Archive for the ‘Latest Team News’ Category

Wel­come! Infor­ma­tion is now is avail­able for our fall sea­sons! Please click on “Infor­ma­tion for poten­tial mem­bers” and read through the infor­ma­tion, as well as “Fall 2010-Winter 2011″ infor­ma­tion to learn all about our pro­gram. Please con­tact us if you have any questions!

234 – 567-4291 or Caroline@PiranhaAquatics.com

Happy Swim­ming!

Coach Car­o­line

I am proud to announce our two strength and con­di­tion­ing coaches for the 2010 – 2011 swim season…Leslieann Strain and Jason Greenamyer! Leslieann will be at prac­tice 3 – 4 days a week and Jason 1 – 2. I am very con­fi­dent in their abil­i­ties to direct the dry­land part of our pro­gram to give our ath­letes an opti­mal train­ing envi­ron­ment. They will be focus­ing on tech­nique and cor­rect form first and fore­most, which matches with the philoso­phies of our pro­gram. Their back­grounds in var­i­ous ath­letic envi­ron­ments are sure to pro­vide an inspir­ing and cre­ative work­out for our athletes.

Bios for both Coach Leslie and Coach Jason are avail­able under “Coach­ing Staff”

On com­pet­i­tive swimming:

Value and role of com­pet­i­tive swim­ming as a sport…the Head Coach’s Thoughts

by Car­o­line McDermott

As a cur­rent swim coach and a for­mer com­pet­i­tive swim­mer, I have started my pro­fes­sional career already involved in the admin­is­tra­tive side of the com­pet­i­tive Amer­i­can sport. I have had the oppor­tu­nity to coach and work admin­is­tra­tively with a wide-range of com­pet­i­tive swim­ming, from the col­le­giate level down to the begin­ning swimmer.

In the course of my pro­fes­sional career, I have cho­sen to focus on the youth aspect of com­pet­i­tive swim­ming. I am pas­sion­ate about com­pet­i­tive swim­ming and feel it is one of the best sports in which an indi­vid­ual can choose to par­tic­i­pate. I have focused mainly on the value and life skills it pro­vides for America’s youth. It is here I feel I can be most influential.

Although com­pet­i­tive swim­ming is not as widely rec­og­nized as other sports such as foot­ball or bas­ket­ball, it has been gain­ing more and more recog­ni­tion within the United States and is typ­i­cally given pos­i­tive pub­lic­ity. The role mod­els for swim­ming are highly ath­letic, avoid ille­gal drug use — both with nar­cotics and per­for­mance enhanc­ing drugs — and are seen in a pos­i­tive light — break­ing records, defy­ing obsta­cles, and above all show­ing extreme perseverance.

These val­ues are essen­tial for today’s youth to see in role mod­els and expe­ri­ence for them­selves. From the first day of prac­tice, these ath­letes expe­ri­ence the devel­op­ment of life skills such as work ethic, prompt­ness, set­ting goals, accept­ing per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity, lead­er­ship, self-confidence, and self-reliance, as well as chal­leng­ing them­selves to accom­plish feats pre­vi­ously thought impossible.

One of the best parts of com­pet­i­tive swim­ming is that any­one can par­tic­i­pate. As long as a child knows how to swim, they can com­pete on the team. Pro­gres­sion at an indi­vid­ual rate is empha­sized, and achieve­ment is purely indi­vid­u­al­ized. Indi­vid­ual suc­cess is cel­e­brated — a best time, refin­ing stroke tech­nique, mak­ing a national cut, or even just learn­ing how to dive.

Com­pet­i­tive swim­ming has health ben­e­fits as well. The United States is plagued with the child­hood obe­sity epi­demic and swim­ming offers a pos­i­tive role in this bat­tle. Prac­tices are held daily. Trained, pro­fes­sional coaches cre­ate work­outs that are care­fully cal­cu­lated to improve aer­o­bic and anaer­o­bic devel­op­ment, and the risk of injury is low. Increased phys­i­cal activ­ity com­bined with a pos­i­tive learn­ing envi­ron­ment helps develop a pos­i­tive self image. Addi­tion­ally, swim­ming is one of the few sports where you can par­tic­i­pate for life.

In this unique sport, no one sits the bench — it is a com­pletely indi­vid­u­al­ized sport that encour­ages team­work, unity, and a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment con­ducive for learn­ing. Our coaches are trained pro­fes­sion­als, and we expect excel­lence from our ath­letes. The val­ues and roles taught through the sport of youth com­pet­i­tive swim­ming will stay with our ath­letes for the rest of their lives.

SWIM PARENTS

Pub­lished by The Amer­i­can Swim­ming Coaches Association

5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200

Fort Laud­erdale FL 33309

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The Nature of a Judg­ment Call

Guy Edson, ASCA Staff

For nearly every deci­sion regard­ing age group swim­ming devel­op­ment there is lit­tle or no sci­en­tific evi­dence for mak­ing a deci­sion one way or another. How then can a deci­sion be made and who is best suited to make that deci­sion? In most cases, the coach is best suited to make deci­sions about age group swim­ming devel­op­ment. That is why a club hires a coach — to coach and make deci­sions. Addi­tion­ally, most clubs, through the Board of Direc­tors, give the coach the author­ity to make deci­sions. This author­ity is usu­ally expressed in a con­tract or in a writ­ten job descrip­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, it is some­times given only ver­bally and as Boards of Direc­tors change unwrit­ten author­i­ties also change plac­ing the coach in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. It also needs to be pointed out that a coach needs the free­dom to make an error in judg­ment on an occa­sion with­out fear that he will lose his job. Peo­ple learn from mak­ing errors. John Kennedy said, “An error doesn’t become a mis­take unless you fail to cor­rect it.” Judg­ment errors rarely result in a long term effect of pre­vent­ing an ath­lete from reach­ing their ulti­mate ath­letic goals.

Sit­u­a­tion: A par­ent of a 10 year old wants their child to swim with the 12 year olds (who are doing 2000 — 3000 meters a day more than the 10 year olds). The par­ent points out that their 10 year old is faster than some of the 12 year olds? The coach dis­agrees. Although there is no evi­dence he is aware of that says it is bad for a 10 year old to do 5000 meters a day he still does not want a 10 year old doing 5000 meters a day. Why? Based upon his expe­ri­ence of coach­ing of age group swim­mers, he feels that young swim­mers need new chal­lenges from sea­son to sea­son in order to stay moti­vated and need a steady pro­gres­sion of increased work load. He has seen young swim­mers who do too much too soon drop out of the sport before they have a chance to reach their full poten­tial. He has even seen it hap­pen to swim­mers in his pro­grams early in his career when he gave up try­ing to edu­cate a par­ent and allowed a swim­mer into a group they should not have been in. He says it doesn’t mat­ter that they are capa­ble of doing more work, what mat­ters is they are given tomor­row at the expense of los­ing today and they lose the chance to be the leader of 10 year olds and all the fun of being with chil­dren their own age.

Why would a par­ent dis­agree? Each of you may have your own rea­sons but the rea­sons I hear most often are “My child wants to be with the older swim­mers to do more work…my child wants to be a state champion…my child is bored in the 10 and under group.” Two com­ments: I am always sus­pect of whether or not the child truly wants it or if they are just reflect­ing what Mom and Dad really want. Young swimmer’s try so hard to please their par­ents. The sec­ond com­ment is, there is a dif­fer­ence between want and need.

How does a par­ent decide when a 9 year old should go to bed? Is there con­clu­sive sci­en­tific evi­dence that says a 9 year old should go to bed at a spe­cific time or sleep for a spe­cific num­ber of hours? There are prob­a­bly guide­lines writ­ten down some­where but no defin­i­tive answers. The child WANTS to stay up until 10:00 but you, as the adult, make your judg­ment based upon what you feel are the child’s NEEDS and your expe­ri­ence. Quite sim­ply, this is a judg­ment call and the par­ent is best suited to make this decision.

Dr. Ken Low, direc­tor of Action Stud­ies Insti­tute, a think tank focused on adap­tive intel­li­gence, says that one of the most dis­turb­ing trends of the 80’s was the strip­ping away of peo­ples free­dom within insti­tu­tions to make judg­ments. Peo­ple are given rules and not allowed to use their own pow­ers of rea­son­ing to make excep­tions when excep­tions are due. We need coaches in this coun­try to have the free­dom and the Board-given author­ity to make judg­ment calls on age group devel­op­ment issues. This is how new ideas are formed. This is how pro­grams progress into the future.