OOOOh, I'm all excited... just submitted the entries for the Friday meet -had to do it all properly using Team Manager Software.... both of our other swim teams are so small that we only usually have to do this for the end of season championships, so it's the first time I've used it.
anyhoo, it was fun to learn and pretty nifty -I made our winter team buy Meet Manager for next year -too many other teams want to go the electronic route and are starting to get pissy with us for being all paper oriented, so i'm glad i've lost my cherry in that area.
The good news for us is... We may actually stand a chance of being pretty awesome! We are a tiny Middle School as we are part of a k-8 school, so have only 150 middle school kids, compared to 600 average. But our kids get swimming class every week from kindergarten -other kids only start swim class in 6th grade. And swimming is a sport that fits well with our philosophy of co-operative learning -working together to help each other improve their own skills rather than just being out to be better than the others.
So, we have a team of 19 kids who can really swim and love it. We heard that another middle school has 22 kids (out of 550) and most of them are newbs, on the team becuase their parents view it as free swim lessons. I'm sad that these kids are only coming to swimming in 6th grade and obly doing it because it's free, but I'm also optimistic for our team because they always get beaten at these IM sports things basically because they're outnumbered. Here, they have a chance of representing their school. doing well and feeling good. we aren't going to win, but for once, we may not be distant last. and we have enough swimmers in each event that being outnumbered should not be an issue.
I still wish all kids got swim class from kindergarten, though. I had all my kids in the pool by 6 months, and before that, we did deep baths with controlled submersion. I was terrified of them drowning either by not being able to swim of being scared of the water and panicking.
We have no 8th-grader on the team, but a couple of 5th graders are "swimming up". we may be the youngest team to. we'll still rock, though. and we have bright orange caps with pandas on them
