Believe it or not, short course championship meet season is here. And in Tennessee, this season is even more hectic as the school seasons are coming to a close as well. All this means that Excel swimmers will be competing in no less than 9 different championship meets.

While this can be a bit confusing for all families, it can be intimidating for those who are new to the sport. To help all our families navigate the convoluted pathway through our championship meets, we have created the Excel Championship Meet Guide to assist you all in choosing the right meets for your swimmers.

As always, your coaches will be the best resources for end of the season guidance. 

This weekend, we are hosting our final regular season meet for the 2024-25 short course season. So far, it's been the most successful short course season we've had for the full team. 80% time drops in any meet is great progress, that does still mean that 20% of the races were adds. While our coaches celebrate our team's successes, that doesn't mean that we are okay with any swimmer walking away disappointed.

Success in swimming can be measured in multiple ways but the scoreboard is the most obvious. While some adds are expected and totally okay, there are others that are complete heartbreaks and confusing. How a swimmer reacts to disappointment is crucial to their swimming development. The trick is to find the window of appropriate emotional response. Extremes aren't helpful at all. Total apathy towards swimming will guarentee do disappointments but will lead to low motivation. Complete obsession will result in increased dedication but emotional devastation with bad swims. Dedication paired with appropriate expectations is the goal.

Swimming World's Michael Stott does a great job of walking through this in "Dealing With Disappointment."

All swimmers will deal with setbacks, how they respond to them is what determines whether these obstacles are ultimately successes or failures. 

USA Swimming's Virtual Club Championship 

Heat Winner: Place in the top three swimmers in your age group for number of races won throughout the year. This award tends to favor those athletes that are attending meets, swimming a lot of events, racing hard but most importantly, improving throughout the year.  Winners will receive a "Heat Winner" bag tag.
IM Hall of Fame Level 1- Attain a Southeastern Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.
IM Hall of Fame Level 2- Attain an Age Group Sectionals Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.
IM Hall of Fame Level 3- Attain an NCSA Junior National Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.  

Our Weekly Update for 1-10-25 has been released so check it out! You may have noticed that we are receiving intros from a wide variety of sources. Olympians, SEC Champions, officials, swim moms and vendors are just some of the folks who have made an appearance. If you are traveling and want to send us an intro from a unique location, we'll be sure to include it. Interested in seeing where they all come from so far? Check out Excel Aquatics from around the world below!

Looking for information on any of our coaches? Check out our Coaching Tab the website. If you have questions for a coach this will help guide you-

NCSA Junior National Qualifiers:  20
Age Group Sectional Qualifiers: 34
SES Winter Championship Qualifiers: 106
USA Swimming Virtual Club Rankings (~3,500 Teams):

SES Teams National Rankings
Excel #41
HSA #66
TNAQ #74
Ensworth #127
NAC #171

SwimCloud.com Excel Rankings in the SES Conference (73 teams):
8 & U Girls 1st 8 & U Boys 1st
9-10 Girls 1st 9-10 Boys 1st
11-12 Girls 1st 11-12 Boys 1st
13-14 Girls 1st 13-14 Boys 1st
15-18 Girls 1st 15-18 Boys 1st

IM Hall of Fame: Achieved a cut in every event:
Level 1: SES Level 2: Age Group Sectionals Level 3: NCSA Junior Nationals
Owen Akard
Boston Boyd
Jack Calhoun

Gavin Chen
Caroline Dealy

Keaton Hubbard
Zaki Ibrahim
Campbell Johnson
Zara Kocak
Brooklyn Lewis
Chris McMurtray
Silas Rowe
Henry Schopfer
Charlie Turner

IM Tough Qualifiers
8 & Under  50 Fly, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 200 Free & 200 IM in the one season

Abi Brownyard

Savannah Copa-Brzozowski

Maya Foerster

Emily Georgieva

Walker Lewis
Bode Mello

9-10 100 Fly, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 200 FR, 500 Free & 200 IM in one season
Hayes Akard

Owen Akard

June Buffington

Elizabeth Conti

Parker Dyatlovitsky

Arden Ford

Katy Francisco
Lily Furlong

Harper Grant

Lincoln Kelly

Emma Nguyen

Abby Simkins

Hannah Simkins

Ryder Smith
Silas Rowe

Violet Vitale

Heat Winners 

Our partners are supporting us so please consider visiting them soon!