MARCH 18, 2008

Well, we have basically made it through another short course season!
Silvers were a good meet for us and, with the completion of a long Gold
Championships, Dolfins retain our status as one of the top teams in
Adirondack with a 3rd place finish in women's, men's, and combined point
standings. We had a healthy share of gold medals earned this weekend
with many exciting swims in prelims and in finals. Alex Lednev won the
high point award for 13-14 boys and Bethany Powhida was the runner up
award winner for 13-14 girls. Last weekend, Katie O'Donnell had a
successful meet at the Speedo Championships on Long Island. We also have
a group of Dolfins who are continuing to compete as they now train for
the Eastern Zone Championships in Buffalo April 3-5: Grace Ayer, Haley
Goodrich, Tara O'Donnell, Bethany Powhida, Wyatt Pritchard, Erin Dewey,
and Lily Powell. Congratulations to our graduating seniors who attended
finals Sunday to be recognized by the Adirondack swimming community-Katie
O'Donnell, Jenna Melewski, Laura Vecchio, and Nate Foley. It was also
great to see some of our college swimmers who stopped by to wish us
well-Sean Kennedy (Geneseo), Paul Cafiero (NYU), and Derek DeLisle
(Columbia).

We will continue to train and I'm hoping our swimmers come to the
available workouts over the next 3 weeks. This week is limited because
AA is closed for cleaning, but the more practices our members attend, the
better shape they will be in when the long course begins the week of
April 21. We are hosting a 1 week clinic for brand new swimmers but
Dolfins will be on a much needed 2 week break before starting long
course.

I do have to bring up one problem that we experienced this year and it
was a real concern at Golds. We had a number of Dolfin families make the
decision to skip warm ups and bring their swimmers to the meet late. This
decision by parents has a negative impact on the effort our coaching
staff is making to provide a great program for our members. The "team"
philosophy our coaches are trying to instill in our swimmers should be an
important goal for our families and is undercut when parents decide to
bring their swimmers to meets late. The obvious benefits of the warm up
to prepare a swimmer for a race and prevent injuries is also set aside.
On a number of occasions this weekend, John and I spent a good portion of
the warm up period frantically searching for a swimmer whose parents
decided to come late. The 10&unders had positive check in and, if we
checked a swimmer in and they didn't make the session, they would be
excluded from the next day's events, so we were walking all over RPI
looking for them and enlisting other parents to help. We even had one
late swimmer get knocked out of the meet because of this. Our relay
cards have to be turned in before the meet begins, and I had sent out and
posted the relays to families, so when these swimmers were not on time,
we had to make last minute decisions to either go with the relay we had
planned and hope the swimmer made it on time, or change it and substitute
someone else. We had to cancel a relay that prevented three other
Dolfins from participating because a swimmer was a no show. The families
who faithfully brought their swimmers on time were the ones who were
affected the most because we were distracted and spent a valuable part of
the meet looking for swimmers who were late instead of concentrating on
those who were there. I have a feeling that these families who make
decisions to skip warm ups think no one else is affected by their
decision, but this is just not the case. I know that our Dolfin families
really appreciate what the coaching staff does for their children, but
this practice really undermines our confidence in knowing all families
are on board with our efforts.