Coach email #3 Recruiting, summer training and website April 19

Post date: Apr 19, 2013 7:19:4 PM

Dear swimmer and diver parents,

I wanted to catch you up with our team meetings this week. The two themes that we talked about are training and recruiting.

Recruiting first for the guys. We have 9 returning athletes committed to competing next year. We had 4 incoming 9th graders at the PLMS meeting. If all of them do make it next year, we’re still at 13 athletes and - as I told my athletes - we’re going to be the working hard and getting better regardless of our numbers but it’s a lot more fun with 25 - 30 athletes. Let’s compete! Parents or friends of Sam Nelson, Luke Orr, Adam Howe, Kevin Folley, Miguel Sarratud, Blake Ford, Conner Smith and Braidy Brooks, please encourage them to swim, to talk to me or to email me and let me know if they’re ready to commit. Their team sorely needs them! If all of these athletes were to commit, we would have a roster of 21 athletes and I feel we could be a force in the suburban conference. Ramy and Isaiah also need some new divers on the boards with them so, please, when you see someone doing one and a halfs or gainers on the diving boards this summer, or hear of LSHS students that are gymnasts, tumblers, skaters, wakeboarders or snowboarders, please send them our way. You have my email.

The girls have had a similar to charge to go out and recruit divers. So, Rebecca Davis, get your sister, Lauren, on board - pardon the pun - and with her the other cheerleader athletes. WE NEED TO BUILD A TRADITION OF DIVING AT OUR SCHOOL. These are points that we give to the other teams. I think with the girls numbers we are at a great starting point to be very successful, we just need to add improved technique and conditioning. I have charged the girls with thinking about being positive, being one team and dreaming big. There will be no limit to what our girls can accomplish this season if we do all those things, so don’t be afraid to dream big.

Second, training came up several times in our meetings. I have some athletes that train with the Blazers and this is a great thing. I have great respect and appreciation for the work that CJ and Mariah do for the Blazers and want my athletes that have already paid and committed to train with the senior and gold teams to train with the Blazers this summer. The important thing is that we’re swimming. All of us will be at the pool from 6 to 8 a.m. together, so Blazer Tiger swimmers, don’t be a stranger and drop by before or linger after to be with your high school teammate and coach. I also want to encourage you if you’re really excited about next season, are thinking about placing at conference, thinking about state or just dedicating yourself more to this great sport, to start swimming club. There is no substitute to swimming year round if you want to go places in swimming. A vast majority of top 8 finishers at Missouri high school state are year round swimmers; on the flip side, I just read a paper that looked at year round swimming by looking at athletes who made olympic trials: a very small percentage who make olympic trials had not been swimming year round for less than 10 years. Please email our Lee’s Summit Blazers coaches CJ and Mariah at cjbraykcb@gmail.com or m.hutchinson025@gmail.com, if you want are ready to commit to training more seriously with two a days practices and throughout the year. I’ve forwarded in this email information about their summer training program. Can’t say enough about the benefits of training year round. If you have any questions about your summer training, being a two sport (or three sport athlete) or juggling practice schedules, please email me so we can talk one on one.

Finally, I wanted to share with you our team website, TigerSwim.info , where you will find almost anything about our team including records, next year’s schedule, directions to pools, great instructional videos, photos, state qualifications and much more. Please visit and have your athletes fill out the form for the guys meeting or girls meeting that are linked if they haven’t already.

Thanks for all your support and enjoy a great weekend. Go Tigers! Coach David