Rudgear Rats Newsletter: Week of June 23rd
Upcoming Dates
June 25 – 9/10 Social
June 26 – REST vs. LMYA (location change – now a home meet)
June 28 – City Meet Car Decorating
June 29 & 30 – City Meet!
July 1 – No Practice | 15/18 Rafting Trip
July 4 & 5 – No Practice
Link to full season calendar
TL;DR:
-special guest coach for the week: Coach Emma
-9/10s and 11/12s up for Coach Appreciation
-Thursday is Coach Ava Day
-Coaches have Sundays off
-Wednesday LMYA meet is now at home
-City Meet theme is TMNT
-mark your swimmer’s availability for Springbrook Pentathlon
-lessons are available (special edition with Coach Emma!)
Coach’s Message
Fellow Rudgear Rats,
It’s always important to check in with the team midway through the season. We are off to an incredible start this summer. With City Meet just around the corner, we are going to be bringing up the idea of goal-setting throughout this week. Next week, we will do a goal writing workshop at practice. These goals will be specific to the Conference Meet. Our league meet. The pinnacle of our season! Parents, feel free to help your swimmers brainstorm.
Thank you to everyone who showed up to Ocean Beach for beach day 2024. Shoutout to the Dohren family for hosting the parent social! Also, huge thank you to the Puzia family for hosting the Natalie Challenge at the pool. And a big thank you to the Maddison family for their support and leadership and the Abbott family for keeping this important tradition going. What an amazing weekend. Please, continue to embrace the Rudgear family and help keep these traditions alive. As coaches, we are proud to represent the Rudgear community. GoOo0Oo0oO Rats!
Coach Emma Sullivan
We have a special guest coach coming in for the next few days – Coach Emma Sullivan. Emma is a great coach! She is a 20-year-old college student who swam for Scottsdale growing up. She also swam competitively for the Sharks. Emma has worked alongside Coach Nick in the past. She is an expert with breaststroke – her specialty. She even won County in breaststroke in years past. A local legend!
Emma is going to help us out with some practices this week and she will also be offering some lessons. Click here to snag one for your breaststroker!
Coach Appreciation
9/10s and 11/12s are up for Coach Appreciation this week.
One day this week, please send your swimmer to practice with a card, a drink (our coaches love coconut water), fruit, a savory snack, sun screen, and/or simply a thank you for the coaches! Pick any day that week that works best for your family.
Click here to check out our coaches’ favorite things.
Click here to bring the coaches coffee or lunch. (We have a big staff, so we recommend teaming up with another family.)
Coach Ava Day – This Thursday
Coach Ava will be taking off for college soon and we are all going to miss her so much! She’s been a RAT, a Rat Packer, a Junior Coach, and an assistant coach and has done so many amazing things for our team. Let’s send her out in style by celebrating her this Thursday: bring her a card, drawing, treat, gift, etc. and show her how much we appreciate her and how much we will miss her.
Sundays Off
Our coaches work six days a week and we want to make sure that they are truly taking Sundays off. To this end, please do not reach out to the coaching staff on Sundays. We know it’s tempting to contact Coach Nick to talk about Saturday’s race; however, we want all our coaches to have a full day off so they can come into the next week rested and refreshed. If you have something important to let Coach Nick know about please reach out to him via email on Monday. You can also always reach out to our coach liaison, Tori Hill | [email protected].
Buddies
This week’s buddy suggestion is to bring your buddy a green-themed gift. Click here weekly suggestions for the season.
Adult Social – Thank You!
A great big thank you to the Dohrens for hosting such a fun social. We so appreciate you opening your home to the Rudgear parents and throwing a great party!
LMYA Meet – Home
The Wednesday’s LMYA meet location has change and it is now a home meet! Let’s show LMYA how we do it and GREEN OUT the pool deck!
City Meet Theme
Cowabunga dudes! This year’s City Meet theme is… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! For Saturday, grab your TMNT gear (turtles, ninjas, pizza, eye masks, anything green, etc). And for Sunday, we are doing something new: rock your RATS gear AND a tie – Rudgear will be keeping it classy wearing our SUNDAY BEST!
Springbrook Pentathlon – Please Declare
Springbrook (Coach Nick's team growing up!) has invited us to their annal invitational on July 14th - the Springbrook Pentathlon. In recent years, our team has not participated in any invitationals, so we know this concept may be new to some. While Rudgear hasn't done one in a while, invitationals are pretty typical within the rec swim community. Invitationals are different to our typical Wednesday and Saturday dual meets - more than two teams attend (in this case six teams) and not every swimmer from our team participates.
For the Springbrook Pentathlon, up to five swimmers from each gender/age group can participate; selections will be based on times, effort, and attitude. In order to be eligible for selection, swimmers must be declared in for this meet by Friday, June 28th. Please note, declaring in for this meet does not guarantee selection - it only means that your swimmer is available.
If your swimmer is selected, you will receive an email the week of July 1st. If your swimmer attends, you will need to pay an entry fee and work a job or pay a buyout fee.
Team Natalie Challenge
It was so amazing to see so many RATS show up and show out today for the Natalie Challenge! And a huge shout out to the Maddisons, Puzias, and Abbotts for making The Team Natalie Challenge such a great event.
Lessons
Lessons are available! We post all the coach’s sign-up links on our website (click here); however, it is the coaches’ responsibility to update their sign-ups, set prices, receive payment, etc.
We have 200 swimmers on our team, so please be considerate when booking lessons. We don't want one swimmer having three lessons per week and another left with none.
Please note: Swimmers may only sign up for one lesson per week with Coach Nick. If you sign up for multiple lessons for one swimmer, the earlier lesson will stay on his schedule and the remainder for the week will be deleted. Only team swimmers should sign up for lessons with Coach Nick. Rugrats should sign up with any other coach.
Let's Connect
Instagram: @rudgear_rats
Facebook: Click here to join our Facebook group
Let's make it a great week and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RATS!!
