Michian Marlins Swim Club Weekly Announcements for week of 10/20-10/26

John VanDriessche

Dear Marlin Families.

Practice Schedule

Penn High School

Splash 1 & 2: Monday and Wednesday 6:00-7:15

Splash 3: Monday 6:00-7:15, Tuesday 5:30-7:15, Wednesday 6:00-7:15, & Thursday 5:30-7:15

Fins Flex: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 5:30-7:15

Fins Compete: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday, 5:30-7:15

*Elite AM: Monday & Wednesday 5:30-7:30

Elite PM: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 3:45-6:00

New Prairie High School

Splash: Tuesday & Wednesday 5:00-6:15 CST

Fins: Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 5:00-6:45 CST

Elite: Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 5:00-7:15 CST

Knollwood CC

Splash 1 and 2:

Monday and Wednesday 4:30-5:30 or 5:30-6:30

Tuesday and Thursday 3:30-4:30 or 4:30-5:30

Practice Notes:

No practice at New Prairie on Monday due to their Fall Break

No practice at Penn on Friday due to scheduled annual maintenance.

New Prairie families continue to use door N18 to enter the building. Penn families use door D. If you arrive at Penn and the gallery door is locked, please feel free to get my attention on deck to let me know. Here is the link for this week’s practices. Please share these with your athletes

GSI Goshen Rays Veterans Day Meet/Goshen Aquatic Center/Nov 9

Here is our entry as of this morning. All pertinent times and coach coverage will be listed in the Sunday email prior to this meet.

6 Week Pulse Check Survey

Thank you to the families who have been able to find time to complete our survey. If you have not done so, we’d very much appreciate taking a few minutes out of your day to complete. Here is the link.

A couple of great suggestions and ideas were posted in the survey which we will be working towards implementing. There were some questions/concerns listed that I can answer now.

Rumor heard Penn pool was shutting down over the summer. This is partially true. I was approached on 10/10 by a member of the school administration regarding work that needs to be done on the pool next summer. On 10/11 I met with AD Jeff Hart and the work is now tentatively scheduled to begin Monday August 4 and be completed by Tuesday September 2. I have not addressed this because I was not aware this information was public and it won’t be affecting us in any way until August.
Ribbons for DUNE SWSS. The meet host did not receive their order in time for the meet. We are expecting those to be delivered to us at the Skypoint meet. This should have been communicated and I apologize for not doing so.
The length of the weekly emails and can the new info be highlighted? Yes, this is being done already. Any of the topic headlines in BLUE included new info.

Coaches Corner

One of our survey respondents asked if it was possible to include a section in the weekly email that discussed my philosopy on various subjects. One of the topics suggested was event selection. Event selection has many variables and depends heavily on the meet/and where the meet falls on our schedule.

Championship meets. Events are selected based on the best chance for highest possible placing. Other factors come into play such as if two events are back to back or very close to one another.
Early season meets. The goal is to have athletes swim every event offered in their age group as often as possible. It is impossible to predict what a swimmer's best events will be once they fully mature. A great example of this is Tom Jager. His first national cut was in the mile and ended up being the best US sprinter of his generation.
Late season meets. The priority will be events athletes are close to making cuts. This does not mean we only swim that event on those days, it just means those events will be selected.
Athlete Choice-Once an athlete has a level of experience we ask for their input in what they would like to swim. This typically doesn’t happen until later in their high school career. That being said, if a younger swimmer asks to swim the 1650/400 IM, we will do our best to get them in those events.
Other factors. Early season meets when several options are available we try to pick events that have the longest time interval since a best time had been posted. We also want to make sure our athletes have a chance to have an IMX/IMR score so we chose events that accomplish that. If we have seen something in practice that has shown improvement we may select events where this improving skill can be highlighted.

If there are any other topics of interest please let me know. I have always believed the second most important job we have as coaches is to help educate our parents.

Practice Schedule Changes at PHM Site

After much consideration and conversations with other respected coaches I am changing the morning practice schedule for Penn High School. The high school team will now have scheduled morning practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. This opens a second morning practice for our Fins Compete Group. Once the high school season starts (the week of 10/27) We will offer practices on Wednesday and Friday mornings for the club from 5:30 -7:30

For two weeks starting on October 28 with the start of the girls high school season our PM practices will be a little crowded. During those two weeks the girls not swimming for their high school team and the boys in the Elite Group will be practicing from 5:15-7:30 PM. The boys high school season begins on November 11

All Splash Group Practice 10/30 Penn High School

Splash groups from all 3 sites will have a combined practice at Penn High School on 10/30 from 6:00-7:30. Among other things this practice will include some of our officials giving our athletes a tutorial on meet procedures. We will also be working on specific racing skills to help our athletes be their best at the Skypoint Invite.

We'll be handing out treats after practice to celebrate our Splash & Fins swimmers prior to the CON Skypoint Invite. Our "Spooktacular Swim Send-Off" will be a trick-or-treat-style exit down the Penn hallway for our swimmers following practice from approximately 7-7:30pm.

Parent volunteers are welcomed to dress in family-friendly costumes and will be asked to provide candy/snacks/treats for up to 100 swimmers. If you're unable to stay for the handout, you're also welcome to donate treats! You can sign up to donate treats by clicking on this link, Spooktakular Swim Send-Off.

CON Skypoint Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Nov. 1-3

The meet information has been posted to our website. All pertinent times and coach coverage will be listed in next Sunday's email. You can view our entry by clicking here.

USA Memberships

We will need all of our athletes that have not done so already, to renew their USA Swimming memberships. Here is the link. From my experience with my own athletes just purchasing the membership will initiate the transfer process.

If you qualify for the Outreach Program email me and I will send you the link you will need to use for registrations.

If you have any questions about any registration issues you can reach out to me or our team/business manager Kelly Laneman ([email protected])

Fall and Winter Meet Schedule/Dates of Meet/Location/Deadline to commit

This is our tentative meet schedule for the fall and winter. We may add meets if we find ones that fit our club’s needs. There will be two different dates listed with each meet The first date listed is the day(s) of the meet and the second date is the deadline to commit.

Swimmers wanting to compete will need to commit to those meets. The deadlines will be based on deadlines that were set in previous years. They may change once the meet hosts posts the meet information. When committing to multiple day meets, if the option to select the days you want is not available, leave a message in the notes section stating the specific days you would like to attend.

Some meets will be marked with an * and those will require swimmers to meet minimum time standards. You can view all pool locations on our website under the "Pools" tab.

DUNE Sweater Weather Swim Spectacular/Our Results

CON Skypoint Transit Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Nov. 1-3/Our entry

GSI Goshen Rays Veterans Day Meet/Goshen Aquatic Center/Nov. 9/Our entry

ELK Rudolph Romp/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Dec. 6-8/Nov.10

IA Tim Welsh Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Jan. 3-5/Nov. 3

CON IMXtreme Invite/Concord High School/Jan. 24-26/Dec.15

IA Jr. Superstar Invitational/Rolfs Aquatic Center/Feb. 15&16/Jan.12

CON Leisure Pools Last Chance Showdown/Concord HS/Feb. 28-Mar. 2/Jan.19

*IN Swimming Divisional Championships/TBD/Mar. 7-9/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Senior State/TBD/Mar. 13-16/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Age Group State/TBD/Mar. 21-23/Feb. 23

*USA Swimming Speedo Sectionals/IU Natatorium Indy/Mar. 27-30/Feb.23