Robert Tapscott Aquatic Center

Houston's Julia C. Hester House just opened their new Wellness Center.  Story here.

The facilities were named after Dutton (Harold V. Dutton Jr. Recreation Center) and Robert Tapscott (Robert Tapscott Aquatic Center). Tapscott served as athletic director, swimming coach and music teacher at Hester House. Both Lee and Dutton spoke fondly of him.

Dutton has a rich history with Hester House, having grown up at the facility. He worked as a janitor there and later served as executive director.

Reflecting on the old Hester House swimming pool, Dutton said, “We didn’t have a swimming pool, we had a mosquito pond. We used it three months and they had it the rest of the year.” Because of his concern, Dutton rallied the support of architect Willie Jordan and Lee to help change conditions at Hester House.

“We gave Hester House back to the Fifth Ward community. Hester House is not a place for landing, it is a place for launching – launching dreams,” he said.

The old Hester House pool had its issues.  From the Houston Chronicle in 1958 (The Swimming Pool Went Swimming):

Read that story here.

Quote of the Day

Do not try to make the brilliant

pupil a replica of yourself.

(via Living Legacies)

Gilbert Arthur Highet

New Life for North Lake College Natatorium?

(via Irving ISD Swimming)

It looks like the City of Irving and the Irving ISD will work with North Lake College to keep their facility open.  More here.

According to Weaver, on January 1, 2015 (also pending Board approval), NLC is transitioning management and operations of the Natatorium to the City of Irving. This means that the City will assume all costs for management and operations of the facility, and that the Irving ISD will be a subtenant. The Irving ISD is subject to the same rules and regulations as the City.

“The Irving ISD will be a subtenant of the facility. Pending Board approval in December, effective January 1, 2015, there will be a one-year stop-gap lease with the City in order to give the City and the ISD time to secure formal funding and develop schematic designs for the Natatorium’s renovation,” said Weaver.

The IISD offers swimming lessons and aquatics sports. The district frequently busses school students in to use the pool in the mornings for children to learn and perfect their swimming techniques. Students also compete in swimming events held in the natatorium.

“The pool will always be available to the seniors and will not be shut down in 2020 as another newspaper source has reported,” said NLC President Christa Slejko.

(via Irving ISD)

Great news for everyone's favorite swim announcer, Sam Kendricks.  His mom was instrumental in getting that facility built for area kids back in the 80's.  Sam took time out from his busy work schedule to visit Irving last year, pushing to save the aquatics programs there.

Quote of the Day

Mild success can be explainable by skills and

labor.  Wild success is attributable to variance.

(via be you)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Title IX Watch: Stephenville ISD

Regular readers* know my problem with Title IX is really with proportionality.  I'm all for equal opportunities, equal facilities, equal coaching, equal scheduling, etc.

It's the danged quota system Title IX has become that drives me nuts.

That brings us to Stephenville ISD and their Title IX issues.  It doesn't appear that activists are fighting for quotas.  Rather, it looks as though their issues are with those things Title IX was meant to protect.

Their website (Bee an Athlete!) points out problems in girls' athletics at SHS: 

Girls have fewer coaches.

Girls are provided less opportunity to compete in contests.

Boys ride in the latest chartered buses, and girls get generic yellow buses.

SISD provides a service to boys that works to secure them a college football scholarship. Girls have nothing similar.

Boys have a very nice baseball field right next the the high school (which includes their locker rooms and training facilities) while girls have a clearly inferior softball facility across town.

Boys have locker rooms that resemble lounges complete with leather couches, video games, big screen televisions and refrigerators while girls have nothing similar.

Girls have coaches with little knowledge of the sport they are coaching while boys are provided knowledgeable coaches.

The list goes on. SISD wants you to believe girls just aren’t interested in sports. In fact girls are interested but SISD treats them so poorly that the majority of them quit or fail to go out next season. The interest is there but SISD kills it.

OUCH!!

We in the swimming community might have a bit of trouble relating to those problems, right?  You can go right down the line and see that our girls and boys are provided the same of everything, from coaching to bus rides.  Maybe it's time for school districts to hire swim coaches as athletic directors to straighten things out...


* Guessin' we is up ta 'round fitty er so

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I was fighting every windmill,

especially when I was in college.

(via Jim Wyatt Twitter)

Duane Charles "Bill" Parcells

Quote of the Day

Beware of averages.  The average person

has one breast and one testicle.

Dixy Lee Ray

LAC Tragedy

(via LAC)

Lakeside coach Kyle Tilley was killed in a car wreck late Saturday evening.  More here.

The trooper told them the two cars were cutting each other off and chasing at a high speed before one of them struck Tilley’s car.

“They wanted us to know up front that Kyle had done nothing wrong,” said Kyle’s father, Larry Tilley of Flower Mound.

Kyle’s mother, Dona Tilley, said her son loved Star Wars, comic books and swimming. He joined the neighborhood swim team as a boy because his asthma and allergies held him back in other sports.

She said her son enjoyed coaching but was considering a career as a firefighter or high school history teacher. He was working on his teaching certification and hoped to coach high school swimming, too.

Quote of the Day

Patience is also a form of action.

(via Mirror)

François-Auguste-René Rodin

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The truth is that many people set rules

to keep from making decisions.

(via Picture Theme)

Michael William "Mike" Krzyzewski

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Men are more often bribed by their

loyalties and ambitions than by money.

(via Old Pictures)

Robert Houghwout Jackson

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If the state is strong, it crushes

us.  If it is weak, we perish.

(via Famous Authors)

Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry

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Only the insane take themselves quite seriously.

(via Wikipedia)

Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm

Quote of the Day

Of what use is freedom of speech

to those who fear to offend?

(via abc News)

Roger Joseph Ebert

Quote of the Day

I will either find a way, or make one.

(via Wikipedia)

Hannibal

Super Creepy Rob Lowe

Quote of the Day

A man travels the world over in search of

what he needs and returns home to find it.

(via Wikipedia)

George Augustus Moore

Quote of the Day

Failure is just success rounded down.

(via The Citizen)

Ryan M. North

Quote of the Day

I am always nervous before the start of a race.

It helps me to say to myself to try my very

best.  That is my commitment.  No matter

how bad it gets, I will try my hardest.

(via Vimeo)

Dean Karnazes

Once Emerging, Now Fading

When it comes to athletics, it's easy to see Title IX has devolved into nothing more than a quota system.  Championing equal facilities, budgets, coaching, scheduling, etc. have taken a back seat to pushing proportionality.

NCAA schools were encouraged to add equestrian in an attempt to meet one (1) of Title IX's three (3) prongs.

Bad news, folks.  It looks like the "emerging" sport of gallopin' & jumpin' is headed fer the glue factory.

More here and here.

For the first time since 2000, the school will be without an equestrian program. K-State Athletics confirmed the information given to the Collegian with a press release at 9:31 p.m. on Monday.

Due to a recommendation from the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics, K-State Athletics will part ways with its equestrian program after next season’s scheduled competition. The department will search for a women’s soccer coach in early 2015 and plan for the team’s arrival the following fall semester. 

The Wildcats will dump equestrian and add soccer, but Oklahoma State isn't ready to part with their Tack Pack just yet.

“The status of equestrian as an NCAA sport is still to be determined,” said Gavin Lang, OSU associate athletic director, media relations. “… That recommendation (by the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics) must be accepted at several levels before being implemented. There is no timetable.”

KSU dropping equestrian leaves OSU, Baylor and TCU as the only Big 12 schools with equestrian teams. Due to Title IX, KSU is adding a women’s soccer team to replace equestrian.

If OSU’s equestrian team were to be discontinued, the university would have to add another women’s sport due to NCAA requirements. The assumed replacement would be volleyball, as OSU is the only Big 12 school without a women’s volleyball team.

(via The Trademark Blog)

It's only a matter of time before the Kansas State faithful start hollerin' "Save our horses!  Start a polo team!"

Quote of the Day

Let everyone say you hold yourself

to an unreasonable standard.

(via Lolly Daskal)

Lolly Daskal

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The difference between golf and government

is that in golf you can't improve your lie.

(via Friends of the California Archives)

Courken George Deukmejian, Jr.

Updates

South Texas Flying Fish masters coach Dirk Marshall appeared on yesterday's MSS:


Also on Swimming World, TWST raised over $3,500 for the Karen T. Stall Research & Breast Foundation.  More here.

Women's swimming will return to Indiana State in 2016.  More here.

Press release makes it sound like something new, but ISU did have men's and women's teams until the sport was discontinued in 1982.

That pic of "The Launch" was part of the slide show at the Marcus Whitman Hall of Fame induction ceremony last week.  Clare & I:

The man that started it all, coach Henry Savage:

Oh how patient he must have been to put up with me for four years...

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I make mistakes, I'll be the second to admit it.

Jean Kerr

Quote of the Day

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.

(via Parade)

John Robert Wooden

Void of Rhyme or Reason

Time for another random-ish post:


USA Swimming is easing standards for the Minnesota Grand Prix.  More here.  All about the $$$?

TOC has a couple of threads going on "best" and "worst" coaches to work for:

Best

Worst

Best coaches I've worked for (guys like Warren Trahan & Terry Cron) trusted us to know our sport and take care of business.  Only time they ever got more involved was to support us when issues arose.  Great communicators who took great care of their coaches and athletes.

Worst coaches I've worked for micromanaged us into submission.  We became paper-pushers working to further their careers.  Those folks didn't give a rip about our athletes or coaches.

Georgia Tech's Brad Homza (Westwood HS) was the ACC's Diver of the Week.  More here.

The City of Conroe needs an aquatics coordinator.

If/when the UIL adds polo - about the same time the Title IX quota system makes it to Texas? - will schools be under pressure to only add it for girls?

Funny hearing high school swim coaches complain about our country being run by the Chicago political machine.  They don't even realize they're being run by the West Texas political machine...

Looks like the Cal field hockey facility issue may be ready for the lawyers.  Not sure what's up?  Catch up here.  The latest:

Three Cal field hockey players considering filing Title IX lawsuit over potential loss of field

I hope they get the school to straighten out the mess before it goes that far.  If it takes a suit to get results, I'm behind the girls one hundred percent.  Problems like this are what Title IX protection is all about.

The Twin Lakes Family YMCA is still looking for an aquatics director!

Oh yeah, made it into the Marcus Whitman Hall of Fame.  Story here.

Quote of the Day

When a girl marries, she exchanges

the attentions of all the other men

of her acquaintance for the

inattention of just one.

Helen Rowland

First they came for the diving boards...

...and I did not speak out - because I was not a diver.

Then they came for the jump ropes, and I did not speak out - because I'm neither a jumper nor a roper.

Then they came for the swings, and I did not speak out  - because I'm not a swinger.

(via Playing in the World Game)

Well, that didn't quite go as planned...let's skip that part and get right to this story:

Killer Swings and Other Playground Myths

Seems insurance companies are pressuring schools to eliminate anything that might result in an injury now and then.

Remember climbing to the top of the gymnasium on a rope?  Don't see many of those around anymore, do ya?

And, of course, the reporter managed to find that nervous mom who is more than willing to back the school for this insane move:

Muge Kaineoz's daughter will be starting school next year. She's in favor of the decision to remove swings. "When she starts elementary school, those swings can get crazy! 

CRAZY! Just crazy. I mean swings go back and forth and high in the air. There are no straps keeping the kids on the seat. There isn’t a net to catch the kids if they go flying into the air and for goodness sake, they do this swinging thing in the open--there's no fence placed around the swingers to protect kids who might walk by and not notice the human wrecking ball flying through the air!  OF COURSE THESE KILLERS SHOULD BE BANNED. So really, everything should be banned because everything is potentially dangerous, right? EVERYTHING CAN KILL.

(via 1000 Awesome Things)

Since schools have removed just about all the hazards insurance companies can think of, those premiums they charge must be down to about zero by now, right?

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Free competition is worth more

to society than it costs.

(via Wikipedia)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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The public regards lawyers with great distrust.

They think lawyers are smarter than the average

guy but use their intelligence deviously.  Well,

they're wrong.  Usually they are not smarter.

(via Q961)

Francis Lee "F. Lee" Bailey, Jr.

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Just because something is trending

doesn't mean you jump on it.

(via ADWEEK)

Nancy Hill

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Authority is permission to spew

platitudes to people below you.

(via Twitter)

Rob Payne

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A wise man distrusts his neighbor.  A wiser man

distrusts both his neighbor and himself.  The

wisest man of all distrusts his government.

(via Britannica)

Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell

Quote of the Day

I don't think I have ever been out of control.

(via ARHE)

Robert Montgomery "Bob" Knight