Athlete & Parent Meetings (7:30 p.m.)

Please check sportsYou for links to our Athlete (Monday) and Parent (Tuesday) Zoom meetings.

Quote of the Week

Each player asks three questions every day of their coach:

Can I trust him?

Is he committed to excellence?

Does he care about me?

Clinton Merrick "Clint" Hurdle

Glenn Mills

Team USA's Glenn Mills (1980) is a video guru.  Wife Rachel is Bob Bowman's assistant at Arizona State University.  Glenn's a very busy guy, but he found a few minutes to share with us!

Quote of the Week

Adversity is a university.  Get a degree while you're there.

Jack Easterby

Linda Ely

We lost a wonderful lady last week.

She was so very patient and caring.

Her middle child, Morgan, was our district backstroke champ back in '94.

Please keep the Ely's in your prayers.

Linda Louise Lamkin Ely Obituary

Fall Preview Update

Below are some updates on the earlier Fall Preview post.  Please refer back to that for more info.

Mrs. Button and I met via Zoom with Glorine & Rowdy yesterday.  We didn't connect with Gage, but plan to have him involved as a senior captain as well.

Community Service 

Captains will get in touch with Kari B to find out what we can do for the Birding & Nature Center.

Again, if you know of organizations who can use that energy, please let a senior know so we can go to work.

Fundraising 

We now have four (4) dozen kickboards for yard signs.  Mrs. Moya has offered to supply the other materials (zip ties, glue, wooden stakes, etc.) for the project.

Captains will put together that supply list so we'll be able to have everything we need in time for the pool work day.

RankOne 

Please check your status in RankOne.  If you are still "red" and don't know why, contact Trainer G ASAP.

If you know you're missing paperwork, the link on our athletics site is here 

If you know someone who plans to swim/dive this year that wasn't on last year's roster, please have them email me ASAP!

sportsYou 

We haven't added anyone new to our sportsYou group lately!

Please let folks know how important this is!

I'm especially concerned that our incoming 7th graders aren't getting our info!

Please make sure athletes & parents are using this:

Meetings 

Our athlete Zoom meeting will be on Monday, August 31st at 7:30 p.m.

Our parent Zoom meeting will be on Tuesday, September 1st at 7:30 p.m.

I'll post those invite links on sportsYou as we get closer to those dates.

If you need to sign up with Zoom, get started here

Pool Work Day 

Our pool work day will be Saturday, September 5.  Let's try to get started around 8:00 so we can be finished by noon.

Since fewer folks are traveling during the pandemic, the captains figured we'd have plenty of folks in town over the Labor Day weekend.

Our "labors" will involve setting up the breezeway for dry-land training, adjusting our lane rope connections, straightening the equipment room, constructing yard signs, and a few other odds & ends.

Practices 

The plan is to start limited (3 per week) high school practices after Labor Day.  Expect regular schedule (5/week for high school & 3/week for junior high) to commence in late October.

Meets

Our meet schedule is slooooowly coming together.

Once our district coaches have met/voted, we'll know when/where our district meet will be held.

Our spring District 27-5A meeting did not take place, but Brazosport HS's coach Adam Collins just let me know they're working on getting a Zoom scheduled soon.

The Brazosport Invite in early December is still on our schedule!  We've invited Coach Collins to bring his team over to Bay City if we're able to host some time trials meets in September & October.

The junior high schedule is a bit more complicated.  We were to join a fall league with schools from Alvin, Angleton, Brazosport, & Friendswood ISD's with meets in November and a championship in December.  I'm waiting to hear if that plan is still "on".

Quote of the Week

Why be a champion jumper or a special team member

in any sport, if you cannot climb or swim?

via Wikipedia

Georges Hébert

Today's Sentinel

Pick up Today's Advocate

Pick up Sunday's Tribune

Fall Preview

First, please remember we are in a very fluid situation and some of the info below could change soon after this post!

I'm just hoping to give y'all a little guidance so we can plan for the upcoming school year and swim season.

Returning seniors, you're going to be taking charge of a lot this year.  Are you ready?

Community Service

The Birding & Nature Center can use our help.  I will ask Kari & Leon to give us guidance so we can do some work for them (while following the guidelines on virus protection).

Our community is hurting.  We have energy they can use.  If you know of organizations who can use that energy, please let a senior know so we can go to work.

Fundraising

The Button's have donated two (2) dozen kickboards for yard signs.  To keep this project rolling, our seniors will watch a short video, then line up a few materials (zip ties, glue, wooden stakes).  Throw in a little labor, and voila!  Yard signs!

Y'all can decide how much to charge for rental or purchase of each sign.  Since we'd like to extend the opportunity to our junior high swimmers/divers, along with community sponsors, we'll need to buy more kickboards as we go along.

I'll let y'all figure out what to put on them.  Swimmer name for athlete?  Logo for sponsor?

RankOne

Please check your status in RankOne.  I've starting putting together HS & JH rosters and am seeing plenty of "red", meaning we need to catch up on paperwork!  Link on our athletics site is here

If you know someone who plans to swim/dive this year that wasn't on last year's roster, please have them email me ASAP!

sportsYou

Our "instant" messaging app for BCHS/BCJH Swimming/Diving is sportsYou.  Much of our communication can be done via this method.  Please make sure athletes & parents are using this:

Meetings

We'll have Zoom team and parent meetings later this month.  I'll post that info on sportsYou.  If you need to sign up with Zoom, get started here

Pool Work Day

We should find a Saturday morning in late August or early September and spend a few hours setting up the breezeway for dry-land training.  We'll also need to get our lane ropes set up for "yeter" training and straighten up the equipment room.

Practices

The plan is to start limited (3 per week) high school practices after Labor Day.  Expect regular schedule (5/week for high school & 3/week for junior high) to commence in late October.

Meets

There is plenty of uncertainty here!  The UIL is not permitting larger invitationals this year.  That means we'll be shut out of several meets we might normally have attended.

We will find alternatives!

We may try to hold several time trial-type meets on Saturday's in September & October.

The first could be as early as September 19, kind of a Blue/Gold Open meet.

Dr. Marshall Scott III

At last night's school board meeting, Dr. Scott expressed his support for our swimming programs.

Below is a link to the video of the board meeting.  Jump to the 1:55 mark to hear his comments on the pool situation.

7/20/20 BCISD School Board Meeting

Thank you Dr. Scott!!

Valiant Pool

Today, various stakeholders met to discuss issues surrounding the Valiant Pool.

The two (2) biggest short-term problems with the pool are a) the stability of the pump room, & b) the cost of operating the pool.

The City of Bay City will discuss proposals at their upcoming regular city council meeting on Tuesday, July 28.

Between now and then, all parties agreed that gathering more information would be necessary before a decision could be made about the status of the pool.

The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. on the 28th.

Awards

There is still no word on our banquet video, so I'll post a portion of the transcript with our special award recipients for the 2019-20 season:

We finished 4^th in the district meet and managed a top-twenty finish at the region meet.  Seven (7) of our nine (9) girls were first-year swimmers.  I’m very proud of the way these young ladies performed this season.  They took care of business in the classroom and at the pool. 

Our Outstanding Girl Swimmer this year was not only outstanding in her individual events, but she was also a key to our relay success at district and region.  Congratulations to our 2020 Outstanding Girl Swimmer, Glory Vargas.

The guys were 3^rd in the district and 17^th in the region.  Eight (8) of our ten (10) guys were freshmen and sophomores.  They pushed each other in workouts and it really help make our relays strong for the championship season. 

Our Outstanding Boy Swimmer was a regional finalist in his two (2) individual events and on two (2) of our relays.  He’s a distance specialist who puts in the most mileage on the team.  Congratulations to our 2020 Outstanding Boy Swimmer, Matthew Brooks.

Mrs. Button did a fine job with our divers this year and was recognized as the District Diving Coach of the Year for the second straight year.  Our Outstanding Diver was the District 27-5A champion and finished 9^th at the region meet.  Our 2020 Outstanding Diver is Ashton Wallace. 

Our final honoree is a swimmer who is versatile enough to help us in any event at any distance.  I know, because in his three (3) years on the team, he’s competed in just about every high school swimming event.  We didn’t have any seniors on our boys’ team this year, but, as a junior, he provided some much-needed “senior” leadership.  He’s a great teammate and is extremely coachable.  Our 2020 Laurie Bell Fighting Heart Award recipient is Jordan “Rowdy” Wright.

...but wait! There's more!

This post just about wraps it up for the 2019-20 high school swim program.

I asked Coaches Werner and Kalisek about the banquet video (originally scheduled for the 23rd), but didn't get a date on when it would be posted.

I will let y'all know when I know, so keep an eye on sportsYou!

I'll shift over to the Marauder Aquatics blog for a while.

I won't post there nearly as much as you've seen here in the past couple of months, though.

Please remind your folks that we can always use more officials!  They can get started at the NFHS.

Friday's post was supposed to be the last of the USAS videos I'd post.

However, the preview of a Kathleen Baker video reminded me of how quickly things can change in our sport.

Since this video was posted a year ago, plenty has changed in Team USA women's backstroke!

Teenage sensation Regan Smith broke both the 100 LCM (:57.57) & 200 LCM (2:03.35) backstroke world records last summer.

Today's suggestion:


Here's how Baker has been coping with the shutdown:

“I go on a lot of hikes. I run a lot of sprints. My boyfriend is a marine and he has a nice gym in his garage I can lift weights at,” she said.

More here