Rudgear Rats: Week of May 17th Newsletter

Upcoming Dates

• May 22nd - REST vs Livorna (home)

• May 28 - No practice  (Last day of school)

• May 31 - No practice (Memorial Day)

• June 2 - REST at YWST (away)

• June 12 - REST vs. WHO (home)

• June 16 - REST vs. WST (home)

Coach’s Corners

Wow! Time trials was an amazing success all things considered! Was it normal time trials? No. Was it our first time trials since 2019? Yes!

I’d like to first start out by saying a huge thank you to all board members, parent volunteers, and the rest of my staff for making this work. A lot of green blood, sweat and tears went into the planning and preparation for this to happen. THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!

It was our first “official” meet in a long time. Our swimmers have been putting up with hard workouts, massive technical changes without being able to put those to the test. Well, they got tested on Saturday. 

The results the staff and I saw blew us away! We had amazing swims from a time standard perspective, but most importantly a technique perspective. Every child raced hard and raced well. They had huge smiles to show everyone for all their hard work this past year and a half! As a staff, we couldn’t be more proud. 

With what we saw on Saturday, our future looks really bright. We can’t wait to see our next competition and the training coming up. 

Amazing job swimmers, we look forward to your future success! The staff is absolutely blown away by your performances. Keep it up!

See you at the pool,

Brian and Staff

Time Trials

We hear that the link to the time trial’s results is no longer working. Please see your newsletter email from May 17th for a PDF of the results.

New/Veteran Parent Buddies

We have so many new REST families which is SO AMAZING. We want to make sure that each of our new families has someone that they can reach out to with questions, Veteran families, you definitely don’t need to know it all to sign up to be a buddy - all you need is a welcoming, helpful attitude and a #BleedGreen heart! Veteran families (1+ years on REST), please  click here to sign up to be a buddy. (New families, once we have volunteers and you are matched, we will reach out to you with your buddy’s info.)

Team Suits

Be sure to pick up your team suits at Making Waves this week - stop by Monday-Thursday (please note that they are closed this Friday, May 21st).

If your swimmer needs a suit, it’s not too late to order. Stop by Making Waves in Walnut Creek to get fitted and then order via our team store (password: gorudgear). Be sure that you don’t order too small - while the suits should fit tightly you don’t want them so tight that your swimmer can’t get them on. If you’re unsure or between sizes, it’s best to order up a size with these suits.

If your swimmer’s suit fits too tight, no worries. Making Waves will do an exchange. Please email Sean Ryan at Making Waves ([email protected]) and he will work with you to get your swimmer the correct size. If you email and don’t hear back within 24-48 hours, please email Nicole Main ([email protected]) to let her know and she’ll help out with next steps.

Calendar Update

Our away meet with WCSC (originally scheduled for May 26th) has been postponed; WCSC is still working out some details with the city. We will update the calendars and include the new date in future newsletters when the meet is rescheduled.

Meet Declarations

You must declare your swimmer in or out of every meet. You can always edit your declaration up until the due date. You have until May 19th to opt in (or out) for the Livorna meet. 

1. Sign into our TeamUnify website (www.RudgearRats.com)

2. On the first screen that comes up after you log in, hover over the flag icon on the left-hand side of the screen and click “Team Events.”

3. Click the red Attend/Decline button for the  May 22 | Livorna & REST @ REST event

4. Click your swimmer’s name and use the declaration pull-down to indicate if they are attending (or not). You can also leave notes for the coaches (e.g., My swimmer wants to swim butterfly.); however, final say about events is always up to the coaches.

5. Click Save Changes at the bottom right of the page. 

You can also use the OnDeck app to manage declarations. See the next note for more info.

OnDeck

OnDeck is TeamUnify's mobile app. It’s free and it makes declaring for meets, seeing best times, etc. super easy.  Search “OnDeck” in the app store or via Google Play to download to your phone or tablet for free.

Make it a great week and GOOOOOOO RATS!

P.S. - Don’t forget to declare for the Livorna meet by Wednesday, May 19th!