Dear Swimmers And Parents Of Three Rivers Swim Club,

Three Rivers Swim Club Handbook 2016

Welcome to Three Rivers Swim Club! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to teach your children.

Overview of TRSC

Three Rivers Swim Club (TRSC) was founded in 1994 by a group of parents who were dedicated to developing swimming opportunities for the youth of Rome and Floyd County.

TRSC offers programs for young swimmers of various abilities, from those who can swim the length of a 25 yard pool to those who compete on the state and national level.

TRSC continues to be run by an elected, volunteer parent board. The current officers, board members and coaches are as follows:

TRSC Officers and Board Members:

Michelle Picon - President Angie Douglass – Treasurer Stephanie McElhone Beverly Coville Neal Jochimsen Julie McCormick Natasha McConnell

TRSC Coaches:

Brooks Coville – Head Coach Melissa Picon – Assistant Coach

The TRSC Board and coaches communicate parents and swimmers through e-mail.

If you have questions for a board member or one of the coaches, please e-mail Beverly Coville at [email protected] or Brooks Coville at [email protected].

If your e-mail address changes, please let Coach Coville know.

TRSC and USA Swimming:

TRSC is a Georgia non-profit corporation and is a member of USA Swimming. USA Swimming is the national governing body for amateur competitive swimming in the United States. Based at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, USA Swimming’s staff serves 59 local swimming committees (LSCs), 2500 USA Swimming registered clubs, and 220,000 registered swimmers nation-wide. USA Swimming’s website is www.usaswimming.org.

Benefits of Swimming:

Swimming is an ideal sport to develop high quality aerobic endurance and proportional muscular development. Swimming enhances flexibility and develops coordination. It is the most injury-free of all children’s sports and is a sport that one can enjoy into adulthood.

A solid ability to swim provides many opportunities to young people, both for personal development and employment. Good swimmers can go on to kayaking, canoeing, water safety, life guarding, scuba classes, as well as high school and college swimming. They are well prepared for Boy Scout and Girl Scout aquatic activities.

Teenagers with excellent swimming skills have the basis for further training that then allows them to find part-time and summer employment as lifeguards, camp counselors, swimming instructors, and coaches. Young adults with excellent aquatic skills may find they can put those skills to use in various civilian and military rescue programs.

At Three Rivers Swim Club, we strive to provide a program that instills discipline, time management skills, self-motivation, and the understanding that consistent practice and good technique pays off.

TRSC’s Track Record:

One can measure the success of a club in a variety of ways, not all related to the competitive success of its current and past swimmers. That said, it may be worth noting that:.

 Several TRSC swimmers have been Georgia age-group champions.  Two TRSC swimmers have gone to Junior Nationals.  Two TRSC swimmers have been ranked in the Top-16 nationally in various events  Several former TRSC swimmers have received college swimming scholarships.  Many TRSC swimmers have qualified for the High School State Championship.  One TRSC swimmer was a four-time High School State Champion  Three former TRSC swimmers have made the Olympic Trials.  Hundreds of TRSC swimmers have become excellent swimmers, confident students, and upstanding young adults.

TRSC Coaches’ Goals:

TRSC coaches are dedicated to building each child in their care into a highly proficient, self-motivated, generous, long-term swimmer. Sound simple? The proficiency is a function of the swimmer’s body awareness and control, efficient technique, distance per stroke, endurance, tempo, power, competitive fire…

The self-motivation is a matter of the swimmer getting so interested, personally, in the process of improving that she comes to “own” that process and take personal responsibility for it…

The generosity is about the swimmer learning to be kind and patient toward others--, including himself--regardless of current rank in the competitive arena…

The longevity of the young person in the sport of swimming is tied to such factors as fun, friends, steady progress, avoidance of overuse injury…

Administrative Items:

Weather Policy

Swimmers will be asked to get out of the pool if thunder and lightening are in the area during practice. Practice will continue on the deck. If an extended period of violent weather is expected during practice times, the TRSC practice may be canceled.

We will make every effort to let you know in advance by e-mail that practice is canceled, but please understand that this is not always possible. You may find out that there will be no practice when you arrive at the pool.

Drop-off Policy

When dropping off your child, please wait to make sure that at least one TRSC coach and two swimmers of the same training group are there before you leave.

If you are in a hurry and need to depart quickly, please ask a known parent who is also waiting to be responsible for your child.

TRSC policy dictates that all coaches must avoid situations in which they will find themselves alone with a swimmer.

As a result of this policy, if you are the first family to arrive after the coach, please wait until other swimmers arrive before leaving.

Parents on Deck during Practice

If you choose to stay during practice, please remember the following:

The pool area is the coaches’ and swimmers’ classroom. That means that once the practice is underway a lot is going on between individuals that is associated with learning.

Swimmers are learning from coaches, coaches are learning from swimmers, swimmers are learning from each other, coaches are learning from each other.

What’s going on is taking place on lots of different levels, only some of which is obvious.

As in any classroom, what the swimmer and coaches learn from each other depends entirely on the focus and rapport between coaches and swimmers.

If you stay during practice, then, please sit quietly on the two aluminum benches at the deep end of the pool.

Not sure how to behave during a swim practice? Imagine visiting your child’s math class.

You may not wander around the pool, interact with your children, give them technical suggestions, talk to them, or distract them in any way.

If you need to get your child out before practice is over, please speak with your child’s coach (preferably before practice) rather than interrupt your child directly.

Please keep the following equalities in mind about TRSC practices:

COACHING = TEACHING SWIMMING = LEARNING POOL+ POOL DECK= CLASSROOM SUCCESS=PROCESS ATTENTION=ALMOST EVERYTHING and, perhaps TRSC’s most important bit of philosophical shorthand,

T T T…………………………………………………………………….Things Take Time

Locker Rooms

The Rome High locker rooms are available for changing, showers, etc. However, please ask your child to bring his or her belongings back onto the pool deck. TRSC shares the locker rooms with others who are involved in afternoon and evening activities at the school. There have been incidents of items disappearing from the locker rooms.

TRSC Schedule Changes Due to High School Meets

During high school swim season, mid-October through mid-February, Rome High School holds a few meets during the time that TRSC usually practices. TRSC practices are canceled on those nights. We will send out the schedule and reminders as soon as we have the high school schedule each year.

Fees (2012)

 Annual fee: $125.00 - The annual fee of $125.00 is used to register swimmers with USA Swimming. Each swimmer must be registered each calendar year. If a swimmer is not registered with USA Swimming, he or she may not be in the water.

 Monthly fees: $90.00 per month for Intermediate, Pre-Seniors and Seniors. You only pay for the months of the year that your child swims. If your child is not going to swim for a month, please send an e-mail in advance to Coach Coville to let him know. Months will not be prorated. If your child swims at all during a month, your account will be charged for that month. Monthly fees are subject to a sibling discount, so the 2nd active swimmer in a family is $80/month, the 3rd is $70/month.

 Meet fees: Meets are pay as you go. Meets generally cost about $4.00 per event that your child swims.

Please put your check with memo line filled out (or cash attached to a note telling us what it is for) in the secure black box on the wall of the pool next to the door near the shallow end of the pool.

You may also mail your check to the following address: Three Rivers Swim Club P.O. Box 1151 Rome, Georgia 30162

Goggles

Good goggles help swimming ability. TRSC tries to keep a variety of good goggles that are designed for young faces in stock. Please wear one pair and keep an extra pair in your bag. Our goggles cost $15.00.

A complimentary latex TRSC cap is issued new members. There is a $5.00 charge for subsequent caps. Silicone TRSC caps are available through Friends Unlimited Swim Shop (see “Links” tabs of the club website threeriversswimclub.org)

Equipment

Year round TRSC swimmers are expected to purchase a few items of equipment that they must bring with them to practice each day. The equipment includes fins, a pull-buoy, and a mesh bag to hold the equipment. Each swimmer should also have two pairs of goggles available. The approximate cost of all of the equipment, not including the goggles, is $51.00. TRSC does not require a team suit for practice but does for meets. See the website’s Links to go to Friends Unlimited Swim Shop for fins, mesh bag, pull buoy, and team suit.

Swim Meets

Year- round TRSC swimmers may attend USA Swimming meets, but are not generally required to do so. TRSC offers meets, with a coach attending, about once a month, to swimmers of various ages and abilities. The meets that TRSC attends are sanctioned by USA Swimming and usually take place in Atlanta, Dalton, or Chattanooga.

Virtually all swimmers who try them find the meets motivating and fun. Other swimmers prefer to perfect their strokes at practice without adding a competitive element right away. TRSC accommodates both approaches.

Meets generally cost around $5.00 per event with swimmers doing up to four or five events per day, depending on the meet. Parents are also responsible for transportation to and from the meet and accommodations if needed.

If you have signed your child up for a meet and your child has been placed on a relay, please make every effort to come. Three other children will be very disappointed if their fourth relay team member does not show up and prevents them from swimming the (very fun) relay event.

Meet sign up announcements will be distributed e-mail, and placed on the doors of the pool. Meet registration forms are available at the pool and a check for the meet must accompany the registration form.

Swimmers who have never swum a particular event in a meet will be entered in that event as a “no time” (NT) swimmer. NT swimmers will likely swim in heats with other NT swimmers. After a swimmer achieves a time in an event, he or she will be registered in subsequent meets with times that have been achieved. The swimmer will then swim in heats with swimmers of similar abilities.

Along with wearing the team suit at a meet, we do ask also that swimmers wear a TRSC cap at meets. The cap helps coaches and spectators easily identify TRSC swimmers.

The TRSC team warms up together before a meet under the coach’s direction. This gives swimmers the opportunity to test the water and try the blocks. You will be told the time to be at the meet for “warm-up.” Each team is assigned a lane. Parental Behavior During Swim Meets:

TRSC expects parents to behave at meets in ways that are in keeping with the coaches’ long term goals for the swimmers. Please keep in mind the following miscellaneous ideas.

Children unconsciously absorb their parents’ attitudes. What are yours?

Children unconsciously want to please their parents. Are you “pleasable?” Is the child convinced of that?

TRSC will not tolerate excessive parental intensity about winning at all costs. What’s your attitude about winning?

In the realm of youth sports, youth fitness, youth health, it is possible to win the battle but lose the war.

Are we creating “mules” carrying burdens with quiet resentment, or are we guiding “mustangs” driven by independent choice and sheer joy? If mustangs, what would it take to dishearten a mustang?

TRSC asks parents to be parents and leave the coaching to the coaches.

TRSC asks parents to let their children establish their own personal relationship with the sport.

TRSC asks parents to monitor their attitudes for “attitude creep.” Has your initial encouragement of a child in a sport given way to an emotional hijacking of the child’s involvement?

In the final analysis, neither parents nor coaches, can swim for the child. It’s the child’s sport, the child’s life, the child’s inner choices from one second to the next that drive it all.

The child has to do this swimming on his or her own. That, in turn, depends on the child’s attentiveness to body and water. What does that have to do, ultimately, with parents and coaches?

A child’s willingness to exert effort at something today is mysterious, delicate, fragile. It represents a choice that the child makes today.

Tomorrow the child must, at some deep level, make the choice anew to be willing to put forth effort..

Parents, as well as coaches, must not take that willingness for granted. Parental over- involvement can complicate willingness, if not in the short-run, then in the long-run. Coach Coville

Brooks Coville is a registered USA Swimming coach. He has coached swimming for the past twelve years. As a member of the American Swim Coaches’ Association, (ASCA) , he periodicaly attends ASCA coaching conferences.

He attributes much of his excitement about swimming to Bill Boomer, a now well-known stroke technician under whom he studied for a week in 2000 at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placcid.

A firm believer in dry-land training for all age groups, Coach Coville is certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association.

Coach Coville is married to Beverly Coville, one of the founders of TRSC. They have two sons who grew up swimming on the TRSC team.

Coach Coville teaches swimmers of all ages and skill levels. He is dedicated to making swimming understandable, accessible and fun.

He feels strongly that the sport of swimming has a major contribution to make to the health and fitness of the United States.