Hi Poolsharks -

Welcome to Week #2! Thank you to each of our parents & families for a great start to the season - May is very busy and you all are doing a great job of getting your kids to practices as much as possible. Thank you also to our Age Group Captain families for starting to send out & organize Age Group get togethers - these are a lot of fun and a great way to get to know each other (parents & kids) as we head into Meet season.

Thank you to our 2026 Poolshark sponsors who help bring our team and season come together - we have new backstroke flags this season thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.  Please make sure to take a look at who our sponsors are and support these local businesses!

We will continue to start each practice with our wooden deck team talks & sharing that the MOST important goal that guides all of our practices & meets is to be a GREAT TEAMMATE.  Which means, 'because I showed up today,' my team & my lane group got better!  

Our 3 expectations that go along with this: 

• listen ASAP (biggest reason is safety around water, follow by coachability)
• do your best (including being proactively kind & welcoming)
• body respect - emphasizing what bodies can do (our legs are getting STRONG for kicking) rather than how they look.  Any comments that are not body respectful will be immediately addressed by the coach.  If a child comes home and says this happened (but coach did not notice or hear) - please let me know asap so we can work to respectfully address and resolve.

Private lessons: Our coaches are ready & available to give private lessons - HERE is the info with coach contacts.  

Sports = Lifelong Friendships - Thursday's practice was a super special day for me - as my closest childhood friend, Dr Sarah Miller Cook, was in town for her sons UGA graduation the next day.  She knows how much I love coaching our team at Venetian and made time to stop by our practice and give a little pep talk to our 9-12's.  I shared with the kids that the BEST part of swimming was making lifelong friendships.  Sarah and I met as 6U's in the Niagara LSC District meet bullpens throughout Central NY (she is from Buffalo, I am from Ithaca) and we ended up being co-captains together at UGA where we won Georgia's first National Title.  (My youngest child Olivia - middle name is Sarah after Sarah!)

6 Things if you only have 2 min:

1) stormy weather affecting practice - make sure you have your Remind set up for last minute weather cancellations etc

2) 15 meter lake lanes vs 25 meter racing lanes

3) Big Buddy application HERE (deadline goal is this Tues May 11)

4) Time Trials & Team Pic (declare & volunteer HERE)

5) Taco Tuesday this week - YAY!

6) First 2 weeks are hard - lets stick with it!

GO POOLSHARKS!

In Detail if you have more time:

1) Stormy Weather - This week's weather looks promising, but not 100%. It will be our coldest week of the season - the water temp last week was 74 degrees which is actually relatively warm for the first week of swim team. This week looks a little bit warmer, but we will still be doing dryland & teambuilding for part of practice.  Starting week 3 and peeking at the 10 day weather, I expect to be in the water the majority of each practice as weather allows.  If the weather looks unsure, please try to stick around practice rather than drop off - coaches will take care of swimmers during storms in the dance hall / bathrooms etc, but ideally parents are around to help reassure their children and take them home if possible. Make sure to be on our Remind text alerts for practice cancellations/updates.

Remind swimmer last name A - L HERE

Remind swimmer last name M - Z HERE

2) 15 meter Lake Lanes vs 25 meter racing lanes: except for Starfish (always in racing lanes 1 & 2), groups shift courses every other day. The shorter lanes allow for more focus on technique & drill work while the 25 meter lanes can work on building up swimmers endurance. Either distance will help all levels of swimmers with their growth.

3) Big Buddy Application - HERE - We are going to match up 100% of our Starfish & Poolsharks ages 4-8 with a Big Buddy (ages 9-18). Our buddy program helps build connection, community, and friendship between swimmers outside of their own age groups while also growing the leadership skills of our bigger kids.

We have 40 Poolsharks signed up so far for this role and need 50 more to support our ~90 Starfish & Poolsharks that are ages 5-8.

We encourage ALL Poolsharks who meet the guidelines below to consider applying to be a Big Buddy this season and supporting our team in this leadership role.

Big Buddy Guidelines

*Age 9-18

*commit to participating in at least 3 out of 6 of our regular meets (time trials + duals)

*cheer on Little Buddy during meets

*say Hi to Little Buddy when you see them at practice/at pool

*write & give an encouraging note for each meet Little Buddy participates in (can give a small treat if you’d like but this is not expected)

*Big Buddy cannot already be on the full time paid Poolshark coaching staff (although volunteer coaches may be Big Buddies)

4) Time Trials - declare & volunteer YES / NO by next Thurs May 14th

We will take our team pic around 5:15 pm on this day - Time Trials is usually are heaviest attended meet of the season.

How to declare & volunteer: Go to our home page HERE > Meet Info & Key Dates > Signup Calendar > go to May 19 Practice Meet/Time Trials & click on GREEN icon Meet Entry > Edit and for each of your children select 'attending this meet' or 'not attending this meet'

*Events for Time Trials (Tues May 19th- all swimmers should arrive between 4 - 4:30 pm, we will start warmups at 4:45, meet starts at 5:30, will end ~ 7:30). This is a school night so if you need to leave early - please put in your notes when you declare YES, that you only want to swim in the medley relay & the freestyle - those will be over by ~ 7:30 pm.

Event #0 - this is for all of our Starfish not quite ready to do a full 25 meter swim independently. This will be the ONLY race our Starfish will do.

Medley relays - we will try to get as many kids as possible into a medley relay. We will NOT do free relays except for our 6U's (they only do free relays, not medley).  

Freestyle - 100% of our Poolsharks will be entered in the 25 / 50 free

IM/fly/back/breast - we will not do any IM's, fly, back or breast during time trials, so our meet can end at a reasonable time for a school night.  

Here is what a typical Home DUAL Meet timeline looks like: (Time Trials will be shorter and end by ~ 7:30).  

Timeline:

4:00 - 4:10 all swimmers arrive at the pool in this window and ages 4-14 go to sit with their age group bullpens

4:15 - 4:25 warmups for our 6U/8U kids

4:25 - 4:35 warmups for our 9-10 & 11-12

4:35 - 4:45 warmups for our 13-18 kids

4:45 - 5:15 opposing team Warmups

4:55 team meeting & team cheer on wooden deck

5:05 swimmers head to their bullpens

5:05 Timer Meeting

5:15 6U relays & 7-8 relays get ready

5:17 National Anthem

5:30 pm Meet Begins

9:30 pm Meet Ends

5) Taco Tuesday: Tacos from Las Tres Salsas will be offered again this Tuesday May 12th.  Menu to buy in person:

6) We will talk to the swimmers about these first 2 weeks of Poolsharks may be the hardest for most of the kids and that is okay - swimmers are in cold water / air, around new people, challenging their bodies & minds to muscle movements and activities - recognizing this - the coaches will continue to encourage the kids and remind them that they 'can do HARD things!' and this is something important and good to work towards, and be proud of.

Please continue to reach out with questions/concerns and we look forward to Week 2!

Have Fun, Race Hard, Do Your Best, Go Poolsharks!

- Coach Beth

404.630.1440