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...

This Week’s Sermon: Short and Sweet Two things: #1 – Never, ever, ever use the SportsEngine app for meet signup. Countless times swimmers have been in wrong sessions, no sessions, or had admin errors when signed up on the app. Feel free to uninstall it. Use the website for everything, it’s why we attempted to make mobile-friendly buttons. #2 – I know folks have busy lives (and I’m long-winded), but please make sure you at least skim all the pieces in these newsletters. Example: we polled Tropical Storm families for...

Meet Recap There are always pros and cons to hosting meets versus going to someone else’s meet. It takes a lot more prep, including committee meetings, volunteer organization—tons of man (and woman) hours. As a coach, it’s significantly harder to be fully in the moment and watching races, because if something breaks it’s up to us to fix it (see: livestream). But, it does mean more of our kids come out and race, which is fantastic. And in our case, these meets become an excellent showcase of what our club...

Parents, 24 hours from now, we'll be knee-deep in heats of the 50 freestyle. It's time to start figuring out those final details for the Fall Kickoff. When Do I Get There? One of the overseen things on our website is where we keep the details for each meet. When you're on the homepage, scroll down to the Fall Kickoff event. Or, from the Event page, you can do the same. Click the title of the meet and a lovely little popup emerges. 1) Where to go --Pretty self-explanatory. Keep...

The First Sermon - Meet Selection Those of you who have been on the team a while have seen their share of my long form writings on random topics from siblings to the car ride home to intrinsic motivation. Rest assured, they don’t occur every week and not every one of them is applicable to all families. This week: the meet schedule. To start, a "History of Michael" tale. Young Michael, at the 11-12 age group, had just started swimming summer league in West Virginia. The relay team of himself,...

Getting Involved As we’re getting closer to our first official meet of the season, new families will start to realize the number of moving parts, the scale of our meets, and the wide variety of volunteers we have working to make a great experience for coaches, parents, officials, and swimmers alike. There’s a role for everyone, whether you’re a seasoned pro at swim meets or you’ve never seen one before this year. A few roles I wanted to bring to your attention: Officials – If you’re familiar with what the...

First Week of Practice I was remarking to Coach Erin who agreed---this is the *easiest* first week of practice I can ever remember. I don’t know if it’s super-skilled kids, super-amazing coaches, a lack of rodents in pools, or what---but everyone seems to be finding their stride really quickly this season! I hope you’re seeing it too--it’s made for a fun first week! Practice Woes Tomorrow We just got confirmation that Sun Prairie Schools are unable to staff both pools Thursday night. That’ll mean that anyone at SP West will...

Storm Forecast – Week Zero Eve - AKA Plan Bs Abound Week Zero We’re right on the cusp of Week Zero, and I’m already being given a reminder of the flexible nature of fall. Sun Prairie Schools management indicated that due to college kids leaving, they might have issues staffing some events. Boy, does that seem to be the case. I suspect that Week Zero is going to be cut in half. Tuesday, September 2nd - Week Zero – All Groups 6:20-7:10P at SP West 11-12 Tune-Up 7:10-8:05P at SP...

Fall Schedule Posted Given the limited cards we’ve been dealt for the fall (TPC Wisconsin getting some fall renovations, SP East Girls starting late), we’ve done a bit of adjusting from last fall. It means we do have ONE early PM group, Tropical Storm. We looked carefully at four different school district’s bell schedules, assistant coach staffing, group sizes, and other variables. So, Tropical will start at 4:20P daily at SP East; the rest of the groups going on after high school practices conclude. So long as *that* group isn’t...

On the Home Stretch We’re closing in on the final weeks of the season—already! We have SIX meets in the next 12 days, then we’re down to our state teams. If your swimmer is not participating at next week's Rising Stars Meet (Deadline today!!),McFarland, Regionals, or a state meet then their last practice of the season will be this week. Swimmers participating in Regionals or the McFarland Last Chance Meet will train through the end of next week. Storm Saves We’re continuing the annual tradition of offering a week of...