Good Evening Pool People,

Happy 4th of July Week! Not quite a short week, per se, but a little less going on than most other weeks in the summer (at least as far as Swim Team goes). We took two very close losses last week, but had some great early season swims and haven’t really had our full composite of swimmers for any meet yet. It is a tough schedule when we start with our two closest meets. That being said, we all know that the end of the season is where seasons are won and lost and no one is better at showing up when it matters most than Army Navy!

I know it may not feel like it, but we are coming up to the halfway point of the season at the end of the week. 4th of July generally marks the middle of the season. Come next Monday we are only 3 weeks away from Champs! So, it’s time to get the second half of the season started off right!

Meet Entries

As we’ve made it through our first full week of meets, now is a great time to remind everyone to make sure you are marking your availability for each and every meet. If you are planning to attend and swim, make sure to mark yourself as ‘Attending’. Only swimmers that are marked as available will be entered in the meet. Most everyone is pretty good at that part. It is also incredibly helpful if you know you won’t be attending and you mark your swimmer as ‘Not Attending’ that way we have no question whether you are going to be there or not. We still have many swimmers that live in the purgatory of ‘No Response’ and just have to hope that someone didn’t forget to sign them up.

Along those lines it’s a good time to make you aware of a few meets that we like to work on the lineups well ahead of time as a coaching staff. Divisional Relays (7/14), Divisionals (7/21), and Champs (7/27 and 7/28 during the day). The earlier we can have availability for those the more we can do to make sure we are putting forth the best lineup. Take a look at your calendar and go ahead and mark your swimmer as Attending or Not Attending for everything throughout the season right now. There is no need to wait.

A Meet vs. Kenwood Country Club

Wednesday, July 1st – Warm Ups 5:00PM – Meet Start 6:00PM – Theme: U-S-A!

Yes, that’s right we have a Wednesday meet this week. A very rare occurrence for the swim team. This is due to Kenwood needing to move our meet which was originally scheduled for Tuesday this week due to their firework celebration. This was the backup date they chose. Thankfully it is also our first home meet which should make things a little more fun. With the odd day of the week, we still have quite a few positions available for volunteers to fill. These positions are not usually open this close to the meet so make sure to grab your spot on deck before it’s too late! Remember, no one has a better view of the pool than those volunteering on deck.

Kenwood had a very close meet with Congressional much like we did. So I expect this to be a competitive meet with a lot of great races. When meets are close you never know if that one swim will make the difference! We are going to do our best to run the meet quickly and get everyone out to see the USA World Cup game starting at 8:00PM. Everyone will already be dressed the part as we switched up the theme to U-S-A! for this week. So put on your best stars and stripes and get ready to race.

As always there will be a buffet in the sports camp room during the meet (opening at 7:00PM). The menu this week will be Asian Fusion. Buffet Menu and Registration

Practices and Fun Friday

Due to the meet there will be no Wednesday afternoon practice this week. The rest of our practice schedule will run as normally scheduled including Friday, July 3rd. We will have our normal Fun Friday practice from 8:45-10AM for all swim team members. However, there will be no Fun Friday activity afterward.

While not specifically swim team related, you know I always love seeing all of my swim team families at the pool on the 4th of July. I will be on deck running the show, so come down and say hello. To all the dads who swore they would get in shape for those family relays this year, I still have some openings for lessons this week…just sayin’

From the Deck,

Coach Ian