Mobile app, moving to timer sheets instead of cards, embracing more central training for officials, computer training). If you do have any suggestions on how to improve the meets, don't be shy. Let me know, and I will bring it to the League at our fall meeting for the consideration of everyone!
See everyone at practice tomorrow!
Sunday, July 10, 2016
From the Coach...
Even though we are approaching the end of the season in two weeks, I'm going to start a series of blog posts to address some of the questions and concerns you all voiced through your comments on the recent Google form.
I'm going to start off with the philosophy that guides our team practice structure and scheduling. Several folks made comments about practice length, times, and why we break kids up in the way that we do. Probably the most common question we get is "Why doesn't everyone practice at one time? It makes it so much easier for parents with multiple kids in different age groups."
I agree that it makes life easier for the parents. As the parent of a three-year old, I understand the challenge it can be to get one child in the car, let alone two or more as is the case when I have my nieces and nephews with my wife and I.
Ultimately though, as coach, I have to consider the best thing for the swimmers and the team. It isn't the best use of our limited time and space, as well as human resources, for us to have all of the swimmers in the water at one time. The different needs of the various age groups are just too great, and by limiting the number of swimmers in the water, it helps our coaching staff best address those needs in an efficient and age-appropriate manner. Breaking the swimmers up helps us to be as effective as possible when coaching the kids.
As for the times we have practices, there is a method to the madness. It may not be easy to get the kids out the door to make 7:30am practice, but it is in their best interest for a number of reasons. Our older swimmers often already have a fairly solid technical foundation compared to our youngest swimmers. With that in mind, our morning practices are geared towards conditioning mixed with technique instruction. The pool is typically cooler in the morning than in the evening, and it is a better environment for them to exert themselves in the cooler water. We also typically have more lane space in the morning, and the bigger bodies need to spread out more than our smaller, younger swimmers. The evening practices are more technique focused and typically don't involve the kind of exertion the morning practices do. Morning practices often are about 2,000-3,000 yards with fast intervals, while the evening practices often are between 500-1,000 yards (1,000 being for the 9-10 year old practices) and are made up of slower intervals with more time for instruction.
On occasion, I have allowed some families to have their swimmers of different ages practice with siblings. While there are exceptions made, I still prefer the swimmers to swim with their appropriate group. Swimming with different groups can often cause our swimmers to plateau or regress because the appropriate needs aren't being met for those swimmers. In most cases I will OK this after I have had a chance to see the swimmers in the water and judge if their presence at a different practice would be useful to their continued improvement (not too hard and not too easy-- think Goldilocks). I also have to consider whether their presence will be a distraction or disruption to the other swimmers (if there is so much attention on one swimmer that it ultimately detracts from the practice).
Finally, the needs of other recreation center members and patrons need to be taken into consideration when planning practices (and meets, too). While the team is sponsored by the Valdese Recreation Department, we are only one group that uses the facility on any given day. During the morning time, there are many lap swimmers who use the facility, as well as various aquacise classes. Evening practices are often held at the same time as swim lessons, practices for Xcell (the USA Swimming program based out of our pool who many of our swimmers have a relationship with, as well as myself as a part-time coach), and also, depending on the day, public swim time. All of these programs would potentially have difficulty with their own planning and participation if we were to change up practice times or increase the number of swimmers we have at any one practice time.
As for swim meets, you'll notice we seldom have home meets in back-to-back weeks. This is because the swim lessons offered by the Valdese Recreation Department are taught in two week sessions, and we schedule with their calendar in mind to cause as little disruption as possible to those sessions. Our rule of thumb is one home meet per two-week swim lesson session. If we have back-to-back weeks with home meets, it is because swim lessons were not being taught one of those weeks or the first of the two weeks is the end of one session and the second week is the beginning of another. The past two weeks are a great example. We had a home meet this past Thursday and we will have another home meet this Tuesday. If you look further along the calendar, you'll notice there aren't any home meets after this in the following two weeks. This also also helps us cause minimal disruption to the other programs I mentioned earlier in their mission to serve their patrons and members.
I hope this helps clarify why we do things the way we do at VTST with regards to practices and scheduling. I appreciate the chance to address your questions and comments, and I will continue to do so in the coming days. Feel free to email or use the google form if you have anything to discuss, and I will be happy to do so. See you all at practice this week! Happy Sunday!
I'm going to start off with the philosophy that guides our team practice structure and scheduling. Several folks made comments about practice length, times, and why we break kids up in the way that we do. Probably the most common question we get is "Why doesn't everyone practice at one time? It makes it so much easier for parents with multiple kids in different age groups."
I agree that it makes life easier for the parents. As the parent of a three-year old, I understand the challenge it can be to get one child in the car, let alone two or more as is the case when I have my nieces and nephews with my wife and I.
Ultimately though, as coach, I have to consider the best thing for the swimmers and the team. It isn't the best use of our limited time and space, as well as human resources, for us to have all of the swimmers in the water at one time. The different needs of the various age groups are just too great, and by limiting the number of swimmers in the water, it helps our coaching staff best address those needs in an efficient and age-appropriate manner. Breaking the swimmers up helps us to be as effective as possible when coaching the kids.
As for the times we have practices, there is a method to the madness. It may not be easy to get the kids out the door to make 7:30am practice, but it is in their best interest for a number of reasons. Our older swimmers often already have a fairly solid technical foundation compared to our youngest swimmers. With that in mind, our morning practices are geared towards conditioning mixed with technique instruction. The pool is typically cooler in the morning than in the evening, and it is a better environment for them to exert themselves in the cooler water. We also typically have more lane space in the morning, and the bigger bodies need to spread out more than our smaller, younger swimmers. The evening practices are more technique focused and typically don't involve the kind of exertion the morning practices do. Morning practices often are about 2,000-3,000 yards with fast intervals, while the evening practices often are between 500-1,000 yards (1,000 being for the 9-10 year old practices) and are made up of slower intervals with more time for instruction.
On occasion, I have allowed some families to have their swimmers of different ages practice with siblings. While there are exceptions made, I still prefer the swimmers to swim with their appropriate group. Swimming with different groups can often cause our swimmers to plateau or regress because the appropriate needs aren't being met for those swimmers. In most cases I will OK this after I have had a chance to see the swimmers in the water and judge if their presence at a different practice would be useful to their continued improvement (not too hard and not too easy-- think Goldilocks). I also have to consider whether their presence will be a distraction or disruption to the other swimmers (if there is so much attention on one swimmer that it ultimately detracts from the practice).
Finally, the needs of other recreation center members and patrons need to be taken into consideration when planning practices (and meets, too). While the team is sponsored by the Valdese Recreation Department, we are only one group that uses the facility on any given day. During the morning time, there are many lap swimmers who use the facility, as well as various aquacise classes. Evening practices are often held at the same time as swim lessons, practices for Xcell (the USA Swimming program based out of our pool who many of our swimmers have a relationship with, as well as myself as a part-time coach), and also, depending on the day, public swim time. All of these programs would potentially have difficulty with their own planning and participation if we were to change up practice times or increase the number of swimmers we have at any one practice time.
As for swim meets, you'll notice we seldom have home meets in back-to-back weeks. This is because the swim lessons offered by the Valdese Recreation Department are taught in two week sessions, and we schedule with their calendar in mind to cause as little disruption as possible to those sessions. Our rule of thumb is one home meet per two-week swim lesson session. If we have back-to-back weeks with home meets, it is because swim lessons were not being taught one of those weeks or the first of the two weeks is the end of one session and the second week is the beginning of another. The past two weeks are a great example. We had a home meet this past Thursday and we will have another home meet this Tuesday. If you look further along the calendar, you'll notice there aren't any home meets after this in the following two weeks. This also also helps us cause minimal disruption to the other programs I mentioned earlier in their mission to serve their patrons and members.
I hope this helps clarify why we do things the way we do at VTST with regards to practices and scheduling. I appreciate the chance to address your questions and comments, and I will continue to do so in the coming days. Feel free to email or use the google form if you have anything to discuss, and I will be happy to do so. See you all at practice this week! Happy Sunday!
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Great start to a busy week!
First of all, thank you to EVERYONE who came down to Forest City last night for the meet. There were a ton of great swims, and all of our swimmers did a fantastic job. I also really appreciate the parents, grandparents, and other family members who helped time and officiate. We can't make the meets happen without you, and I heard from numerous Forest City parents who wished they had enough people willing to help to do four shifts like we have adopted for our meets this season.
I wanted to remind everyone of a few things as we begin the last half of this busy week:
We will still send out the end of season survey in late July, but it has come to my attention that some of our members have had some concerns that hadn't been aired, and I wanted to go ahead try to find a way to make myself as available to you as possible. PLEASE, if you have any concerns, come talk to me and I will try to address them the best I can. If I don't know about them, then I can't work to help resolve things.
I wanted to remind everyone of a few things as we begin the last half of this busy week:
- We swim Granite Falls at home on Thursday, so PLEASE sign up if you haven't done so. It was a close meet last time, and we will need all hands on deck. I will be doing entries Thursday after the morning practice. It will be a longer meet, so please come prepared. It is really important swimmers stay hydrated and out of the sun (prior to the meet, too!).
- I will also send out text messages tomorrow to make sure we have our first shift workers for the meet, so if you want to be proactive, please go ahead and message me, either through remind or e-mail.
- If you haven't picked up your shirt or cap this year, please pick it up at the meet tomorrow night. They will be at the concession stand.
- We will have both AM and PM practices on Friday.
- Finally, 11 and up swimmers have the Sprint/Distance Meet Saturday morning in Forest City. This is always a fun meet. In the event you haven't already done so, please sign up.
We will still send out the end of season survey in late July, but it has come to my attention that some of our members have had some concerns that hadn't been aired, and I wanted to go ahead try to find a way to make myself as available to you as possible. PLEASE, if you have any concerns, come talk to me and I will try to address them the best I can. If I don't know about them, then I can't work to help resolve things.
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