Thursday, January 29, 2015

Another Misc.


TAPPS region and state meet info (including psych sheets & results) will be here.

White Rock YMCA (Dallas) needs an aquatics coordinator.

Austin vs. Centenary (M&W)


TFA BB & Under

Cleveland 2015 ASCA World Clinic info here.

Alvin Classic

Shady Oaks Country Club (Ft. Worth) needs an aquatics director.

Jesse Coon Memorial (masters)

Who pooped in the pool?  Probably a lesson kid, right?

Who pooped in the gym?   CSI Gustine is on the case!

Quote of the Day


Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not
in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

(via biography)

Sir Isaac Newton

Monday, January 26, 2015

Quote of the Day


You must try to generate happiness within
yourself.  If you aren't happy in one place,
chances are you won't be happy anyplace.

(via wttw)

Ernest "Ernie" Banks, a.k.a. Mr. Cub

Friday, January 23, 2015

Movie Premier



A Walk in the Woods, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, will premier today at the Sundance Film Festival.  More here.

It's a film version of Bill Bryson's best-seller on his AT thru-hike attempt.

When an aging travel writer sets out to hike the 2,100-mile-long Appalachian Trail with a long-estranged high school buddy, the duo learn that some roads are better left untraveled.

Quote of the Day


Information's pretty thin stuff
unless mixed with experience.

(via Britannica)

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

No horses were harmed...


...in the making of this film:


Quick into Texas Sports Hall of Fame



The late Richard Quick has made it into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.  More here and here.

Quick, an all-Southwest Conference swimmer at SMU, won a record 13 NCAA swimming titles as coach at Stanford, Texas and Auburn. He also was the head coach of the U.S. team in three Olympics and an assistant coach of the U.S. team in three other Olympics. He died in 2009. 

Induction ceremony for the Class of 2015 is scheduled for April 9.

Quote of the Day


A true conservationist is a man who knows
that the world is not given by his fathers,
but borrowed from his children.


John James Audubon

Monday, January 19, 2015

State Meet Schedule


2015 UIL state meet schedule is here.

What adjustments would you make to accommodate a third heat in each event for both prelim sessions?

See how easy it would be to bring twenty-four (24) per event?!?!

It's been a while...


...since I posted fishin' pics.  These are the first since May.

They're from Saturday out on the Gulf of Mexico.

To the rig:


One of Bobby's snappers:



Headed home:


The day's catch:


(l to r):  John Doe I, John Doe II, Blake D., Leon B., Clayton A., Bobby B.

Quote of the Day


When we try to pick out anything
by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.

(via National Park Service)

John Muir

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Odds-n-Ends


(via pfluger)

Austin Arena Pro (a.k.a. Austin Grand Prix) live stream here.

City of El Paso building first of two 50m pools.  Story here.

The pool is one of the quality of life bond issue projects that voters approved in 2012. Under the bond issue, a second 50-meter pool is slated to be built in the East Side.

2015 ASCA Hall of Fame inductees include A&M women's coach Steve Bultman.  See all here.

NCAA reforms and Title IX implications discussed here.

Recent and upcoming changes to National Collegiate Athletic Association rules -- including a new pilot program that will provide travel expenses to the families of basketball players who play in national championship games -- are rife with “serious Title IX complications,” a panel of gender equity experts said here Wednesday.

McMurry's Bev Ball featured here.   Abilene HS (and former Granbury HS) coach Casey Pacheco on Ball:

"She's been an inspiration through high school, I had her through high school and college and just seeing what she did with kids then and seeing what she has done with kids now, still to this day is pretty amazing," said Casey Pacheco, Ball's first recruit and current AHS swim coach.

Great little tune from The Hillbilly Moon Explosion & Sparky.

Warning:  Vid's a little bloody...


Quote of the Day


It is easy to sit up and take notice.  What
is difficult is getting up and taking action.


Allen "Al" Batt

Monday, January 12, 2015

Monday Morning Variety Post


The City of Kerrville needs a pool manager and an assistant manager.

The City of Austin needs three (3) aquatics instructors.

High School News

(via Dallas Morning News)
Officials hoping to work the UIL state meet (February 20 & 21) should get applications in ASAP.

Swimming Application

Diving Application

Both are due by 6:00 p.m. Wednesday evening!

Traci Neely's UIL swimming director's report is here.  How much longer before they do something about that suggestive officials problem?  Us coaches is gittin' tired of all that winkin' an flirtin'!

Tex Robertson Invite

Tomball New Year's Classic

Waco Midway Winter Classic

El Paso ISD Invite

Midway HS Alumni

AAHSSL Dual Weekend #4 (Palo Alto)

AAHSSL Dual Weekend #4 (San Antonio)

The Woodlands vs. Kingwood Mixed Sprint Meet

Georgetown ISD New Year's Invite

Club News

Psych sheet for this week's Austin Grand Prix is here.  Tentative prelim timeline is here.

Info on the USA Swimming Diversity Select Camp (including coach and athlete applications) is here.

A coach up in Massachusetts was fired from his YMCA job, but USA Swimming has ruled he didn't violate their (USAS's) code of conduct.  More here, here, and here.

Border New Year's Resolution

Del Norte #3

LAC Level 1

Palo Alto Unclassified

AQTX Trained or Tapered

AAAA "C" (Palo Alto)

TXLA New Year's  Classic

AAAA "B" Champs

WAVE into 2015

CBA Winter Wonderland Unclassified

College News

(via Guajardo Imagery)
Several Texas college programs are competing in this week's Austin Grand Prix.  Info above in club news.

A&M vs. Alabama (M&W)

Texas vs. Georgia (M&W)

Torero Shootout (W)

Austin College Relay Meet (M&W)

Austin College Invite (M&W)  Ties for first, third, sixth, and eight in the men's 200 medley relay?  Plus one between tenth and the exhibition swim?  No way!

Nevada/Rice/San Diego State (W)

More back here.

Quote of the Day


Every day, I am reminded that our life's journey
is really about the people who touch us.

(via LA Times)

Stuart Orlando Scott

Friday, January 09, 2015

2015 Call-Ups Link


(via Derek Vreeland)

As many of y'all know, the Green Tunnel is callin' and I we must go.

Bobby has decided to put his career on hold and set out on the adventure of a lifetime!  Starting AT thru hike in about a month!  Catch/Keep up here and here.

Scott Scofield has volunteered to compile and post this year's high school state meet call-up lists for swimmers, coaches, and parents interested in finding out before the UIL posts their official list.

I appreciate all the help I had doing the 2013 & 2014 lists.  Thanks in advance for providing Scott with results and support.

Here's the site where he'll be posting that info (along with some other meet results):

Texas Swim Meet Results

You can contact Scott via email

Edited 9:41

Couldn't let y'all go into the weekend without sharing this:


Before it was the coolest pool in Texas*...


...it was the Deep Eddy Bathing Beach.  More here.


The oldest pool in Texas, Deep Eddy began not as a pool but as a privately owned swimming hole along the banks of the Colorado River, as this 1920s-era postcard shows. Students and locals alike flocked to the Deep Eddy Bathing Beach not just to swim, but also to rent cabins, ride a zipline, go down a slide, and watch shows like Lorena’s Diving Horse—a steed and rider plunging dangerously off a 50-foot diving platform.





*Sorry, Balmorhea State Park.  Y'all are a very, very close second!

While we're on the topic of women's hockey...


...kind of...actually out on a tangent...catch up here:


(via UMD Hockey)

Minnesota/Duluth non-renewed their women's hockey coach, Shannon Miller.

Last month, Miller’s $215,000 contract wasn’t renewed, with the university saying a shrinking budget no longer allows for such a salary. But, with the men’s hockey coach still employed and earning about $20,000 per year more than Miller, some are asking whether the firing was based on her gender as much as her salary.

“Coach Miller was a highly successful coach who has graduated her players, earned the respect of her community and peers, and hasn’t gotten in any trouble or in a scandal,” Nicole LaVoi, associate director of the University of Minnesota's Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women In Sport, said. “I have never in my career in studying women coaches ever heard of a coach like that not being retained because they were being paid too much. It’s kind of a game-changer."

In her sixteen (16) seasons as the Bulldog head coach, the program has been in the NCAA tourney ten (10) times, reached the Frozen Four seven (7) times, and won the national championship five (5) times.

Read the entire article, along with some interesting comments, here.

In a statement earlier this month, Josh Berlo, the university’s athletic director, called Miller’s departure a “financially driven” decision, adding that UMD is “not in a position to sustain the current salary levels of our women’s hockey coaching staff.” Newhall called the justification "weak," saying it's "not hard to see that firing a female coach under the guise of being paid too much where there are other, less successful coaches who are paid more" is gender discrimination.

Mark Nagel, a professor of sports and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, said a contract not being renewed because a college can no longer afford to pay a coach's salary is "very rare." Whether the gender disparity makes it illegal or not is a more complicated question.

Quote of the Day


The more we exile ourselves from nature,
the more we crave its miracle waters.

(via The University of Arizona)

Diane Ackerman

Monday, January 05, 2015

Lou Walker Fires Back




Remember Syracuse A.D. Daryl Gross?  Yeah, that guy who dumped the men's and women's swim program!

A recent article on "non-revenue" sports at S.U. (here) gave Gross high marks.

If football is the red mark on Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross' track record at Syracuse, the non-revenue sports are his gold star.

Quick note to writer Chris Carlson:  The only Orange sport in the black is the men's basketball program.  Therefore, foosball is a non-revenue sport.

One of the more controversial decisions Gross has made regarding non-revenue sports was cutting both the men's and women's swimming and diving programs in 2007. 

The decision was made at the time because the school's facilities did not allow it to compete at a national level and its geography made recruiting elite swimmers difficult. Building a new facility, it was decided, would be too costly.

AAAA-NE head coach Lou Walker was the Orange head coach at the time.  His letter to the editor takes on Carlson and his slanted story.

While I would agree that my discussions with Daryl at the time were relative to the age of the facilities I would disagree that there was any discussion relative to "geography and recruiting elite swimmers."

Gross replaced the swim programs with a women's hockey team.

At the time, NostraButton reminded readers* that The 'Cuse would be hunting for lady rinksters outside the state (and country).  N.Y.S. girls' high school hockey just wasn't up to supplying a D-I program with the required talent and numbers.

(via The Post-Standard)

In May of 2013, this post provided an update on the hockey team's "progress".

They've imported six (6) Canadian women and have only four (4) New Yorkers on their roster of seventeen (17). 

Women's ice hockey isn't an Atlantic Coast Conference sport.  The program bleeds red ink.

Time for another update.  This year's squad is 4-8-7.  There's no conference record, since they aren't in a conference.  Not sure what universe Carlson was posting his article from when he stated:

The team has become a winning program under Paul Flanagan in short order and has reached a conference title game.

Since inception, their record is 97-107-24...almost "average".  Nothing wrong with that, but not exactly the "winning program" Carlson makes them out to be.

(via The Post-Standard)

When the decision was made to scrap swimming and add women's hockey, it was supposed to help with Title IX numbers (and it has), make the overall athletics program more "competitive" (it hasn't), and save money (it hasn't even come close).

The current S.U. women's hockey roster lists twenty-five (25) players.  Eleven (11) are Canadians and two (2) are New Yorkers.

Funding player scholarships alone (at the NCAA limit of 18, times an annual cost of attendance of nearly $60,000) costs the university around a million bucks each year!

(via Cuse)

Good News

With attendance numbers approaching those of the on-ice participants, the program has yet to cost the university a billion dollars.

Bad News

The women's hockey program needs a new facility.

I wonder how Gross - along with his partner in propaganda Carlson - will spin this one...





* I believe there were eleven (11) of y'all at the time...

Quote of the Day


A true initiation never ends.

(via tumblr)

Robert Anton Wilson

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Quote of the Day


How did thinking that benefited the few
gain the acceptance of the many?

(via Wikipedia)

Herbert Irving Schiller