2017 Stingrays Parent Meeting Notes from Coach Elise

 

Thank you for joining us for another great year.  Stingray families are my absolute favorite people, and I’m very excited about starting a new year.  I love having Coach Dore back. She is still entrenched in the Cy-Fair HS waterpolo season, but is making Stingrays a priority just the same.  This year I’m extremely grateful to the board for hiring an additional coach. Daniel Jestes and I have worked together at the Y, and I have been extremely impressed with his work ethic and selflessness.  I am certain he will be a great role model for your kids as well as bring a lot of fun to our practices.  Coach Daniel is a gifted athlete in multiple sports and has experience overcoming adversity.  He is remarkably working his way through college, graduating next May, and has plans to work at Dow Chemical by this time next year.  I know you all will give him a warm welcome to the Stingray family.

 

Stingray values:  There is room for everyone on our club.  We don’t make cuts or have qualifying times; we don’t require a certain percentage of practice attendance; we don’t even have a swim meet attendance requirement.  But we do require some commitment to the team, beginning with parent volunteering but certainly not ending there.  To be a Stingray we expect your swimmers to spend a few months in the role of a great athlete. A great athlete, by my definition:

Listens to the coach.

Speaks encouragement. 

Does their best without excuses. 

Practices good sportsmanship every day. 

Thinks big about TEAM and little about me. 

Proves greatness without a word. 

Swims friendly for fun. 

Never gives up. 

These are the values I intend to encourage in your kids this summer, and I’m hoping you will embrace them as well.

 

In addition to modeling our values, Stingrays do have to be able to swim.  Swimming ability:  This is swim team, not swim lessons.  That means they should already have the skills needed to complete one 25 freestyle for 10 and unders, and to complete a 50 free for 11 and overs.  It also means you are trusting me to know how to get your swimmer ready for competition.  I know some of these kids haven’t been in the water for a long time, and they are going to be rusty. However, if they have never seen a 25 yard pool, much less swum all the way across one, I don’t have the manpower to have someone play motorboat with them.  I will give you two weeks of my absolute best to get them swimming across the pool.  At that point, you have a choice.  You can either decide to withdraw them from the roster, or you can take the lead in helping them get comfortable swimming 25 yards.  They are welcome back as a full-fledged Stingray as soon as they can show me they can get across the pool.  I am willing to have a time trial at the beginning of every single week if needed.  That said, we are going to make the first two weeks, and every week after that, fun for every kid, including the one who is not quite ready.  I want every Stingray to have a good experience from the beginning, so you will see us doing some team-building and dryland work and skill-building before we ever get in the pool.  My philosophy is “build skills first, then get them in the water.”  Swimming is an intelligent sport.  Brute strength actually makes you sink, so we will be honing skills from day 1.

 

Equipment requirements.  Every Stingray needs all their equipment every day.  This includes goggles, a cap if needed, fins, a towel that can get a little dirty for dryland purposes, and paddles for 11& ups.  They need a bag of some kind to keep it in, and the kids need to be responsible for taking all their equipment home with them every day.  It’s their responsibility, not yours.  If they leave stuff here, they will need to buy it back the next day with their own 50 cents (not yours) in the Diving for Dollars bucket.  We do not have storage space for lots of left-behind equipment.  Items will be donated if not bought back in a timely manner.  I believe this policy will benefit every swimmer and swimmer’s family (and ultimately our community) by increasing swimmers’ personal responsibility.  I would really appreciate your help in training our Stingrays to take care of their own equipment.  Parents, please don’t do it for them—just assist in training.  I would really appreciate it if you require them to earn the money they need to buy back forgotten gear.

 

Be on time:  I have carefully planned our swim season and workouts to get the most out of our Stingray season.  There is a plan for every practice which includes a warm-up, drills that focus on our theme for the day, and a main set that gives the opportunity to apply what we’re learning.  If a swimmer misses warm-up, they aren’t ready for learning.  If they miss the drills, they don’t know what they’re supposed to be practicing. Please make being on time a priority to get the most out of every workout.  Allow your kids to swim smarter.  Be on time.

 

So, beyond my basic expectations of Stingray values and skill requirements, the next big topic for me to cover today is Communication:  I prefer email for non-time-sensitive communications, and texts for anything within 24 hours of becoming critical.  13 and ups contact Coach Dore (phone 832-465-8378, email [email protected]).  My contact number is 832-971-8494 and [email protected].   We would rather hear from you earlier rather than later—anything you want feedback on or want to give us a heads-up about.  If you can keep communications short, that is helpful, as we get emails from many, many of you every week.  However, we would much rather get the long version than nothing at all.

The time I least want to talk with you about your child is during practice.  We have a closed deck policy.  Please do not interrupt coaching with personal requests or, as tempting as it may be, to coach your own child.  Your role during practice is to socialize with the other parents, which will be a lot easier if you aren’t sweating it over what little Johnny is or is not doing in the pool.  Again, I am asking you to trust Coach Dore and Coach Daniel and I with getting your swimmer ready for competition.  It is okay if your child makes mistakes.  Actually, it is preferable that your child makes mistakes—in practice, in a dual meet, etc.  That is where true learning takes place.  Let them, and let me, take responsibility for that.  If you have questions or concerns about practices or behaviors, please send me an email or speak with us during the 15 minute break between 6&U and 7/8 practice.  

 

The absolute best way for you to communicate with me, particularly about swim meets, is through the Website.  I really need you to meet swim meet deadlines for declaring your swimmers for meets.  There are two parts to this:  RSVP and signing up for events.  If for some reason you have a computer glitch and can’t do this online, an email or text directly to me is acceptable, but please meet the deadline.   If there is a change to your situation after the deadline, please email or text me as soon as possible.    

 

A few more words about meet entries.  As your coaches, Coach Dore, Coach Daniel, and I are responsible for final meet entries.  For most dual meets, I would like you to sign up for two (let your swimmer choose one, and then you as parents can choose the other if you like), and I will add the third event for dual meets.  I have created a new icon that should help you sign your swimmer up for meets.  It looks like this,

 

and will be specific to each meet, placed in the pre-meet email on Sunday nights.  For most meets, you will sign your kids up for 2 events, and you will know which events to sign up for because the icon will communicate that clearly.  We will practice this for time trials, but you need to know that your coaches will sign up your swimmer for the rest of their age-appropriate events.  6&U will swim 25 Fr and Bk.  7/8 will swim 25s of all strokes.  9/10 will swim 25s of strokes, 50 free and 100 IM.  (If you want your 8 & U swimmer to swim events outside of the events I just listed, please send me an email, and I will time trial them for it.)  11&Up will swim 50s of all strokes and 100 Fr and IM.  Be aware that for our out-of-division meet, you will be asked to sign up your swimmer for off events.  That is by design and is important to their overall season.  For all meets I reserve the right as coach to make the final call on all events.  Sometimes that will be in the interest of the individual swimmer, and sometimes it will be in the interest of the team.  Coach Dore and I have the only say on creating relays, though if you have concerns or helpful trend information for us concerning relays, you may email me:  [email protected] (my NEW email address).  I am only human and of course I make mistakes. 

 

Finally, a special case:  Divisionals.    We are a swim team, not “practically free swim lessons,” and it is a lot more fun to win meets with everyone than to lose them because only 75% of us showed up.  Dual meets are important, and we would love for everyone to make almost every meet.  But Divisionals is our culminating meet, our playoffs, if you will.  Please plan to be in town for Divisionals on June 17.  It is an afternoon meet. If you need to go on vacation and miss a meet, I would rather you do that than not participate in the whole season.  But please miss a dual meet or miss an invitational like RWB or Ponderosa rather than miss Divisionals.  Your kids want to be there.  Be there.

 

I would love to have your 13 and up swimmers help us in the role of Junior Coaches.  This is a time-honored tradition for coming-of-age Stingrays, and it is important for safety in the early weeks of practices during the 6&Under and 7/8 practices. I would love for those teens who would like to be junior coaches to come to our “new” Stingray practice on Tuesday April 18th during the normal 13&up practice time.  We will have a short meeting about expectations and procedures that day before the new younger swimmers arrive.

 

Private lessons:  Your coaching staff will be very limited in our ability to do private lessons this year.  It is my goal to have my eyes on every kid every day and give them the kind of feedback that will keep them gaining skills and strength on a daily basis.  That said, if you have a specific area you feel your swimmer needs one-on-one attention in, please email me and I will try to work with you or direct you to someone who can help.

 

Fun Fridays:  Fridays are a great team-building day for Stingrays.  We trial run relays, set aside some time for pure fun designed by our Fun Friday parent volunteers, and still manage to get a workout in.  I would love for every swimmer to come on fun Fridays, but please know that not all the fun will take place on Fridays.  I have surprising and fun-to-spectate opportunities sprinkled throughout the weeks ahead.  We plan to work hard and play hard on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and (once meets begin) Saturdays too.

 

Again, thank you for joining us for the 2017 Stingray season. Catch the Fever!