Hello Barracudas,

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and are as excited to start the competition part of the season as the coaches are! I know the long weekend throws everyone's schedule into a tizzy (is today Monday, Tuesday or Wednesdaybecause I've thought all three at various times today!). It does create havoc with going out of town and people lacking computer capabilities but several emails have been sent regarding declaring your attendance at meets. Unfortunately, by Monday, there were many swimmers not declared. Fortunately it is a practice meet and no other team is competing so we have the opportunity to get the kinks out.

Just to give you an idea of how long it takes to prepare heat sheets, as a HS coach with a team of 30-35 swimmers, it would take 2-3 hours to put people in events, then enter the data into the computer, print out the necessary paperwork. Right now we have a team of 150 swimmers, which means it takes 4-5 times as long. When you are working a full time job and coaching, this becomes an especially onerous task. Because Coach Jonny is doing a great deal of the heat sheet since he can't be at practice (that whole full time job thing), and I'm handling the on deck duties as we have 5 new junior coaches (who are doing a great job, btw), it is imperative that you declare your swimmer by Sunday at 4 PM. That way both of us can look on Swimtopia and see what changes are needed and have enough time to set up relays before we have to combine our entries with the other team. Once they are combined, the swimmers have to be placed into the correct lanes in Meet Manager...another task that has to be done. Then everything is printed and distributed. Now that I've talked about how time consuming making heat sheets are, if anyone would like to learn how to do the computer side of things, let us know!! You would be more than welcome!

Starting next week though, because it is a real meet, the Sunday by 4 PM declaration time will be mandatory. There will be no exceptions (obviously illness may force a swimmer out of the meet), but no one will be added. Phone calls, texts, email, pleading, begging, tears will not work or be accepted. Now, a huge amount of money might - I dropped a chunk of cash this weekend on a sick dog, new refrigerator, and plumber for flooded basement, so massive amounts of money might get your swimmer in...just saying...that's what it will take...gigantic amounts! So go ahead and declare now, for all the meets - your swimmer will get to swim, you will save yourself big bucks not paying me, and you will make us extremely happy (especially Coach Jonny) as knowing who is swimming will make the job much easier and more accurate.

Make sure you do this on the Swimtopia website, not the app, as it can't be done on there. That way, if there is technology glitch and entries get lost, Swimtopia can recover them for us if you do this on the website.

On another note, Mark Schilling from Gold will be out tomorrow morning to give a swim clinic and David Mail from Stingrays will be there on June 6th. It is always great to get stroke technique work from those professional coaches. They both run great clinics so it'll be very beneficial for your swimmer to attend.

See you on deck!!

Go Cudas!!

Coach Hess