Good evening everyone,

Just to confirm, yes, we have morning practices the days of meets. For "Away" meets practice times remain the same. However, for "Home" meets, like tomorrow (Thursday, 6/26), practices run a little earlier. 

Morning Practice Times, Home Meets ONLY:

• Group A: 8:30 - 9:30 am
• Group B: 9:30 - 10:30 am
• Dev. Group: 10:30 - 10:50 am

Home Meet vs. Nazareth, June 26, 2025

• Location: Walter's Park Pool
• Arrive: 5:00 pm
• Warm-Up Starts: 5:10 pm

Meet Expectations Summary

• No one should leave until we give our last cheer after the last event, we shake hands with the other team, and we ALL have helped clean up our area. After we clean and tear down the meet, we all leave as a team.
• We strive to have every swimmer compete in at least two events in every meet, four maximum.
• Everyone must stay in uniform (team suit) until the end of the meet.
• Swimmers' Events: Please do not call, text, or email asking for them. They will be emailed at 4:00 pm, posted on the Swimtopia app, hung at cork boards at the meet, and marshallers available to help swimmers get to their events on time.

*** No need to read further, the details above are a good summary of what you need to know. However, if interested, feel free to read further.***

Rationale & Team Approach:

We sit together, cheer together, swim together, and win together.

Everyone counts and everyone contributes. From lane 1 to lane 6, all have something positive to contribute, and all make a us a better team.

If you need to leave a meet early, just let me know in the "NOTES" of the attendance section for meets, NOT the day of. This is a PARENT DECISION for a FAMILY OBLIGATION. It is NOT a swimmer one, as EVERYONE is expected to stay the whole meet in uniform (their team suit).

I know…, swim meets are long; they last about 3.5 hours. However, think of the swimmer who sat there all meet long, cheering her heart out, only to see her team leave when it’s her turn, swim in a quiet pool, finish, and no one is there to cheer for her. It’s a really cruddy thing to do.

Everyone must stay in uniform (our team suit). Often times we may call for swimmers to be in another race; or they forget, or they didn’t realize they had another event. Plus, like any other sport when you’re sitting the bench.., no one would ever tell a football or basketball coach, “Hey coach, since you’re not going to play me the last part of the game, I’m going to get changed. See you later.” If swimmers are leaving early or changing early without prior approval, it’s disrespectful to their teammates, their coaches, and the other team.

It is absolutely our belief that swimmers who sit together, swim together, and cheer together, perform better together.

When swimmers don't show up at meets, it affects many more kids. One swimmer who misses a relay, means that the other three potentially don't get to swim. Often we can make quick substitutions, but when the number of changes starts to become overwhelming, not only do we start to run out of people to substitute, but it screws up the marshallers, judges, scorers, coaches, and swimmers. If one swimmer does not show up without informing us, then the changes to the meet line-up snow balls, and potentially, for every one swimmer who doesn't show up, it can potentially result in 9 changes we need to make off-the-cuff during the meet. If several kids don’t show up, the coaches start prioritizing and when we get to the last few, often it results in no other choice but to scratch the event and/or swimmer.

Additionally, the major strength of any successful team is not just how "fast" your kids are or how "good" the coaches are at training swimmers, but how well organized we are. Successful teams are able to more consistently get their swimmers to attend meets, to arrive on time, to get the right swimmer, to the right block, at the right time. If you can't do that, it doesn't make a difference how "fast" or "good" you are. The score of the meet reflects that organizational acumen as well.

Swimming is a team sport:
If you put Michael Jordan in his professional prime on any high school basketball team, the performance of that one player would likely result in a trip to a state championship game. In fact, if you put even just one professional level athlete on any high school basketball, football, soccer, or baseball team, it would have a dramatic impact on how that team performs. However, in swimming if we had Michael Phelps on our team, we still might end up with the same record, even when we were winless in some seasons. The reason being is that any one swimmer’s impact is limited. For example, in the PennJersey League, a swimmer is limited to four events, which means the most points he/she can score is 16.25, or only 3.0% of the total. Even if we had four Olympic swimmers, their impact is limited to the age group they compete in, which represents no more than 20% of the total points needed to win. As a result, in swimming the team score truly reflects the total strength of the team, and not how “fast” individuals appear on paper.

See you on deck,

Coach Drake