2025 Parent Meeting Follow Up

March 31st

Sunrise Sharks

First and foremost, a huge thank you to all that showed up tonight to learn about the upcoming season. Your time is valuable, and we appreciate you giving it to us.

To recap the ‘24 End of Season Survey Recap:

We want to thank everyone who took the time to complete the end of season survey last year. Your feedback is essential to the improvement of your swim team and all comments were greatly appreciated. We heard you all and have been working during the off season to address the biggest concerns.

How/when to communicate with coaches…
Coaches email can be found on the team website under coaches tab, [email protected]. You can address the email to any coach and it will find its way to the person. We are striving for a 24 hour response time. If there’s an emergency, you can quickly speak with coaches during practice transition, and our head coach, Leslie, will be having virtual (zoom or by phone) office hours once a week on Mondays from 4 to 5 PM to discuss any questions, concerns, or hopefully lots of praise😊 any changes in office hours will be announced in our weekly Shark Bytes email.

Effective Use of Practice Time…
•One of the biggest changes you’ll see, is separating swimmers by ability, still within their age group, but we will have 2-3 coaches directing each age group. No more head age group coach solely directing all swimmers while two other coaches sit back watching. If a swimmer could benefit from moving up an age group to practice, Coach Leslie will consider it if the swimmer speaks up - not so much the parent, and the swimmer meets the average time standards for that age group. During the first part of the season we will have more coaches in the water for the younger age groups, as well as, implementing the Junior Coach program.
•The focus will be more on technical work (which may require a going back to basics approach) and then working on endurance, individual goal setting, coach feedback for every swimmer and addressing behavior problems head on so other swimmers can still hear the coaches and focus on practice.
•Implement “race days” so coaches and swimmers have a more accurate time for swimmers for meet seeding, and gives some swimmers more opportunity to show they can meet the average time standard for the next age group in all strokes.
•Practice will be altered to address DQ’s from meets with the goal of fixing what our swimmers are lacking. Coaches will be having weekly meetings to discuss the practice plan for the week.

Coach Support at Meets…
A swim meet is a very busy day for the coaches and while they would love to seek out each individual swimmer, it’s just not possible. Our coaches main job during meets is to focus on the events being raced, but we will be making some changes to how the focus on races is done. With several coaches being at meets, we will have one behind the blocks with swimmers, one at the table taking notes on races, and another more available to talk with swimmers. The plan is to rotate the coaches through the positions and all coaches are available to talk, so if you have a preference, please don’t be shy. It is highly recommended for swimmers to have a quick check-in before and after each of their events. This is best when done prior to them heading to the ready bench and immediately following their event. We’d also like to address the lack of focus on swimmers who aren’t the best. Coaches will be spreading attention to all swimmers, fast, shy, and beginner swimmers.

If your swimmer has any special needs, autistic, ADHD/ADD, shy, hearing or visual problems, anything, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the coaching staff. Some are noticeable, but it’s very helpful to know ahead of time so coaches can adjust as needed.