Sprint Spectacular and week of 10-12

Hello everyone!
What a great first meet of the season! Best times and records were shattered all weekend! It would take an hour for me to write all the best times out, and I am not about to do that, so I would like to just say congrats to everyone who swam. We swam really well, but we have alot to work on still. I will mention some of these in a minute, but first I want to recognize a few people for their performances.

• Matt and Michael Flinchbaugh continued where they left off this summer, both crushing their best times from last season in pretty much everything they swam. Between the two of them, they dropped at least a collective 30 seconds among all their races. Good work!
• Marissa Henderson had a couple best times, but she swam some new events and didn't shy away from the longer events. She is new to the 11-12 age group, but she is not afraid to swim the 200 IM and the 100 fly in the open age group events, racing 17 and 18 year olds. Hats off to you Marissa!
• Michelle Leahy achieved her first "A" time by posting a time of 1:21.74 in her 100 Breast! Great job!
• Amber Kovach set 4 team records (50 Free, 50 Back, 50 Fly, and 100 Fly) as well as breaking a 12 year old district record, taking down both the swimmer and event records for the 50 fly! Her time of 27.00 broke the team record by 1.85 seconds, the district swimmer record by 0.50 seconds, and the district event record by 0.28 seconds. Her time also would have tied her for 20th in the nation among all 12 year olds last year!

Though we swam well, we need to focus on some of the smaller things at practice. Too many of us are breathing the first stroke off the wall on our starts and turns in freestyle and butterfly. We need to be more disciplined in practice and not allow ourselves to do this and it will carry over into the meets. Also, our kicking is great, but we need to keep working the legs in every swim we do in practice. This will only help us get better.

Don't forget to sign up for meets by the posted deadline on the USC website. If you are having difficulties with Direct Athletics or have other questions about meets, let me know. I will do what I can to answer your questions and solve your problems.

That's all for today. See you at practice!

Coach Matt

Week of 10-5

Hello everyone!

A big thanks to everyone who partook in the Swim-a-thon this past Saturday! I had a great time and it was good to see all of you there. Congrats to all who made the 200 lengths. I know Colin Martin made all 200 and that is definately the most he has done in that short of a time period by at least 80 lengths. Good work!

This week is a normal week of practice. For the advanced group, we are going to have a slightly less intense week than last week. That doesn't mean that it will be easy, but it will not be quite as hard as last week. For the intro group, I want to keep working on both flip turns and open turn which we started concentrating on last week. We looked pretty good for the limited work we did on them, but there is still much room for improvement! Meets start this coming weekend, so I also want to work some dives and starts with both groups so we can look good and swim fast at our first meet.

As you may have noticed, we have a new coach on deck! I completely forgot to introduce him on here last Thursday when I last posted, but I would like to officially welcome John Sommerville to USC! John is a native of the metro-Detroit Area, much like myself, and just graduated last May from Case Western. He is currently searching for a job in marketing (I think!) and will be with us at least through the end of 2009. He will actually not be at practice all week because he is in Chicago for some interviews and networking. An interesting fact: John and I coached for the same team in Michigan! I coached at the Beverly Hills Athletic Club (BHAC) for 5 summers between 2002 and 2006. After I left, John filled my void for the summer of 2007. That just goes to show how small of a world it actually is.

Two last bits of information...
1) Don't forget to collect all of your pledges and donations for the Swim-a-thon and turn them in. You can bring them to practice and I will lock them up until Brian Mann picks them up (or I deliver them to him).
2) Apparel order forms should be out this week. Michelle Delgross told me on Saturday that she hoped to have them at practice by today, so hopefully we have those soon.

That's all for now, see you at the pool!

Coach Matt

A long time coming...

Hello USC!
Its been awhile since I posted anything, but here we go.

1) Swim-a-thon: A reminder that the USC Swim-a-thon is this Saturday, Oct. 1, at the TFC. It starts at 6PM and runs until midnight. You are welcome to come at any time, but we are asking that some of the older kids come later in the night and let the younger kids have the earlier sessions. If you can only make it earlier, that is fine, you are welcome to swim then. Get out there and get some last minute donations! The prizes for top fundraisers were sent out last night. Here is a recap:

1. Overall top fundraiser on USC will receive a new iPod Nano with video capability. I'm jealous cause I want this!
2. Top fundraiser in each age group will receive a $25 gift card to Target!
3. Each swimmer participating have a chance to win a raffle prize
4. USA Swimming provides awards for reaching certain fundraising milestones. Every participant gets a certificate. Everyone who completes 100-200 lengths gets a pin. If you raise $500-$749.99, you get a USA Swimming T-shirt. If you raise $750-$999.99, you will receive a USA Swimming towel. If you raise over $1000, you will receive a USA Swimming bag!

The money raised from the Swim-a-thon goes to support USA Swimming and USC. Get out there and get people to sponsor you!

2) For those in the advanced group, if you have not yet gotten a pair of tennis shoes to wear in the pool, please do so. If there is 1 piece of equipment that you get and need (besides cap, goggles and swim suit), it is shoes! We are focusing a lot on our legs right now (as if you haven't noticed!) and kicking with shoes on helps to strengthen the small stabilizing muscles as well at the large muscles. It is also impossible to kick improperly with shoes and move forward. So please, go to Target or Payless and get a $10 pair of shoes to wear in the pool if you don't have an old pair of tennis shoes at home.

We have been doing a great job at practice. We are swimming very well and we need to keep it up! See you at practice!

-Coach Matt