Good Evening Friends,

It's that time of year again. We have had a few warm days, the pool is warming up, schools are letting out, and you can just feel the afternoon thunderstorms blowing through. Some even say they moved the Member-Guest up so that it wouldn't be overshadowed by this week's big event; it's time for the annual Blue & Gold Time Trials Meet (Now With Defending Champions!). 

There isn't too much else between us and the true start of the season, but here is a everything you need for the week in swim.

Lessons With Coaches

We have had some questions about setting up lessons with the coaches. All the swim team coaches (Ian, Megan, Allie, Jacob, and Meghan) are available for swim lessons. While Jr Team coach Katie and quite a few of our very qualified current swimmers can be found on the lessons page of the Army Navy website, the Swim Team coaches can be scheduled by contacting them directly. 

Coach Ian -- [email protected]

Coach Megan Grant -- [email protected]

Coach Allie -- [email protected]

Coach Jacob -- [email protected]

Coach Meghan Heil -- [email protected]

These emails can be found along with our bios on the Swimtopia website on the 'Coaches' tab. Please feel free to reach out if you are looking to set up lessons with any of us. 

Meet Sign Ups

Now that we are finally in our first meet week it will be good to go over meet sign ups for those both old and new. Making sure that our meet entries are done in a timely manner is very important for Army Navy. We are a very large team and we want to provide every opportunity to our swimmers to compete as much as possible. Getting our lineup set and being able to add exhibition spots allows us to do that. If we have to scramble to make changes and scratches then we are not able to offer those extra spots to swim. So please make sure to adhere to the deadlines posted for meet entries.

Where

Signing up for meets is two-fold; entries for your swimmer and volunteering as a parent. Both of these are accessed in the same place. You can click on the 'Meets & Events' page of the Swimtopia website.

When

All meet entry and volunteer sign ups are currently open and available for all of our meets throughout the entire summer. If you already know your schedule you can go right in and make all the necessary entries for your family throughout the entire season and not have to think about it again. For those of you that like to live a little more dangerously, sign ups for each meet will close 2-3 days prior to the meet they are for. This will change for different meet types. I will always provide deadlines in my weekly emails (see below for the Blue & Gold entry deadline). If you contact us after the deadline we cannot assure you that your swimmer will be able to be entered in the meet.

Why

As mentioned above, knowing who is available well in advance allows the coaches to put together the best lineup both competitively and to provide the most opportunities to as many swimmers as possible.

Swimmers are entered in meets on a positive check-in basis. That means only swimmers who are marked as 'Attending' will be entered. Those who are marked as 'Not Attending' and those with no response will be left out of the lineup (it is helpful to the coaches to know if a swimmer is not coming or just forgot to reply, so please do mark 'Not Attending' if you know they will not be there). 

How

Once you have logged into your registration account on Swimtopia, on the 'Meets & Events' Swimtopia page you will see the buttons for Meet Entries and a separate one for Job Sign Up. Clicking on these respectively will bring you to a page where you can mark your availability for the meet as a swimmer or choose a volunteer position as a parent. 

Blue & Gold Time Trials -- Friday, June 13th -- 5:15PM Warm up -- 5:45PM Start

Entry Deadline: Wed 6/11 @ 6:00PM -- Meet Theme: Blue & Gold

This Friday will be our first meet of the season. This will be an intrasquad meet comprised only of Army Navy swimmers. Swim Team members competing should sign up for all events they are capable of swimming so that we have a time for them in that event. That means swimmers may enter up to 5 individual events (100IM is available to only 11 and older swimmers). It is a great night of fun, camaraderie, and welcome to bring us into another season of everything Army Navy Swim Team has to offer. 

The theme for the meet is simply Blue & Gold. So pull out all your summer gear and show your Army Navy pride with every item of clothing you wear to the meet. 

Away we go!

From the Deck,

Coach Ian