Happy New Year! It’s wild to think the majority of our swimmers only have 7 more weeks of the season. It’s absolutely flying by. A pair of things I wanted to show gratitude about this week: More kids than I can ever recall brought me gifts over this break. The thoughtful cards, the gift cards, the sweet treats---there was so much. Thank you all for considering us gift-worthy this season. Coaching youth sports is a constant pendulum swing from “it’s just swimming, it shouldn’t be that serious” to “Sorry mom...

Two Updates On the Top Dryland is off through the end of 2025, we’ll resume in 2026 ‘Tis the season for missed meet deadlines. Three deadlines occur before Christmas. Distance Challenge (12/20), Storm Winter Classic (12/23), and Waukesha (12/23). PLEASE commit your athlete with a yes or no before you get bogged down with holiday activities and forget! A Pair of Contests It’s time to announce a pair of contests for our swimmers! Regional Cap Design – Back again this year, we’re looking for creative, artistic minds to design the...

Fall River Reminder A quick note that while we might need to utilize Fall River a bit over the break, we won’t be doing the Tuesday nights at the River as planned until at least January. We’re back to the early winter schedule for Tropical, Cyclone, and Hurricane. Sun Prairie Boys High School Swim Youth Night The budding yet fun rivalry that is Sun Prairie East vs Sun Prairie West continues this Friday at Sun Prairie East. This coincides with Youth Night, an event co-hosted by the two schools. There...

Buckle Up The content kept piling up for this one, so relax and take this one in over a hot chocolate tomorrow as you debate why we continue to exist in a state this cold and unforgiving. This one has a lot (1200+ words--yikes), but it’s all pretty important. Last Monday’s Parent Meeting Thanks to those that dropped in for our Q&A session on Monday. The crowd was small, but the conversation was great. Being able to gather around a table and discuss all sorts of points in a small...

Meet Fueling It seems like the most regular educational piece we’re needing to deliver is that on nutrition for athletes. Pre-meet, post-meet, between events…all of it. Not to be one of those “back in my day,” folks because frankly—I grew up in Appalachia and ate way too many Little Debbie snacks and drank too much Mountain Dew as a child—but, I knew when I was looking at a nutrition facts label, what I was looking at. Health classes hammered that into our heads. I had a few swimmers read the...

The Culture We Set One of the things that separates us from the very largest teams in the LSC is a feeling of community. While we come from several different zip codes and represent many high schools, our kids aren’t strangers. Nor should our parents be. Before COVID, the vast majority of our parents would plan their away meet hotels together, would carpool together, would sit together at meets. Even if they didn’t recognize a parent, they’d recognize the Storm name and they’d scoot over a bit to make bleacher...

Packing for Meets Like the battery of a cell phone left outside in January, an unprepared swimmer will drain quickly during a swim meet. We saw that a bit this weekend at MAC, with a cold pool deck catching kids off guard. The energy it takes to shiver is energy they won’t have to swim. It’s why you see NBA players with warmups on when on the bench, or Olympic level swimmers wearing a full warmup, shoes, and hats in the ready room before they compete. A swim bag should...

Winter Registration is Here! Only 10 days remain in the fall session. It has absolutely whizzed by. Returning family registration opened today. A couple things to note: pool access looks very different from last winter. Last winter we were preparing for the UW Health facility, a beautiful pool but one that was 60% more expensive than any of our other facilities while being the smallest and having no spectator access. Because of the limited time available this year plus the costs associated with it, we elected to forego that pool...

The Changing Leaves A bit of this is plagiarized from the Head Coach at Delta Aquatics (with her blessing of course), but it could not be more appropriate. We’re in that wonderful fall time now of peak fall foliage. But when you look closely, trees of the same species right beside each other might be in totally different stages. Some haven’t begun to turn, some are giving the beautiful oranges and reds that we love, while others still started changing long before the others. The same can be said for...

Storm Social Events While swimming is the biggest part of this team, a sense of community and belonging, making social connections is the framework that makes it all work. Kids will find that extra gear when they’re safe among friends. Families are more likely to help something grow when it’s more than just another sports team. We cultivate that culture through our actions in the pool and our events outside the pool. So while you might think a bowling or skating outing sounds small in the grand scheme, they all...