mattie g

Thanks! I think once you create the culture, the expectations to act in a manner that can win you that award follow suit. Divisionals on Saturday was madness (though a blast) at our pool, and winning that award was the icing on the cake! I was shocked to see one of the "big three" win the award, but I can only assume they did *something* that led to the other teams voting for them!

All my co-NVSL peeps know what this is about. Suffice to say that this is what we strive for every season, and we’re so proud to be on this list. This makes it three years in a row for our team!

100% agreed that the kids can improve via coaching. We're lucky to have the coaching staff we have, but we might have one more year with the head coach we have now because he'll be graduating from college in a couple years and has plans and an "in" to coach at at a certain higher-level club. We just need to have a succession plan to keep us rolling! The vast majority of our kids come from the neighborhood our pool is in, but we're an open pool and can get families from anywhere. There's just never been an outreach program, but that's something we've started to do in the last two years and it's beginning to pay off. Honestly, though...I don't want to be massive, but I do want the coaches to be able to go into a meet with the ability to fill all the lanes and put together a somewhat competitive set of relays!

I totally get it - I think my post came across a little differently than I wanted to. I agree with what you say completely. Where I was coming at it was from the vantage point of how part of being in a lower division is because your team isn't all that good, relative to the other teams in NVSL. When the team gets better, it moves up, and with that comes a little more pressure, a little more snootiness, etc., and while the prospect of seeing our team get better is really enticing, I (like you) would fear losing the truly fun aspect of summer swim. HOWEVER, if we somehow rocketed up the table (which isn't going to happen anyway), I would find it tough to accept that "I wish we weren't as good now" even if deep down inside I knew that to be true. I know what I'm trying to say, but I don't think it's coming out right Last year was my first at All Stars. Our team had four kids there, so we went to support them, and it was a pretty cool experience simply because it was the first one for me. I didn't really follow a lot of other races except for the heats our kids were in, but if we go back again this year I'll keep an eye open for it.

I think NVSL does a great job, in general, of putting teams in the right divisions. There are some bad choices (some teams have been absolutely mauled week-in and week-out this season), but overall they get it right. I guess once you get high enough up in the league the prospect of moving can be something of a deterrent. It's easy for me to sit here and say I wouldn't want to be in a much higher division, but I think once that kind of momentum starts (see: certain teams who have rocketed up the league in the past few years) even I might find it hard to say "well...we used to be pretty bad but now that we're good I'd rather be bad again."

Exactly. I was a pretty competitive athlete, and I couldn't imagine being in intense training and competition nearly year-round and then coming out for what's supposed to a fun summer and being that competitive over the course an incredibly intense 5-6 weeks. I'd want to do well, but man...I'd need a break! We have a few kids who have made/make All Stars pretty regularly, but you would never know they were fairly accomplished swimmers based on how they conduct themselves. We're not perfect and we have our share of...difficult...kids and parents, but I like to think that we keep most of that from bubbling up.

Unreal that kids would up and leave by the time relays started. I mean...it sucks that they had kids missing to start, but you just have to suck it up and do your best. If you lose, then you lost knowing you gave it what you could...but to pack up and leave? Nah, not having it. Looking at your record and total points, and I can't see you guys not moving up. The only thing that could be done is that your reps make known in the post-season seeding survey that the final meet didn't reflect the actual quality of both teams. They definitely take those surveys into account, but sometimes they're going to do what they want. We host Divisionals this weekend, so we have a hell of a week coming up. I just don't know what I'm going to do with myself when it's all done! You hit on something that we've been discussing a lot the last few weeks. A lot of parents, my co-Rep, and one coach really don't want to move up next year, especially since we only came up to D15 this season. At 3-2, tying for 2nd in Relay Carnival, having two pretty close meets against the other top teams in the division, and in running virtual meets against other teams in the few divisions above ours, I have a feeling we'll go up to D14. If it happens, I personally think we should see it as a reward for the hard work the coaches and kids put in this season, and the way we age next year we should be even stronger than this season (and we are normally stronger in even years). I absolutely understand teams not wanting to go up but, looking at it objectively, if you think you might be relatively strong, then it's not fair for the other teams you might be grouped with should you stay in the same division. If it goes well, then great! If not, then you go back down and try again! The pools we swim against have generally been awesome. Even the team that came down from D11 this year (and got smacked this season) was a lot of fun! H2O and I have discussed this before, but I wouldn't want to be in a tier where we couldn't just have fun on an A Meet day and not worry about a protest or asshole pools or whatever. We want to grow and get better, but NOT at the expense of the culture we have now!

I was in Fairlington for that one. Can confirm that melting ensued quickly.

That we all willed north in the last 24 hours before first flakes...

It’s so cool that your boys found their way successfully in the local swimming world despite any other expectations! We have a set of identical twin boys (11s) who have turned it on this season (not having swam year-round), but whose parents aren’t particularly athletic. I guess you just never know! Fun final dual meet of the season today. Lost to our local friendly rivals, but it was a relatively close meet, despite our missing some significant swimmers. 3-2 after moving up a division for a team like ours is a damn good result. Now it’s up to the NVSL gods to determine if we move up again next year!

DC corn dust fail.

That’s been my life for the last week or two. I feel your pain. This afternoon was a different story. The southern edge of that line blew up and dropped a 45-to 60-minute deluge on MBY and cooled things off really nicely at just the right time if the day. Lawn and garden are booming, and this will freshen everything up.

It’s really is great when these kids hit their stride as the NVSL season ends. We’ve had a fantastic season and we’re still seeing phenomenal time drops across our team. Our 6-year-old who just set that IM record is one of the nicest and most humble boys you’ll ever meet, and watching him crush it all summer (dropping 8 seconds since our B Meet on Monday!) has been one of the highlights of the season. Best race last night was in the 13-14 Boys group where one of our most experienced swimmers dropped 5 seconds(!) in his IM against the kid he knew was his biggest competition. The other boy was seeded to win by 4 seconds and in the end ours came in .04 behind the other one. We were all so proud of him and the effort he put in - it was truly inspiring and you could just feel the positivity he was putting out afterwards! For a guy who was an athlete but never a swimmer, I’ve been bitten hard by the bug. I truly care for these kids and the community we’re building. It’s the best part of the summer for me, despite the grind, and I’m already looking forward to next year!

Exactly. There's no way in hell we escape a summer without heat at some point, but to keep from going 98/77 or worse for an extended period is a win. Of course, we can get well into the 90s in September, but that's usually short-lived and a drier stuff than the soup we can get in the summer.

Lots of complaints about a day or two with highs in the 90s. Folks are getting spoiled by the lack of big heat, which is a pretty common thing around here in the summer.

Hosted our IM Carnival last night. 195 swimmers and we got through it in 1 hour 45 minutes! We opened it up to more swimmers than usual (no seed time cutoffs), so we were a little apprehensive going into it, but it turned out great. Super fun meet with a group of pools we swim against regularly and many of whose kids go to school together. One of the other pools (PAR) set a record in 11-12 Boys 100M IM and one of our 6-year-old boys beat our 8&U 100M IM record by 5 seconds!

I just want some reason to feel optimistic. If it doesn't pan out, then whatever, but at least we can go into the fall dreaming of a mashed potato Christmas morning.

Is that any different than their lows in the recent past? I'd expect their lows to remain relatively warm given serious UHI and its proximity to water.

Everyone else is leaving Twitter, so they need someone new to follow.

My grass has been growing pretty nicely since the dry spell broke. I just choose not to mow often.

Two hour for free and back...yeah, no. lol We had four heats in one or two events last night, but it was maybe two heats per event on average. They strolled in and made comments about us being D15 team, commented on how some of our less-experienced swimmers did, wouldn't shut the F up in clerk of course, had kids yelling on the blocks after the long whistle, etc. Just lots and lots of unsportsmanlike behavior that was inappropriate at any meet, whether competitive or not. There was one point when some of their older boys were being incredibly rude to our younger kids, so our soft-spoken 19-yo coach laid into them. It just wasn't cool all around. It was bad enough that a senior official from their team reached out to a coach of ours this morning and apologized for their team sucking. That's awesome about your data folks, but yeah...clerk needs to get hose lanes filled for B Meets! Neat idea for the additional B Meet. I do recall you mentioning the "special water" last year. Love it! We're so small that a most of the kids who will be around for Divisionals will get to swim (plenty of our better swimmers aren't in town), so it's a good send off for them. But we still host an IM Carnival this Thursday, have an A Meet away on Saturday, then our Lolliop Meet and Community Relays next Thursday prior to hosting Divisionals. Still a TON to do until we're off the hook! Yeah...figured that might be the case for you guys. That really sounds rough for a lot of your meets...but finishing a B Meet at 7:40? How in the hell did you do that, even with 8 lanes?! Are those teams pretty chill, all things considered? I just can't shake the impression I have that all those teams are always amped up and uber competitive in everything they do. It's funny how relative it is when talking about team size. The team we swam with last night has 170 kids. We have 96 (including our littles), so they're MASSIVE compared to us. The rest of our B Meet group is currently D9 (last night), D10, D13, D14, and D15, with only the D15 team being about the same size as us. The D13 and D14 teams are like 120 kids or so and the D10 team has 150. I honestly don't know what I'd do if we had that many kids.

True...especially the final one of the season. We swam the biggest team in our B Meet group last night. They're the f*cking worst, which made the meet all that much more annoying. They showed up at our pool with a cocky-as-hell attitude, and even their Reps did nothing about it after we mentioned it multiple times. My (female) co-Rep was ready to throw down

No corn dust out your way. You’re good.

Because

Looking whiffy around these parts. Pretty much the only place, too.