Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Anthony Swim Team Dominates the League!

For some reason in our small town of 2,000+, what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago still makes the paper, but today's news does not! So I am posting here in my blog what SHOULD be getting published in our paper. We live in Anthony, KS, about an hour southwest of Wichita. No one really knows how many people live in Anthony, but the last census showed about 2400. Given that, I think you will be mighty impressed that our swim team boasts around 40 swimmers!
Our first meet got rained out. Just after the warm-up lap, the thunder started. Thankfully, they called it before the bottom fell out, and that "bottom" lasted ALL day. When we finally got to swim in our first meet last Friday, our strength was apparent to our parents, the other teams, and OURSELVES! I think some of the swimmers were really surprised at how well they did. The most impressive swim of the day was Heather Moore's butterfly. She did the entire length of the pool without breathing, which helped clinch her first place finish. As a 14 year-old, this is Heather's first year swimming (or is she hiding something? :o) and I'm amazed that she not only has beautiful strokes, but the speed as well.
I must also praise the following swimmers who have this season discovered the proper breaststroke technique: Brandon Clarke, Bailey Clements, Leslie Struble, Zach Duwe, Hope Clarke, Heather Moore, Elizabeth Francis, Veronica Morris, Estin, and there are a few more on the bubble who just need a bit of tweaking. Most improved definitely goes to Kayleigh Clements, who is improving every day in breaststroke and will definitely be a top breaststroker before long.
Our second swim meet was yesterday, which was the "relay meet" in Kiowa, KS. Basically, the entire meet is done in relays. They swim a backstroke relay, butterfly relay, breaststroke relay, etc. and medley relay. Each swimmer can swim six relays, so some of our 8-and-unders and 9/10 year-olds get moved up to swim with older swimmers. The meet is pretty fun, but also hectic for coaches. Somehow, our entire group of 9/10 girls missed their free relays and they were allowed to swim with the boys. That was interesting, as we had four lanes of Anthony swimmers swimming at the same time!
We have two more meets this week, and then semi-finals and finals next week. So far, we have won team overall both meets. I am announcing to the swimmers this morning some rather shocking news that might change our dominating power. Our swim league has no stroke judging. So you practically have to swim the wrong stroke the whole way or pull on the lane rope to get disqualified. Since the beginning, I have taught the proper legal stroke techniques, but some have not "gotten" it. In the rest of our meets, I will be personally disqualifying any swimmer 9 or above who does not do a legal stroke. This will make our points go down, but it will raise our standard to where it needs to be. There is nothing worse than seeing a really good race, where the winning swimmer is doing an illegal stroke! Not in MY swimming pool!

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