Head Coach: Board Members: Assistant Coaches: Dr. William Yin

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Damon Hoover
5 years ago
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1 Head Coach: Dr. William Yin Assistant Coaches: Kristen Moore Board Members: Don LaTour Jane Mauldin Michelle Rochedieu Rebekah Ralph Charlie Wright Carol Yin CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A SWIM PARENT Parents contribute to the success experienced by the child and the team. Parents serve as role models and their children emulate their attitudes. Be aware of this and strive to be positive role models. Most importantly, show good sportsmanship at all times toward coaches, officials, opponents and teammates. Let us begin by WELCOMING you and your family to the Troup County Sharks! We are excited to have your child swimming with us and as equally important to have you, the parent, on our team as well! This informational flyer is to shed a little insight into what you can expect from us and the sport of swimming as well as your role in the team s success. KEY QUESTIONS Before we begin we would like to pose some questions for you to think about as the season progresses: While winning is nice, while setting a record, getting a best time, or making a qualifying time feels good, we hope that our young athletes learn more than, It is great to swim fast. No where in human history or theology do we learn that the ability to swim fast holds a very high priority in the grand scheme of the universe. From a practical standpoint, over-emphasis on speed, times and achievements will eventually end in frustration. No matter how fast a young athlete swims, there will probably be another swimmer in the next town, state, or country, swimming faster, if not now, then next month. So as parents, ask yourselves: Did the my child learn to swim with more skill this past season so he or she is both stronger and safer in the water? Did my child learn to exhibit initiative, wanting to come to the pool and do the practice without having to be constantly pushed or prodded to attend? Did my child learn something about unselfishness, sacrificing his or her personal wants for the good of others or the team? Did my child benefit from the competitive experience, learning how to handle winning and losing in our competitive society? Did my child learn more patience in overcoming obstacles, setbacks and problems? Did my child learn empathy? Amelia Estes Parks & Rec Liaisons: JJ Kuerzi: jkuerzi@troupco.org Patrick Duffy: Our hope is in a few years, the medals and ribbons will be laid aside and best times will become a hazy memory, but the friendships that were developed and the life skills learned will carry on for a lifetime. ITEMS NEEDED FOR PRACTICE & MEETS REQUIRED EQUIPMENT: Practice Swimsuits - rinse well after EVERY practice Goggles have 2-3 pair (be prepared to replace when lost ) Fins - integral for conditioning and technique OPTIONAL: Swim Cap STRONGLY recommended (may purchase from Amelia on pool deck) Competition Suit - for meets ONLY. Team suits are selected every other year. Our main source for swim equipment is a company called Friends Unlimited SWIMshop. Contact info follows: (800)

2 Tiger Sharks: 3rd level Mako Sharks: 2nd level Hammerhead Sharks: 1st level Do for Yourself: Get vicarious pleasure from your children's participation, but do not become overly ego-involved. Try to enjoy yourself at competitions. Have a life of your own outside of your child's sports participation. Do with Other Parents: Make friends with other parents at events. Socializing can make the event more fun for you. Volunteer as much as you can. Youth sports depend upon the time & energy of involved parents. Do with Coaches: Leave the coaching to the coaches. Give them any support they need to help them do their jobs better. Communicate with them about your child. You can learn about your child from each other. Inform them of relevant issues at home that might affect your child at practice. Do for your Children: Emphasize fun, skill development and other benefits of sports participation, e.g., cooperation, competition, self-discipline, commitment. Show interest in their participation: help them get to practice, attend competitions, ask questions. Provide a healthy perspective to help children understand success and failure. Emphasize and reward effort rather than results. Understand that your child may need a break from sports occasionally. Give your child some space when need. Part of sports participation involves them figuring things out for themselves. Keep a sense of humor. If you are having fun and laughing, so will your child Provide regular encouragement. GIVE THEM UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: SHOW THEM YOU LOVE THEM WHETHER THEY WIN OR LOSE!!! Don t for Yourself: Base your self-esteem and ego on the success of your child's sports participation. Lose perspective about the importance of your child's sports participation. Don t with Other Parents: Make enemies of other parents. Don t with Coaches: Interfere with their coaching during practice or competitions. Don t with Your Children Expect your children to get anything more from their sports than a good time, physical fitness, mastery and love of a lifetime sport and transferable life skills. Ignore your child's bad behavior in practice or competitions. Make your child feel guilty for the time, energy and money you are spending and the sacrifices you are making. Think of your child's sports participation as an investment for which you expect a return. Live out your own dreams through your child's sports participation. Compare your child's progress with that of other children. Expect anything from your child except their best effort. EVER DO ANYTHING THAT WILL CAUSE THEM TO THINK LESS OF THEMSELVES OR OF YOU!

3 Your Athlete's Swim Bag should contain: (label everything: bags, goggles, towels, and t-shirts look alike) Your Team suit; a spare suit Your Team swim cap (should have 2 - they tear easily!) 2 pair (minimum - straps break!) goggles. Deck sandals (to avoid cuts and/or nasty foot fungus) 2 Towels Something warm: warm up suit, sweats, etc. SUNSCREEN: waterproof, rub proof, goof proof. Remember, sunscreen is oily, a swimmer could lose their goggles because of it. Water bottle A black pen/sharpie marker (for marking E/H/ L), info for each race on their hand or forearm A pen (for checking in and for Mom/Dad/friend to write down the new times they achieve at the meet) Cooler: Most meets allow coolers. Low sugar snacks. Baby powder (sample size will last a long time): to lightly dust inside of swim caps after drying them; keeps them from sticking together & easier to put on! Swim shampoo, conditioner, hairbrush, comb, contact solution, girls- 1. Bring some cash. You may be charged admission as a spectator (usually under $5 per head); you may not. It depends on the meet. Most meets also sell heat sheets, which are a kind of program for the swim meet. More on that later. It can be helpful to go ahead and get one, especially for your first meet, so you can decide whether or not it s useful to you for future meets. 2. Bring a Sharpie marker, a pen or pencil to write times on the heat sheet, and a highlighter. You also may want a clipboard for your heat sheet. 3. Spectator seating at swim meets is usually in bleachers. If you want some cushioning or back support, you ll most likely need to bring yourself a stadium seat. 4. Don t plan for your swimmer to sit with your family. Teams will sit as teams during the meet. 5. Don t plan on going over to where the team is sitting to visit with your swimmer. Only coaches, timers, officials and swimmers are allowed on deck (the area around the pool and where the swimmers are getting ready to swim) at meets. 6. If you want to take pictures, keep in mind that the flash from cameras interferes with the timing equipment, so flash photography is definitely not permitted at starts. (It s a good idea to figure out how to avoid using a flash during the whole meet, to keep it simple.) 7. Swimmers need to stay hydrated and fed during meets. Pack protein and high-quality carbs, not junk- those bodies are working hard. Water bottles are necessary. 8. Concessions are available at most meets. (That cash comes in handy again!) 9. You may be walking on wet tile floors; wear shoes that will help keep you sure-footed. Keep that in mind for your swimmer (s), too. 10. It can get pretty warm and humid at meets, even mid-winter. Wearing layers is a good idea. Your swimmer needs to have warm-up clothes to wear between their swim events, too. Don t forget a towel! 11. Be prepared for quite a bit of down time between events. If you have children or other folks who need to be entertained, you may wish to have sleeping bags or blankets for them to sit on out in the school cafeteria, hallway, etc. away from the bleachers, and appropriate keep them busy because you can t give them away activities on hand. Plan for needing more entertainment than you think. 12. IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE LATE OR CAN T MAKE IT TO THE MEET FOR WHATEVER REASON: Call the coach if you can t make the meet after you ve signed up. You should keep the coach s cell phone number handy. Call if you are running late or something comes up at the last minute and your swimmer can t make it to the meet. ENTERING THE MEET: All swim meet entries are done electronically. You will receive an detailing the meet location, sign up deadline and which groups the coaches would like to see participate. Included in the will be a link to the swim meet sign up form. The form requires that each space is filled out. If there are 5 spaces for events but you only want to sign up for 2 events, place N/A in the other 3 spaces. Payment is required at the time of sign up. Our system accepts PayPal and credit cards. After all entries are compiled, you will also receive a Meet Entries Report detailing who is signed for the meet, the swimmer s events and best time we have list for each of those events. Always double check the entries sheet. Never hesitate to ask..there are NO dumb questions!! For other before ideas Refer to the what to bring to a swim meet.

4 ONCE YOU ARE AT THE MEET- Getting ready for the meet to start: 1. Punctuality is a virtue. Warm-ups usually start an hour before the meet- it s important for swimmers to be there ready to get in the water right when warm ups begin. The coach will decide if the swimmers will be swimming the entire warm-up period or for a shorter time; whatever the decision by the coach, swimmers should be available to swim when warm-ups begin. 2. Meets are generally divided into morning and afternoon sessions. Morning start times are much more dependable than afternoon start times: afternoon starts often depend on when the morning session wraps up. Be prepared to hang loose a bit if your swimmer is participating in the afternoon session. Also be prepared to be a bit flexible about when the morning session ends sometimes things can run late. 3. OK, back to that heat sheet and the highlighter. Heat sheets list the individual swim events, the participants in each event, what heat they are in, what lane each swimmer will occupy, and if the swimmer has a history of swimming that event, what his/her previous best time swimming in that event was. To keep track of when your kid is swimming, going through the heat sheet and highlighting each of your swimmer s events can be useful. 4. Now for the Sharpie marker. Swimmers don t have heat sheets, so how do they keep track of what events they are swimming in? By writing on themselves, of course. (Again, who knew?) Each swimmer will need to have on their arm or leg a grid showing the event number, the heat number, the lane number, and the stroke/distance. Using a waterproof marker is kind of important to this process. DURING THE MEET: 1. Since we re on the topic of office supplies: The purpose of the pen or pencil is to record the time your swimmer achieves in each event they swim on the heat sheet. Your swimmer can use this information to assess their performance in the meet. The scoreboard will show lane number and time. (Note that for 25M races there won t be a time posted; there isn t a touch pad timing device on the far end of the pool to capture the time, only people with stopwatches known as timers ). 2. Be prepared for hearing that your swimmer has DQed : disqualified. The people you see walking around the pool with clipboards wearing white shirts and navy bottoms are swim meet officials. One of their jobs is to make sure the swimmers follow the rules, such as swimmers only are to use dolphin kicks during butterfly events, that the swimmers actually use the correct stroke (e.g. no freestyle during a breast stroke event); the proper turns are performed at the end of the pool, etc. When a swimmer is disqualified, this means the swimmer is not eligible for an award in that event, and their time is not recorded. Hearing that they have DQed can be really tough news, especially for a new swimmer. I m forever grateful to the group of dads who came over to comfort my distraught, despairing daughter when she DQ ed 3 times in her second meet, and explained to us that some folks have a tradition of Dairy Queen cones when a particularly tough disqualification happens. Swim team folks are good people. She might have quit swim team that day without these kind men stepping in to put things in perspective for her. 3. On that topic of swim team folks being good people. The Oregon team parents/spectators also have a habit that I find admirable. When a swimmer is really hanging in there and finishes their event, they make sure to applaud the effort of the swimmer, especially for those who struggle to finish. What really impressed me at my daughter s first meet is that the Oregon parents & other spectators did this for all the kids, regardless of team. That recognition can mean a lot when a kid may not be feeling great for coming in dead last half a pool length behind the next-to-last person.

5 4. Cheering on your swimmer and their teammates: No, your swimmer probably can t hear you cheering them on while they are swimming. It doesn t matter. Cheer them on anyhow! Keeping the team s energy pumping is a good thing. Remember that the swimmers need to be able to hear at the start though, so shhhh at the start, then go ahead and show them your support! 5. Awards: At each meet, there are different awards structures. All finishers above a certain place may receive ribbons; those in the top may get medals. Check the heat sheet for what the meet awards are, and what the rules are for collecting the awards. Some meets will not send awards home with coaches if the swimmers don t pick them up at the meet. 6. So how do you know where your swimmer placed in an event? Results are usually posted out in a hallway on the wall after events. Usually there is a table set up not too far away where you or your swimmer can pick up awards. You ll need to be able to tell the people at the award table what event number you are picking up the award for. HOME SWIM MEET DUTIES As you will see.swim meets are a great family experience! A place where the whole family can spend time together! We do not do individual fundraisers so our only source of incoming funds to the team is through hosting swim meets. These funds are used for swim equipment, timing system/ repairs, team incidentals, as well as coaches travel and incidentals. It I imperative that all swim parents volunteer to staff our home swim meets. Choose an area of interest. Don t be overwhelmed- someone will always be available to help you with Q & A. Swim Meets are so much fun and should be your child s reward for working so hard in practice! It is very important that parents support our home meets! Meet Coordinator- Will assign committee workers and makes sure jobs are filled. (Follows a standard meet sign up sheet). Works with Coaches in general to oversee all aspects of the meet. *This job is flexible and becomes easier with experience. It is not difficult at all for someone who is a good delegator. Meet Officials- (includes: The Starter, Referee, (2) Stroke and Turn Judges) These positions need to be certified and USAS trained. They offer one of the best seats in the house to view the races! *A very rewarding way to be involved in your child s sport! Safety Coordinator- Functions to ensure the overall safety guidelines for the meet, on deck behavior, as well as basic first aid. Clerk of Course- Works in the computer area and is responsible for much of the precompetition paperwork at the meet. You are in charge of scratched entries and adding late entries. This job runs anywhere from 45 minutes to one hour prior to the start of the meet. (Or if the meet has several sessions, then Clerk of Course is open before each session.) The next two jobs require a commitment and prior training to a meet: Omega Timing System- This job entails working with Clerk of Course before the meet to make any computer changes necessary. During the meet you match lane cards with the timing system results after each event, and then get those results to the HyTek System operator in an organized and timely fashion.

6 PARENT PARTICIPATION FORM HyTek Timing System- The Heat Sheets are printed from this program. Also, results are fed into the computer as each race is completed. This person should be detail oriented and be able to work well under pressure. Announcer- This is the Fun Guy who announces (over the pool P.A.) upcoming races and what events should be heading to the Bullpen. He may include music during warm-ups and help announce trophy winners or raffles at meets end. Results/ Awards- The person (s) are responsible for posting the results of each event in a predesignated location. Usually girls in one area and boys in another. You also will take the computer-generated labels from the person running the timing system and place them on the appropriate ribbons. You place the ribbons in a brown paper bag labeled for each team. Several weeks prior to meet, take inventory of available ribbons and order trophies if they are required. (An account is already established at a local store to make that easier) *You sit near the pool and computer. There is some flexibility with this job and it is easy to watch your swimmer race. Place Judges- Typically two judges, positioned on the side of the pool at the end where the event will finish. (Ideally there would be two pairs of place judges, one pair on each side of the pool.) You are responsible for visually placing the swimmers by lane number in order of their finish. You will record your call on a small piece of paper. After each event a runner will pick up the cards to take to the scoring table. *Best SEAT in the house! Head Timer- Over sees all lane timers. Responsible for getting lane clipboards and stopwatches ready to go. He wears two stopwatches that he will start at the beginning of each race. This is so he can replace any lane watch that didn t get started correctly for some reason. *Not a hard job, but must not be distracted easily. Lane Timers- Requires two people per lane. One person uses a stopwatch to start and finish a race. The other person presses a hand held plunger button as a swimmer touches the wall to finish and records the stopwatch time on a designated sheet of paper. *Not hard at all! Offers a great view of the races and allows you to meet the swimmers. Runner- This person (s) picks up the event card from lane timers and place judges at the completion of each event; then carry them to the timing system assistant. *This job is very flexible as you usually work with a partner. Bull Pen- Basically this is an area with 2 rows of 8 chairs (same number as lanes of the pool) where the 10 & under swimmers will report prior to a race. You will seat them in order of heat and lane then send them off to swim. The announcer will announce which races (swimmers) are being called to the Bullpen. This is such a big help in running a smooth meet by alleviating missed races and late arrivals to the starting block.. * So many swimmers are IN the know when it comes to the Bull Pen. You can also have one or two helpers to walk the little ones out to the starting blocks. Hospitality- For Coaches and trained Officials. It is customary for the host team to provide the visiting coaches and trained meet workers with their meals, and supply meet workers who cannot leave their job with drinks (usually water) maybe a snack for a long meet. Concessions and Hospitality can work together. *Easy to get a way to watch your swimmer.

Aberdeen Rays Swim Team. Handbook

Aberdeen Rays Swim Team. Handbook Aberdeen Rays Swim Team Handbook About the Team The Aberdeen Rays Swim Team is a competitive, co-ed swim team consisting of swimmers ages 4 to18. We are based in Saint Johns, Florida and serve the Aberdeen