Welcome everyone to the upcoming 14th
season of Osprey Aquatics. OAQ started in the fall of 1996 with 26
swimmers. Last year we finished the season with 108 swimmers and
this year we will begin with 124.
The 2008-2009 season was our finest year to
date. The highlights were many. At the Zone 1 South Championships
in January, we placed 2nd in the mid sized team division. At Short
Course Far Westerns in the spring our 13-14 girls relay of Miranda
Carter, Rachel Owen, Linnea Mack and Kasey Schewchuk won the 200
Medley relay in a meet record time of 1:49.17. This was the first
FW relay win in team history and helped the team to a 12th place
finish out of 120 teams.
At CCS in
May, we had 4 swimmers final top 16 and get second swims on
Saturday. Junior Jamie Walitsch, junior Mollie Selfridge, freshman
Michelle Berry and senior Christ Scott set personal bests and broke
team and some school records in the process. Chris also made All
American in the 100 fly, a first for the team, with a swim of
50.3.
At the Pacific Swimming Long Course
JO’s in July, the team finished 4th out of 73 teams,
improving from last year’s 6th place finish. It was our best
performance yet at JO’s. Over 30 Osprey had individual swims
and an unprecedented 16 swimmers finaled throughout the course of
the meet, for a total of 68 second swims. Another team high was
established with 11 first place finishes for the team. Cat Ladd won
the 50 and 100 free, 50 and 100 back for 11-12 girls. Linnea Mack
took the 100 free and 100 back on her way to winning the High Point
trophy for 13-14 girls. The same 13-14 girls relay mentioned above
swept both the 200 and 400 Medley Relays. Michelle Berry won the
400 IM for 15-16 girls. Jamie Walitsch won the 200 fly for 17-18
girls. Justin Coglitore won the 200 back for 17-18 boys and all of
these wins were accomplished with lifetime bests and team
records.
OAQ won SVSL’s for the 3rd straight
year. Our swimmers did an excellent job, posting 68% of total swims
as lifetime bests across the board, a tremendous number for the
entire team. Along the way there were 19 new B times, 17 new A
times, 11 new JO times and 11 new FW times.
In 2007/08 we set 111 new team records, an
all time high. At that time, we only kept count of the record being
broken, so if the same record was broken more than once we counted
that one time instead of two. This year we switched to a more
accurate count, so that if the same record was lowered three times
over the course of the year we counted it three times. One could
expect this year’s number of broken team records to be higher
by virtue of this. But that alone doesn’t explain the
staggering number of team records broken across the board in all
age groups. We simply had our best year yet, and with that we broke
an amazing 399 short course and long course team records! For the
6th straight year OAQ was represented on Pacific All Star teams.
Jamie Walitsch, Catherine Ladd and Courtney Dean were selected to
compete in the North American Challenge Cup in La Mirada. Michelle
Berry, Rachel Owen, Kelly Simmons and Kellen Power were chosen to
compete in the Western Zones in Hawaii.
Jennifer Dean, swimming on scholarship at
Washington State University, finished a successful college season
at Pac 10’s and followed that up by returning to swim for the
Osprey over the summer. Jennifer provided leadership for the team
and bettered her own team records in the freestyles. After swimming
at the Santa Clara International meet along with Chris Scott and
Linnea Mack, Jennifer accompanied the team to Roseville for the
Summer Sanders Invitational. Jennifer had a tremendous meet and
came home with the 2nd place High Point trophy for the
women’s division. After that Jen swam at Sectionals, becoming
the first Osprey to final, going a new team record 58.3 to make
consoles. Jen also broke her own team record in the 400 free with a
4:31.33. Jennifer returns to WSU as a junior this fall as a newly
elected team captain.
Finally, at Long Course Far Westerns the
team finished strong. Linnea Mack, Catherine Ladd and Jamie
Walitsch all finaled in the fastest FW we’ve seen. Cat won
the 50 and 100 back and Linnea won the 100 fly (getting the
team’s first Junior National qualifying time) and 100 back.
Though holding their taper, many of the 21 Osprey swimming
individual events at the meet swam lifetime
bests.
As in years past during the break, the
coaching staff takes advantage of the opportunity to thoroughly
review the past year and assess and evaluate the program, its past,
its present and its future trajectory. This analysis provides the
direction needed to chart our future course in a way that will
facilitate the program’s continued growth towards excellence.
Changes and adjustments are made where necessary in an effort to
upgrade our system of coaching and swimmer development, the Osprey
Way. Change is part of growth, in answer to the central question,
"What are we doing well and what can we do to get better?" A big
part of our success is the ongoing education of our staff. In
addition to staying current and reviewing developments in the sport
with 3 different coaching magazines received throughout the year,
we read coaching books and network with other coaches, sharing and
receiving ideas. When we don’t have meets, we get together on
Saturdays after practice to go over process and procedure with the
staff, making sure that the means and methods of our coaching
system are understood and employed by all our coaches. This is also
a time for collective feedback and dissemination of new ideas.
Attending the American Swim Coach’s World Clinic is always
helpful and this year we’re going to Fort Lauderdale for 5
days. There we are exposed to the brightest and most successful
minds in our sport, coaches like Bob Bowman and others who have
developed the world’s best swimmers. We invariably return
with new ideas that we incorporate into the program.
Our Mission Statement remains: To
develop individual potential towards excellence within a team
structure and concept, to qualify swimmers for Olympic Trials and
beyond. Our core values support this. They are for each individual
swimmer:
- To develop
a confident, winning mindset
- To develop
the best possible technique and race pattern skill
sets
- To develop
a strong aerobic capacity, overall balance, core strength,
connective coordination, strength and swimming
fitness
For that purpose swimmers are placed in
groups that will best suit their current individual phase of
development and commitment, and provide them the best opportunity
to improve.
Going forward we return the staff we
finished with last year. I’m very excited about the talent of
the coaches we have at all levels. We’ve never had more. Each
has real ability and is excited and looking forward to this
upcoming season’s opportunities.
I will continue to coach the Sr.
1&2. Currently we have 11 Sectionals swimmers (3 of them coming
from Shannon’s Sr. 3) on the team, up from 7 last year at
this time. I would like to see us have more finalists at CCS, more
Junior National swimmers and get swimmers to qualify for the 2012
Olympic Trials. I will continue to work with the Gold group,
writing the practices and participating in administering the
workouts on a daily basis. At each stage our coaches are laying a
foundation of sound technique for our athletes and I think my work
with the Gold group is an important part of helping to get those
athletes ready for the Sr. groups. However, as our team has grown
and the Sr. group has improved, increasingly we find the meet
schedule for the Sr. and Gold groups differ and conflict, on many
occasions leaving me unable to attend both. While that’s not
always the case, it is so enough to warrant a change in
structure.
At the same time Oliver has developed
to the point that he’s ready and hungry for a new challenge.
Oliver did a great job with Alex Kubacki last year, helping him go
from a swimmer without JO times to a Far Western swimmer and
consolation finalist at JO’s in Dec. That sort of outcome
speaks volumes and shows what Oliver can do with a talent like
Alex. Coupled with Oliver’s experience in the system –
swimming for 7 years, coaching summers for another 7, and entering
his 3rd season of year round – Oliver is ready. He
understands the standards and expectations for the Gold group. He
assisted me with the Gold in 2008, playing the significant coaching
role in Phillip Fry’s meteoric rise from an A swimmer to
Western Zones in one year. Armed with all that experience, and my
own continued help with the group, Oliver is more than ready to
become the lead coach of the Gold group. Oliver will also continue
to coach the Gold 2.
For years Ian distinguished himself
as one of our most talented technicians as a swimmer. He was
instrumental in helping to refine our technique for back starts,
teaching me something new in the process. Now he has continued in
that vein as a coach. He did a very good job with the White group
last year, keeping it fun and instructional while also implementing
discipline, no easy task for that group. He also learned and gained
valuable experience helping me coach the Gold group and
demonstrated the teaching and organizational skills necessary for
further responsibility. Ian will continue to coach the White group
and will also coach the Gold 3.
Shannon continues to develop at an
amazing clip. Her grasp of mechanics, physiology and the psychology
of the sport rate her as one of the very top assistant coaches in
all of Pacific Swimming. Her work ethic and passion for the sport
are second to none. She is a wonderful partner to work with,
complimenting my own strengths and weaknesses with her own,
challenging me to continue to improve as a coach. She has not only
learned from me, but also done her fair share of teaching as well,
always seeking to innovate and find better ways to do things. For
instance, her input into the how and why of the way we teach
breaststroke has been instrumental in our success. Justin
Colglitore is a very talented breaststroker, very close to his Jr.
National time in breaststroke and an excellent example of how
Shannon teaches the stroke. Shannon will continue to coach the Sr.
3 and Blue groups.
Looking ahead to the upcoming season,
we are faced with making a change. In the past our team has
operated without the need for mandatory work hours per family.
However as we’ve grown larger over the years this has become
problematic. Swimming in general has a chronic need for timers at
meets, and as a growing team OAQ is now assigned more lanes and
timing slots to fill. That is the area we have at times struggled
with for volunteers. While on the one hand we do have a strong
cadre of volunteers, not only for timing but also for the many
other jobs it takes to run the Osprey ship of state, on the other
we’ve had those occasions where our volunteer system failed
to work. Therefore we have to make a change. To address this we are
putting into place a mandatory number of work hours per family.
Most other teams have such a policy and once in place it works
well. Each family is responsible for at least 30 hours per season,
including timing. This can be bought out at $10 per hour and will
be charged at that rate for anyone not meeting the requirement by
the end of July. The hours will be prorated for families leaving or
joining at mid season. We do have some ongoing jobs that would
satisfy the total requirements for the season. If you are
interested in one of those jobs let Shannon know. Otherwise most of
the available hours will be timing at meets. Helping with
fund-raisers, working as stroke and turn officials can also satisfy
the requirement. We’re sorry to have to implement this but
it’s become necessary and in the long run will benefit the
team.
A great deal of thought has gone into
group placements. Several factors are considered in each case. They
are for each individual: maturity, stage of development,
commitment, training consistency and capacity. We also factor in
group size and standards. In general it is more advantageous to be
at the top of one group than the bottom of another. A
swimmer’s confidence can grow simply by being one of the
fastest, most skilled in their group. They often train faster as
well as develop as a leader within that group. A classic case in
point is Catherine Ladd. Three years ago as a 10 year old with 2 FW
times entering the season we considered placing her in the Gold
group. Yet when considering the factors mentioned above it was our
judgment she would benefit more in the Gold 2. Her parents trusted
our coaching assessment and experience. It paid of handsomely. At
season’s end, at Long Course FW’s Cat finaled 9 times,
still a team record! The truth is that at some point all of our
swimmers will be at the top or bottom of a group in their Osprey
career. We seek to equip each of them with the mindset necessary to
succeed regardless. Each swimmer who takes advantage of their
opportunities, shows up regularly, focuses, applies their best
efforts consistently and trains and races with toughness will
improve. That’s what 13 years of team history have
demonstrated beyond a doubt. We seek to help each swimmer improve,
learn life lessons though the sport and enjoy the
process.
Lastly, I want to thank all you
parents for your support of the team and all of our swimmers. Your
belief in the Osprey and our vision makes it possible for your
children to have the opportunities they do.
See you on Sept. 14th for the start
of the season!
Sincerely,
Brian Bolster
The swimmers listed below are those who got
their first cut and joined the ranks of Osprey JO and FW swimmers
this year. Congratulations!
New Far
Western
Meghan Arita
Mark Pontier
Kasey Shewchuk
Nut Taikeff
Robert Kubacki
Alex Kubacki
Connor Cleaver
Lauren Wong
New JO
Meghan Arita
Alex Kubacki
Audrey Berner
Connor Cleaver
Rachel Chen
Nut Taikeff
Max Borman
Zac Borman
Dale Prins- William
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