Y State Rescheduled - More details from the meeting

Hi all,

I figured I should make this post to go over exactly what I heard in the planning meeting for Y State and talk about my thoughts. I apologize for just posting the new date and not much more information, I should have waited for a longer post like this.

Y State, for as long as I remember, has been a huge part of every season, and KCAC is full of swimming memories (good and not). It is a unique opportunity for our Y teams to get a real championship experience at a world class facility. KCAC has hosted many other high level championship swim meets outside of just Y State and high school meets; it's been the host of division 1 championships, Special Olympics, and many more to name a few. 

For our team, I've seen many of our swimmers qualify for Regionals and Nationals, make big drops in time, and most importantly create fun memories that last long after a swimmer graduates from our program. It is not the fault of our PSSA planning committee that KCAC had closed and will not reopen until after the 26th, and I would not want to be the one to make the hard decision to move the date. The meet director is a veteran coach for BYST and she has helped and given me advice several times through my start as a head coach. She was a coach back when I was swimming, and was someone who coached many Nationals qualifiers and even an Olympian back when he was an age group swimmer. All this to say, I do trust that each coach/volunteer on the committee had done their best to try for an alternate location on the same day, or at least a venue before Y Regionals. With close to 400 swimmers signed up, not many facilities in this state could hold a meet of the size of Y State, especially on such short notice. Snohomish was the first thought, but it is booked out. Many bigger high school pools in the area are also booked out. Horrible timing with high school boy's State and Districts on the horizon.

Ultimately, the decision came down to having the State meet later or not at all. (The 2026 Y State date was also set to be January 24th of next year in the same meeting). KCAC only offered 2 dates this year and the other one conflicted with many high school graduations. 

As a coach, I was really hoping to have anything on the 25th to keep our season progressing and to have that extra opportunity for our swimmers to get personal bests. For most swimmers, this meet could be the only championship experience they get each year (especially non dual-USA/Y teams).

The PSSA made a deal with Y-National to waive the sanctioned/championship meet requirement to attend Y Regionals given the circumstances.

If you do have any questions/concerns, please do reach out to me. Sorry that I passed along the PSSA email to a couple people, I hope that did not come across as being dismissive to real concerns. I think it is more appropriate for me to do the communicating with the organizing body with parent/team input fueling what I say.

I will be working on changing the seasonal plan as our taper and carbo-load plan are now not appropriate. We will resume practices tomorrow with a plan to taper for the last chance meets (or Y Regionals for those already qualified). As we have seen with the USA Olympic trials, it is very hard to have 2 peaks during a season, especially so close together. I am glad to see our swimmers doing so well with our recent meets despite those not being the taper targets.

It's been a long day, and I'm sure I am forgetting to mention something. Sorry if my message is a bit wordy, and again, please do reach out to me for questions/comments.

Thank you all,

Joseph Shelly