Miss Elaine E. Yuss

What's new at The Woodlands?

1. Shana Trabona was featured on USAS's Coaches You Should Know
2. TWST teams up with masters swimmers to bid on the 2016 Trials pool
3. LC Sectional meet at CISD Natatorium begins Tuesday

Lifeguard Issues?

No, not talking about the dozers:

(via Staten Island Live)

or the Bathroom Break/Code Yeller combos:



There are lifeguard shortages around Texas.  The City of Austin is short-handed.  The City of Bay City only has a handful of guards, so public swim hours have been slashed.  The City of Victoria closed their pool for the summer.

The city began recruiting for lifeguards in February and was active at the schools, going so far as to offer pay incentives for those who stayed through the end of season. In a typical season, the city hires 12 lifeguards.

"For years, we've had problems getting people to come to the pool to work," the city manager said.

Here's an anonymous comment posted on No DFW in Top Fitty the other day:

How about training some of the lazy public employees as lifeguards as a condition of their parks and recreation department employment? Never ceases to amaze me how many short sighted bureaucrats will feather their own nest but not forsee a lifeguard crunch. Raspberries to the post summer swim team kid lifeguards ( who don't need the money or the headaches ) who opt to quit and go on that expensive European vacation with mommy and daddy.

How about paying a living wage for the job and getting someone who will commit unstead of closing the pool during the dog days of summer!

Love the idear of training parks & rec employees, then making them work longer hours for crappy pay.  Kind of like school districts requiring coaches to get certified to drive the bus for practices/meets, then paying them dirt for it.

Okay, back to the lifeguard shortage.  Money is the problem here.  It costs around $200 - and takes about 25 hours - to become an American Red Cross certified lifeguard.  Certification is good for two years.  Renewal is around $100.

If a guard can expect to earn $8 per hour and work part-time for, say 25 hours weekly, he/she won't net $4 per hour for his/her first month of lifeguarding.  How can that be?  Figure in the course, of course!

If this guard grosses $600 in three weeks, don't forget to subtract the $200 - and add the 25 hours - for the lifeguarding class!  For a hundred hours of class/work, they now have $400 to show for it - before Uncle Sam takes his share.

In the past, WSI's were able to certify lifeguards.  Many of us taught the class without compensation.  The kids needed only to purchase the ARC book.  Cards were good for three years.

Also, longer school years* mean shorter summers.  These guards have a couple weeks less to earn some dough each summer.

Another difference?  American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern earns over a half million dollars annually.  Getting the picture?

Consider Johnny Subway.  He gets paid while training, eats fresh for free on a paid break, finds an occasional nickle in the tip jar, and works inside with air conditioning.  If BHO & Co. have their way, Johnny S. will be toasting your Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki for fifteen bucks an hour**.

(via The Federalist)

Lifeguarding - yet another job we "can't get Americans to do"?

Here are a couple of YMCA jobs:

The J.E.R. Chilton at Rockwall YMCA

Twin Lakes Family YMCA

(via djackson2014's blog)

While daughter Smacker enjoys success with the Longhorn swim program, Lousy-Anna State University foosball coach Les Miles spouts off about how crappy, beach-less Austin is:

LSU coach Les Miles found himself treading water about the lack of an ocean in Austin, Texas.

“I took a vacation. I went to Austin,” Miles said in his opening remarks about a trip to the University of Texas to visit his daughter Kathyrn “Smacker” Miles, who is on the Texas swim team. “It was miserable. I hated it. I mean, it was not a beach. It was not sand.”

Asked a follow-up question by Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, Miles suddenly tried to crawfish.

“I loved it,” he said. “My daughter’s doing wonderfully there. I enjoy the experience she’s having, okay? But it was not a beach. There was no hotel that I walked out and jumped into the surf. We rented bikes. It just happened to rain like hell. There was a bunch of hills down there.”

When Miles exited, he passed a writer and said, “I’m going to catch hell from Texas.”

Miles may need to be more careful about Louisiana’s western neighbor.

He has always recruited the state of Texas. There are 13 players from Texas currently on LSU’s roster.

Just a little harmless fun there, right?

Git yer Ed "U.K." Shun via Weird Al:




*Brought to you by the folks that think:

"If what we're doing now isn't working worth

a hoot, more of it will surely be better!"

**Ten dollar foot-longs, anyone?