Zeeland Invite and South Haven Invite Info

Zeeland Invite:
Bus Leaves - 10:15 am
Warm-up - 10:30 am
Meet Start - 12:00 pm, diving will start at the start of the 200 Free.

For the Zeeland Invite on Friday, we will be leaving from our pool at 10:15 am. Warm-up starts at 10:30 and swimming starts at 12 pm. The diving will start when the 200 Free starts...after a 10 minute break after the 200 Medley Relay. The diving will run at the same time as the swim meet. We should be done around 3. Swimmers and divers do not have to ride the bus home after this meet. The meet is at the Zeeland West High School Natatorium located on 100th St. north of Riley.

South Haven Invite:
Diving:
Leave Time: ?????
Warm-up: 8:00 am
Diving starts: 9:30 am
Swimming:
Leave Time: 10:15 am
Warm-up: 11:00 am
Meet Start: 12:00 pm

For the South Haven Invite on Saturday, the swimmers will be leaving from our pool at 10:15 am. Warm-up starts at 11 am and the swimming starts at 12 pm. The divers will be leaving early Saturday morning for an 8 am warm-up and 9 am dive start. The meet should be done around 4. Swimmers will need to have their own rides home from the meet. The meet will be held at the South Haven High School pool, 600 Elkenburg St., South Haven, MI, 49090

These meets will be a great opportunity to practice swimming well on Friday, then coming back and doing it again on Saturday...just like the conference and state meets. I am looking forward to seeing you guys go fast this weekend!!!

Our quote that was posted yesterday is...

Don't measure yourself by what you accomplish, but by what you should accomplish with your ability.

We talked a bit yesterday about what that may mean for us. I certainly hope that at the end of this season it is not said of us that we had potential.

We are on the backside of the hill as far as Christmas break is concerned. Enjoy your last few workouts and the meets this weekend. We have a great schedule when we come back from break and before we know it, we'll be at the conference and then state meets.

Enjoy the day,
T

Pics from the Pasta Party

Thank you very much to Dan and Vicki DeJonge for opening up their house and feeding all the boys.

Crazy Winter Weather

The snow just keeps coming.

You and your parents need to make the decision if you can safely make it into practices over break. It sounds like the snow is going to continue off and on through most of the week. I plan on being at the pool for all scheduled practices (except Monday morning) as I live only a mile from the pool but for many of you, it will not be advisable to travel.

The absolute first priority is for you guys to be safe.

If you do come in for practice, please drive very carefully and take your time.
T

WMR Results

Click the above link for results for the WM Relays. Great job today guys. Everyone swam great!!! Winning four relays out of twelve is awesome.

We'll see you all Monday morning ready to roll at 7:30.
T

All Done : (

Well,... I think we finished the season with some great swims! To see the results you can click here and it will take you the results page. Again, I just wanted to say that I am really happy with how everyone swam and I hope all you girls are too! We had a great season and I hope you all got a lot out of it.

Due to the snow day yesterday, we will be having our party on Thursday, January 15th at 3:00. There will be no one in the pool so, bring your suit and we will have some fun in the pool. After that, we will go to the cafeteria for some snacks and awards and such. Again, if parents can come, I would love it!

Remember, if any of you are interested in age group, practice starts on Monday. It will be $30 if you plan on doing volleyball, $50 if you don't do volleyball. I hope you consider it.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this season what it was. Jenny for driving us with great timing and directions, Todd and Billie for doing the system, and everyone else for driving the girls all over and being such a great support for them when they are tired and cranky from the tough practices.
Great job girls~ Coach Kellie~

Results vs Northview

Click the link above for results. Great meet tonight. A lot of best times and some pretty surprising swims.

No morning practice tomorrow. Hopefully we'll see you all at 3:00 or 2:30 depending on the weather.

GRIT!!!!
T

Varsity Food and Drink

The varsity boys are running low on drinks for after practice. We have enough to get us through tomorrow and most for Friday. If we could stock up for break that would be great. If you have any drinks that you would be willing to donate, please drop them off in the pool office or send them with your swimmer or diver. Juice boxes, Capri Sun, chocolate milk, etc. works great. I do have some cups if the drink is not in individual servings.

Thanks to the parents that already donated items. It is much appreciated.
Thanks
T

Varsity Info

Reminder that Thursday is a 6:00 pm meet start. The bus will be leaving at 3:45 pm. The boys are to wear a shirt and tie (no jeans, sweatpants, or warm-up pants).

There is talk of having a pasta party with a movie on Friday night. The captains are working on putting that together.

Saturday the swimmers will be leaving from the pool at 11:30 am. Warm-up starts at 12 and the meet starts at 1:30. The meet should last about 3 hours.

This will be a bit of a recovery week to set us up for a great Christmas Break stretch of practices. We need the recovery because this is when our muscles and engines get a chance to rebuild themselves stronger than they were before.

Remember our new quote that is above the office...

The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.

The team needs your best every day.
Have a great night and rest well,
T

Middle School Girls - Age Group Info

Any middle school girls swimmers that would like to continue swimming with the Hamilton Winter Age Group Team are welcome to start next week Monday. A practice and meet schedule can be found by going to
www.hamilton.k12.mi.us/pool/AgeGroupCalendar.pdf
For those girls that are planning on playing middle school girls volleyball you may swim until your volleyball season starts on January 26. The cost for girls to swim until the volleyball season starts is $30 – made payable to Hamilton Age Group. You will be able to participate in three meets, all held at home on January 3, 17, and 24.

For those girls not playing volleyball, the cost is $50. You will be able to participate in all of the age group swim meets including the season ending conference meet.

Please let Coach Talsma or Coach VanderKooi know by this Friday, December 19, if you plan on swimming with the age group team. If you have any questions, feel free to call or email Coach Talsma at 269-751-2459, 616-886-4303, or etalsma@hamiltonschools.us .

Divers – Check with Coach DeRoos on opportunities to continue diving.

Results vs Allegan

Click on the title for the results. Great job tonight! Not bad for a first meet. We need to continue to work on closing out each race and closing out the meet. Overall I am very impressed. For some of you we now know that you should be going a little faster during practice after the times you put up tonight. We need to continue to look at each day as an opportunity to enjoy ourselves swimming and get faster!!!!

Looking forward to two good practices tomorrow.

Tell me what this means at tomorrow afternoons practice and you'll get a reward...

Res firma mitescere nescit

T

Lots of Important MS Info

OK,... I have a lot of information to give out.
Tomorrow- Our meet tomorrow is at the Aquatic center at the usual time. ( I hope the girls have done this enough times to know what is going on. :)

Conference- Diving (prelims and finals) are being held on next week Wednesday at the Jenison pool. Warm ups will start at 2:30 so the girls will be dismissed from school early (about 2) and they will be taking a van due to the fact that there are only five girls. The actual meet will start at 4:00. I really have no clue about what time they will be done due to the fact that we have never done ALL the diving in one night. I would prepare for a long night.

Swimming will be held on Thursday night at Jenison. The girls will be dismissed from school at about 12:45 warm ups start at 1:30-we have the early time : / We will be taking a bus and the bus will take us home unless parents sign a swimmer out (just like an away meet). The actual meet starts at 3:00 and I am going to take a guess and say we will be done at about 8 or 9. (Again prepare for a long night.)

Poll- I am stuck, so I am going to take a poll about our end of season party. We have two options:

1) We have the party at 3:00 after school on Friday the 19th. We would have goodies and maybe swim for fun a little bit. Then I would pass out awards and a little talk. It would probably go until about 5 or so.

2) We have the party at 5:00 and have pizza and more of dinner type stuff. Probably no swimming unless everyone REALLY wants to. Then we would do awards and talk and stuff. This would probably go until 7 or so.

No matter what time we decide on, I would love and hope for as many parents to come as possible. Parents and MS girls swimmer and divers please feel free to vote. So, ... please leave your choice and any additional comments or opinions in the comment section with your initials so no one votes more than once. Thank you.

Varsity Boys' Monday Info, etc.

We have late practice tomorrow. We will hopefully get in the water at 5:15 and be out at 7:30ish. By now parents that pick their swimmers up probably realize that we usually run a couple of minutes behind in getting out of the pool. Use the time after school before practice wisely. If you have homework to do, work on it then. If you do not have any homework and would like to help run the meet by timing or learning the Colorado or Hytek systems, that is great as well.

Our first meet is coming up this Thursday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone lay it on the line in a meet. We can talk about going fast under any conditions and pushing ourselves for the team but Thursday, the rubber begins to hit the road. Please be on deck by 5:15 with your suits on ready to roll. There are usually things around the pool that need to get finished up before we start our warm-up and we need to have a little talk before those things start.

West Michigan Relays Info - December 20:
The meet is at Jenison High School Pool at 2140 Bauer Rd., Jenison, 49428.
Diving Warm-ups Start: 8:00 am - Coach VW will let you know what time your leaving here.
Diving Starts: 10:00 am
Swimmers leave our pool: 11:30 am
Swimming Warm-up Starts: 12:00 pm
Swimming Starts: 1:30 pmThe meet should last between 3 and 4 hours. It is always tough to tell how long the meet will take. This meet is a great opportunity to swim around a bit and have fun going fast!

We had 15 boys at practice this morning, which is great. Hopefully that group continues to commit to making morning practices work. It takes discipline to wake at 5:00 in the morning and still get the required sleep in. This morning we were able to get a good 3,800 aerobic yards in before most of your classmates were even awake. Mornings are a great opportunity to put in those extra yards and will really pay off. We need to have a good aerobic base to work off from for the rest of the season to go as planned.

THE UNIT
One of our core covenants for the year is The Unit. This means that each one of us is willing to give to the team the best of ourselves for the betterment of the whole. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that this also means that you take care of yourself and make appropriate decisions outside of the pool as well. Dressing appropriately in cold weather (including a hat), getting enough sleep, proper nutrition, wise choices, and time management are all examples of what we can do as individuals to make our team better. With your decisions outside of the pool, I want us to ask ourselves if what we are doing is hurting the team...or better yet is what we are doing making the team better.

I had a great time Saturday in our coaches advancement session thinking about the philosophy and ideals of our program. One thing that was brought up is that if we ignore things that are detrimental for our team, we are encouraging those behaviours to continue to happen. I want us as a team to not ignore teammates not doing what is best for our team. This is easy to say but hard to do. This is not just the job of the coach or the captains. This job is for all of us to keep each other honest.

I am hoping to post new quotes or sayings every Monday throughout the season that we can think about and apply to our own team. I am kind of cheating this time as I had used this one in an earlier post before our season even started but you can look back at what was said then by clicking here. The quote is...

If we are to be champions, we must rehearse daily chamionships within ourselves.

We can easily say these words. However, this is something that we need to practice every day. We can not expect to show up three months from now at our big meet and have everything go perfectly if we have not practiced in this manner every day. This is a challenge for all of us. We are not champions by default. It is hard to be the best at something and it doesn't happen by chance. We must work hard and practice perfectly for it to happen!

LEGACY
GRIT
FEARLESSNESS
UNIT
EVOLUTION
ENJOY

T

Varsity Boys' Saturday Practice

Practice for the varsity team will be 7-8:30 am this Saturday. We may have a special guest to watch our practice...we'll wait and see.
Legacy, Fearless, Unit, Grit, Evolution, Enjoy.
T

FOR A PRIZE...

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

- Tell me what this means at practice tomorrow and I'll give you a prize!!!!

Meet info

Our meet tomorrow is at Grandville High School. Click here to see a map. Hope this helps.
Coach Kellie

Varsity Boys Info

This was supposed to be up last night but...

Pictures are Tomorrow (which is now today, Tuesday) at 3:00. We will be wearing khaki pants, gold t-shirt and warm-up jackets.

Morning practices start next Monday. They will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 5:45-7:00 am. Parents, is there a breakfast schedule out there? If you have or are willing to put one together, please let me know.

We will have practice this Saturday. I have a meeting 9am-4pm so I am not sure when it will be. More than likely it will be 7-8:45 am.

Our first meet is coming up quickly. If there is an event or two that you would really like to swim, let me know and I will see what I can do.

This Wednesday we will be spending the first part of practices developing our core covenants. I feel that this is very important for us to do as witnessed by the fact that we are giving up practice time to do it. Please take this process and the resulting core covenants seriously.

I will have new copies of the goal sheets for everyone by Tuesday or Wednesday. I would like to have them back to me by next week Friday.

Continue to remember your team mates throughout practices. Your practice can be made much more bearable (maybe even fun) if you encourage your team mates and look after each other.

One thing I forgot to mention in our meeting but we will talk about more later is the National Power Point Dual Meet. Last year we finished 3rd in the nation with a point total of 4,138. As one of our team goals I would like to hear from you all how high a total you think we can put together. I have a number in mind but would like to hear what you guys think.

West Michigan Relays Info - December 20:
The meet is at Jenison High School Pool at 2140 Bauer Rd., Jenison, 49428.
Diving Warm-ups Start: 8:00 am - Coach VW will let you know what time your leaving here.
Diving Starts: 10:00 am
Swimmers leave our pool: 11:30 am
Swimming Warm-up Starts: 12:00 pm
Swimming Starts: 1:30 pm
The meet should last around 4 hours. It is always tough to tell how long the meet will take. This meet is a great opportunity to swim around a bit and have fun going fast!

We have had 4 great practices so far and we are looking forward to many more.

Be tough!!!!!
T

Important Announcements

Middle school girls-
Our meet tomorrow will be held at WO South High School. You can see directions on our school web site on the last page of the directions for West Ottawa. (Riley to 152nd street). Hopefully we won't have any lost parents again : )
I told all the girls, but just to say it again we will be done with practices from now on at 4:30. No more dryland.
We will start tapering next week on Monday. More info about that to come later!
Keep up the great swimming girlys!