Blue Team Practice

M-Th  5:45-7pm; Sat 9-10:30am

Hugh Convery and Scott McIntyre will coach blue team this year.  Tentatively Hugh will be coaching the practices on Tuesday and Thursday and Scott will cover Monday and Wednesday.  Blue team swimmers who utilize the Saturday practices will join in with Gold team.  New 7 and under swimmers should attend two practices weekly.  Older and returning swimmers should attend two to three practices weekly, while nine and older swimmers should attend three or more practices weekly. 

Each practice will start with 30-40 minutes of dryland exercise.  All swimmers should arrive with appropriate clothing for indoor or outdoor activity, especially good shoes.   These activities could include running, calisthenics, tumbling, agility drills, motor skill development, team sports, or free play. 

 

Attendance

In general Blue swimmers should plan to make 2-3 practices a week.  During times that swimming is the only physical activity they are doing; swimmers should come more often than the minimum.

If you are going out of town for an extended time (a week or more) we can often arrange for your swimmer to go to a couple workouts with the local USAS team where you are staying. 

Blue team swimmers who are sick should not attend practice. 

Meets

While “competitiveness” is not a major concern for the blue team, competition is very important.  It’s a great teaching opportunity allowing swimmers to learn about focus, performance skills and good sportsmanship and with the proper perspective it’s lots of FUN!  For this reason, we will focus mostly on small local meets in dual meets for the Blue team.  Looking at this year’s calendar blue team swimmers should attend the following:

Inter-squad meet                      October 7.

ABSC dual meet                      October 27.

Saturday fun meet                     November 11(tentative).

Woodie B. Invite                      December 1-3.

Saturday fun meet                     January 20.

Saturday fun meet                     February 17.

DeKalb Aquatics dual meet      March 3.

Divisional Champs                    March 23-25

Equipment

Blue team swimmers should have a practice suit, team suit, and team cap (if they wear a cap).   Try to use their team suit only for competition.  Competition suits should be comfortably tight, plain Lycra suits (no leg or bodysuits).  All swimmers should have a team suit before our first dual meet at ABSC.  Coaches will distribute caps at meets to swimmers who need them and then we will bill your escrow $4 for latex and $14 for silicone.  You may also want to purchase a team warm-up team parka or other team apparel.

For equipment, blue team members only need training fins.  You may also want to purchase your own kickboard

Our supplier is Friends Unlimited.  They have an on-line catalog that you can get to from our web site.  They will have a team outfitting Tuesday Sept. 12.