Quote of the Day

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

via The Sunday Times

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Bay City HS Swimming/Diving Alumni

Blackcat Swim/Dive Alumni,

First, I'm working to restore our program's history and am looking for the most recent copy of our "Top Ten" list.

Now that we're back in Bay City, I'd hoped to do a quick update.  I last updated in 2007 and left records with someone here in town.  Unfortunately, they're unable to find them!

Rather than sort through old meet results* and reconstructing the list from scratch, I'm hoping to get hold of a fairly recent copy of the Top Ten list and just doing an update.

Also, we're planning to start a Facebook page in the spring to help former swimmers/divers/coaches reconnect with the program.

Finally, we'd like to do a combined Blue/Gold and Alumni meet to start our 2016-17 season.  More info on that once we get that Facebook page going.

Thanks for any help y'all can provide in helping us recognize all the great kids that helped put Bay City Swimming on the map over the years.

Swimcerely,

Button



*Many of which have gone missing

Coaches, Swimmers, & Parents:

Another competitive swimmer has died in what appears to be a shallow water blackout incident.

Dartmouth's Tate Ramsden was attempting a 100 yard underwater in a YMCA pool when he passed out.  More here



Please remind swimmers of the dangers of shallow water blackout.  More info is here.

Do this TODAY!!

Thanks,

Button

Quote of the Day

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid

of the dark;  the real tragedy of life is

when men are afraid of the light.

via The Imaginative Conservative

Plato

Quote of the Day

Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don't matter,

and those who matter don't mind.

via WishesTrumpet

Bernard Mannes Baruch

Bobby's Back in North Texas

Bobby will be helping out with the Horned Frog swim program while working on his masters.  Story is here

Quote of the Day

A true champion knows how to overcome

doubts and manage those doubts and

turn them into motivation.

via SwimVortex

Misty Dawn Marie Hyman

AT Post

Found this just now.  '15 AT thru-hiker Nick "Click" Reichard took tons of pics on his six-month hike.  Click started a month later than us but, since he hiked at about the same pace, didn't catch us.

His Instagram link is here, his store link is here, and a short vid is below:

Quote of the Day

You can't measure the mutual affection

of two human beings by the number

of words they exchange.

via Vitro Nasu

Milan Kundera

Quote of the Day

If pigs could vote, the man with the slop

bucket would be elected swineherd

every time, no matter how much

slaughtering he did on the side.

via Wired

Orson Scott Card

Nope: That horse ain't dead yet!!

Okay, maybe I am beating a dead horse...so what?

Via last night's USA Swimming Coaching Connection:

“STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE!” yells Tasha, a point guard on the 6th grade YMCA basketball team I was coaching.

Immediately, I smile and start to explain to her that I forgot my watch and I needed to make sure we were on schedule. Tasha rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with my response.

“No big deal,” I had thought to myself on the way to practice when I realized I forgot my watch, “I’ll use my phone.” Fifteen minutes into practice, I had pulled out my phone to make sure we were on schedule. Big mistake.

“Can you believe the nerve of that girl?” I thought. “Here I am, the volunteer head coach, staying up late watching videos on drills and strategy, planning practices on my lunch break, staying late for players who parents are delayed picking up their child…and now some kid is telling me to put my phone away when all I am doing is making sure practice is on schedule?”

Reflecting back on that practice later that night, though, I asked myself what did Tasha really want? What was she really asking for?

I realized that she was looking for the one thing kids crave more than anything else. She wanted me to be there, in that moment, in that drill, watching her and her teammates. She wanted my attention.

She didn’t simply want me to care for her, or love her, or teach her how to play the game. She wanted more.

She wanted me to see her!

The rest of this James Leath post is here

Fixin' a Screw-Up

Today's Seth Godin blog post is "When things go wrong"

A protocol for moving forward:

0. Double check the work to make sure that there are no other problems within it.

1. Alert the relevant parties

2. Take responsibility for what went wrong. This doesn’t mean that you intentionally did it wrong, or that doing it right was part of your job description. It means that you know something went wrong, you’re unhappy about it, and you accept responsibility for letting it get by you and you accept responsibility for making sure it won’t happen again.

 3. Apologize. Not because it’s your fault, but because the incident cost other people time or money or upset them, and you’re sorry that they have to deal with that.

4. Come up with a plan to ameliorate the impact of the problem. If you can’t come up with a plan, say so and ask for suggestions.

5. Come up with a plan to avoid the problem in the future.

6. Gather feedback.

7. Thank everyone for their patience and goodwill.

Either that, or you could hide, dissemble, blame, shuffle along, scowl, depersonalize and then move on.

via The Guardian

Missed your athlete's taper?  It happens.

A second time?  Okay, that happens too.

Over and over again?!?!  Enough already!

Kids and parents are tired of coaches that skip past steps 1 through 7.  They're also tired of those that stop at number 3...it's time to move on to number 5...

Quote of the Day

Democracy and socialism have nothing

in common but one word, equality.  But

notice the difference:  while democracy

seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks

equality in restraint and servitude.

via Great Thoughts Treasury

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

Yup! It's gonna be another one of those...

...all-over-the-map posts.


Safety First!!  Texas Swimming does not endorse the use of firearms without ear protection.

Tim Bauer needs an ASCA Level V head age group coach at TWST

Great Hills Country Club needs a head coach

Corpus Christi TISCA

Texarkana TISCA

San Antonio TISCA

The City of San Antonio needs a Recreation Specialist (Aquatics)

The South County YMCA (Houston) needs a Youth Development Director - Aquatics

The City of Round Rock needs an Aquatics Manager

Coverage pages (race/interview vids, results, etc.) for this weekend's big meets:

Junior Nationals East/West (USA Swimming)

Junior Nationals West (Swimming World)

Junior Nationals East (Swimming World)

Duel in the Pool (USA Swimming)

Duel in the Pool (Swimming World)

NCAP Invite (Swimming World)

We laughed about fellow hikers nearing the end of the AT up in Maine (that's where them Maine-iacs lives) that whined "It's been so great - I just don't want it to end."  Really?  Y'all wanna keep on smellin' like butt fer ever?

Big Cat Invite

Klein Oak vs. Klein (JV)

Birdville/Denton/Guyer/Ryan

The Woodlands vs. Kingwood (JV)

Carroll/Coppell/Granbury

College Park vs. Magnolia

College Park vs. Cy-Woods (JV)

Klein/Montgomery/Clear Falls

Latest CSCAA D-I polls are here.  Texas men still #1.  A&M women at #5, follered by UT gals at #6.

More Earl Dibbles, Jr.:


AAAA Winter Wonderland (real time)

AQTX TNR (12/1)

LCA Winter Races

Dumbest headline of the day*:

US Intel:  ISIS May Have Passport

Printing Machine, Blank Passports

Ya think?

Southern Senior Champs

FCST Fall Champs

LSST Fall Champs

COR Winter Classic

MAC BB & Under

A&M vs. Rice (W)

Austin vs. McMurry (M&W)

Still ain't had enough Earl?


Cathedral Loretto Invite

YISD Border Invite

Hawkeye Invite

The City of New Braunfels lacks coordination.  They need an Aquatics Coordinator and an Assistant Aquatics Coordinator

The City of Round Rock needs an Aquatics Supervisor

The South Montgomery County YMCA needs a Youth Development Senior Director - Aquatics

The City of Pharr needs an Aquatics Supervisor




*This post excluded

Quote of the Day

What and how much had I lost by trying to

do only what was expected of me instead

of what I myself had wished to do?

via Famous Authors

Ralph Waldo Ellison

Quote of the Day

You measure a person by what

it takes to discourage them.

via The Sports Bank

William Francis "Bo" Ryan, Jr.

2015 Barbados Open Water Festival

Nitro's Taylor Abbott (#47) won both the 1.5k and 5k races in this year's Barbados Open Water Festival:

Quote of the Day

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools,

that don't have brains enough to be honest.

via Wikipedia

Benjamin Franklin

Cash

Nope, not catching up on meet results...yet...

Enjoying learning more about Johnny Cash's comeback album from a couple of decades ago.  This is definitely worth a look:


Fascinating to see both his "light" and "dark" sides.  Speaking of the "dark", here's another version of Delia's Gone (posted an alternate version here):

Joe Friday vs. Barack Obama

Thanks, Dad!

Don't Know Jack

I don't know Jack Madden.  His troubles with USA Swimming are big news in the Houston swimming community right now.  He certainly has plenty of support from his former team.

Statement from Adam Stanford, President, Cy-Fair Swim Club:
"Jack Maddan is an exceptional coach, father, husband and role model. USA swimming banning him from membership will change none of that. Although Jack will no longer be able to perform the duties as Head Coach at Fleet Swimming, he and his family will remain in our hearts and always be considered OUR family. It takes but one meeting or conversation with him to understand his good character, love of swimming and love of the athletes us as parents entrust him with daily.

The entire basis of the circumstance that has now led to Jack being banned was based on an allegation from 1999 that we believe to be false. There are NO other complaints or allegations, past or present and those people that know Jack know he does not deserve the hand he has been dealt.

Jack as a coach has had the full and unwavering support of the Board of Directors throughout the process. Going forward, although he won't be our coach, Jack and his family will continue to have love and support from our Fleet family."

CFSC has removed Jack's bio, but here's what I found via Google (cached):

Jack was listed as an At-Large Board of Directors member for Gulf Swimming, but has since been removed from that position.

Channel 13's Jessica Willey did a piece on the (now former) FLEET head coach the other night.  Video, text, and comments are here.

I do have to wonder if Jessica did any research on the "gentleman" she interviewed for the story (naughty word warning):

Quote of the Day

We demand rigidly defined areas

of doubt and uncertainty!

via The Infocomicon

Douglas Noel Adams

Catching Up

Ran into a couple of old swim coaches-turned administrators a couple of weeks ago at the Lamar CISD Invite.  Great seeing Joe Imre (coached at Terry HS) and Jerry Kipping (ran the program in Corpus Christi) again!

Comment on another post gave a link to this excellent article.  It's a two-pager without pictures.  Sorry about that, visual learners.

Forget all that now. “Cafeteria-style” curricula are all the rage. Such is not the stuff of which a competitive 21^st-century workforce is made. Worse, it is not the stuff of which informed, effective citizenship and leadership are composed.

What’s the remedy? For starters, prospective students and their parents should consult ACTA’s What Will They Learn? when choosing a college. If students and their parents begin voting with their pocketbooks through enrolling only in serious schools, the rest of higher education might well become serious once again.

Lake Travis Relays

Appalachian Trail Tat

The Tellepsen Family Downtown YMCA (Houston) needs a youth development director - aquatics

Even before the Paris mayhem, Texans named Illegal Immigration and Foreign Terror Groups as the top threats to our country.  More here.

Remember when cigarette ads were banned from television?  We old-timers do.  They said that too many years suckin' on them cancer sticks'll kill ya.  Keeping them Marlboro Man ads off the tube will save us from ourselves, right?

via KelownaNow

So...how are drug companies able to advertise things that they warn - in their own commercials - might kill you pretty danged quickly?  Why are we still told to ask our doctors about ___?

Big Pharm sure has more clout than Big Tobacky!

Got this via email:

Funny we were reminded to "Take it easy on the breaking rules part."

Latest CSCAA Women's Division I poll has Texas at #4 and A&M at #7.  Read more at Swimming World.

Still pretty far behind on posting results, but hope to catch up a bit soon.

Battleground Area Swim Team needs developmental coaches

The USA Swimming Foundation's silent auction is underway.  Visit and bid here.  There's even a "Pampering" category for you sprinters & divers.

Quote of the Day

Start by doing what's necessary;

then do what's possible;  and

suddenly you are doing the impossible.

via Plamen Petrov

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone,

a.k.a. St. Francis of Assisi

Quote of the Day

The analogy we use around here sometimes, and

I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers

uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.

via Sports Tsar

Barack Hussein Obama II

Quote of the Day

We often take for granted the very things

that most deserve our gratitude.

via This Recording

Cynthia Shoshana Ozick

Quote of the Day

Life's under no obligation

to give us what we expect.

via Atlanta History Center

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell

Quote of the Day

Someone is going to have to explain to

me at some time how raising taxes on

job-creators is going to create more jobs.

via The Columbus Dispatch

James Daniel "Jim" Jordan

Misc.

It's a long-ish post, so here's something to listen to:


Terri Stanton has updated Joseph's Journal at the Caring Bridge site.  Read it here 

Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for your continued hands that have held ours and offered millions and millions of prayers for Joseph and our family.

The most talked about swim from this year's Eddie Reese Invite was Clark Smith's 2000 free.  Read more here

Smith, the reigning NCAA champion in the 500 freestyle, uncorked a 17:44.39 in the 2000 free. Since it’s not an official event, it’s tough to compare the swim to anything else, but it is indeed fast. Smith averaged 53.22 per 100 yards, an astounding pace for such a long swim.

via Luis Maram

Enjoyed Seth Godin's blog post yesterday, titled "Witch hunts make no sense".  Check it out here

Which is expressed by those in power as: "There's a good reason I'm afraid and punishing this person will make that reason go away."

Hunting witches never makes things better. Partly because there are no witches.

Sooooo...have y'all experienced this sort of behavior?  Did you have a boss who feared his/her employees?  Did y'all wonder who'd be the next scapegoat?

El Paso County needs an aquatics manager

The Hood County YMCA needs an aquatics director

The City of Corpus Christi needs an athletics/aquatics program manager

A SOBO (southbound thru-hiker) named "Last Chance" has 700+ miles left in his journey.  Like many hikers, he had trouble getting out to the trail from Gatlinburg.

I stood there for well over two hours. During that time it started to rain so I got to test my new rain gear which worked well. I finally got a ride as far as the Sugarland Visitors Center. I walked around there asking folks if they would give me a ride to Newfound Gap and after an hour I got a ride from a guy who hikes the trails in the Smokeys every day he can.

View Last Chance's trail journal here

Back in March, Bobby and I had no luck hitching out of Gatlinburg.  Finally, we walked into a practically deserted convenience store and found a clerk with some free time to drive us out to Newfound Gap.  Journal entry here.  Crazy place, Gatlinburg...

Club Results

EPAP Monster

AGS 10 & Under

KATY Quad

FAST Fall

Haunted Hat

METRO

RACE

Boo Bash

Spooky Sprint

Spooky Sprints

AAAA Progressive Series II

Great Pumpkin

Great Pumpkin Spooky Mile


HS Results

The Woodlands Invite

Oak Ridge/Magnolia

Keller Invite

Klein Invite (JV)

Klein/Kingwood (JV)

Klein/Kingwood

Spooktacular

AAHSSL "C" Duals

AAHSSL "D" Duals

AAHSSL Duals (Block)

AAHSSL Duals (Northside/North)

AAHSSL Duals (Northside/South)

North East Duels

LCISD Private Invite

Tomball Halloween

Weslaco


College Results

A&M/Incarnate Word/Miami (M&W)

SMU vs. UH (W)

UNT vs. UH (W)

Trinity vs. McMurry (M&W)

Hendrix Relays (M&W)

Hendrix Classic (M&W)

UNT vs. Rice (W)

SMU vs. Rice (W)

SMU vs. TCU (M)

Kansas vs. TCU (W)



If you're on a computer/device that doesn't have this site on "Favorites" - and don't want to type in the blogger address - typing in texasswimming.org will get you here...if you really don't have anything better to do...

Download a free copy of  Swimming Technique here

CSCAA women's D-I poll is here.  Texas 3rd, A&M 15th, SMU 21st.

Men's D-I poll here.  Texas #1.

Quote of the Day

If you see anything on the internet

three times, you know it's true.

via Right Wing News

Katherine Timpf

Quote of the Day

Texas will again lift it's head and stand

among the nations.  It ought to do so,

for no country upon the globe can

compare with it in natural advantages.

via thinglink

Sam Houston

Quote of the Day

History isn't a sculptured cup;  it's
more like a sieve through which
so many stories pass and disappear.

via here & Now

Julie Checkoway

Quote of the Day

A person always doing his or her best becomes

a natural leader, just by example.

via The Sports Post

Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr., a.k.a. Joe DiMaggio

Quote of the Day

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

via Daily Mail

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary

Results & More (but not much more)

College Results

North Texas vs. A&M (W)

Rice Invite (W)

Ouachita Baptist vs. Incarnate Word (M&W)

Wayland Baptist Invite (M&W)

Southwestern vs. UTPB (M&W)

McMurry vs. Trinity (M&W)


Club Results

PACK Open

ESA/Sharks/SST

Gulf Senior

Piney Woods

COPS 2/3

Spooky Splash

AQTX

AAAA Progressive Series II (real time)


High School Results

Oak Ridge Intrasquad

Lewisville/Guyer/Denton/Ryan

Georgetown Cup #2

Leander/Georgetown/East View

Arlington ISD Invite

Atascocita Early Bird Invite

Kingwood/Cy-Creek/Taylor

Kingwood vs. Klein Oak (V & JV)

Atascocita vs. Klein (JV)

Klein vs. Westside

San Antonio Duals 1

San Antonio Duals 2

San Antonio Duals 3

San Antonio Duals 4

Trojan Invite

Lake Travis/Westlake/Westwood


Link to UIL press release on the approval of "24 to state" is here.

The Jewish Community Center (Dallas) needs an aquatics manager

The City of Pearland needs an aquatic supervisor

Mansfield Aquatic Club needs a head age group coach

Interesting story out of Mansfield highlighting inequities in athletics here.  As usual, MISD found a way to spin it.

WADA banned substances & methods list for 2016 is here. 

USA Swimming has implemented "no faster than" times for all Sectional meets.  View those "maximum" time standards here.

Check out links list (to the right of this page) for updates to Time Standards for 2015-16.

Still have more time to waste?


...no need to thank me, just doin' my job...

Quote of the Day

You can't be brave if you've only had

wonderful things happen to you.

via biography

Mary Tyler Moore

One Million

It took ten years, but this blog finally broke through the one million page view barrier.

Yay texasswimming.org

Let's celebrate with fire!

All Over the Map

Front page of this morning's Victoria Advocate sports section:

Read the online version here

Special thanks to sports writer Mike Forman for not printing my starting weight!

Cory Wells, of Three Dog Night fame, passed away yesterday.  One of their many hits:



Good news out of Austin is - drum roll, please - TISCA's decades-long quest for "Twenty-Four to State" will be implemented by the UIL for the 2016-17 season.  Better Nate than lever, right?

Palo Alto College needs a club team swim coach

Life Time Fitness (southwest Houston region) needs an age group coach