Greetings HOST Families,

First and foremost, we want to echo what Coach Samuel said earlier today in his email – great job on our win last night, but more importantly, great job to all our swimmers who swam, all those with time improvements and all those that became legal in a new stroke.

There was apparently some confusion last night regarding relays and some teams missed their swims. We wanted to apologize to those swimmers who missed their relays last night. We understand how exciting it is to be part of a relay and how disappointing it is to have missed that opportunity. We thought it might be helpful for everyone to have some insight into relays and how they function.

Relays DO NOT check in at Clerk of Course. Each relay (made up of 4-5 swimmers) will be rounded up by either a coach or their teammates and provided with a relay card. These relay cards will list the names AND order of the swimmers participating in the relay. Here is an example of the relay card. The relay card tells you the Event Number (#14), the Heat (H1), and the Lane (L3). Each swimmer has a number before their name which tells you what order the athletes are swimming and lets you know which side of the pool they should be on.  

Once the swimmers (and/or coaches) are sure that all 4 members of the team are accounted for, they should go immediately to their lane to be ready to swim. This is why the beginning of our meets always appears so crowded and chaotic… we have lots of swimmers all lined up ready and waiting to swim.  Relay cards should be with a swimmer that is on the timer end. They should give the relay card to the timer in their lane when it is their turn to swim as times are recorded on the cards.

The following are our Relay Events:

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 – 100 Free Relays

These relays start in the deep end of the pool. All 4 swimmers swim Freestyle.

Swimmers 1 and 3 should line up on the deep end and start off the blocks.

Swimmers 2 and 4 should line up on the shallow end and start in the water.

63, 64, 65, 66 – 100 Medley Relays

These relays start in the shallow end of the pool.

Strokes swim in the following order: Back, Breast, Fly, Free

Swimmers 1 and 3 should line up on the shallow end and start in the water.

Swimmers 2 and 4 should line up on the deep end and start off the blocks.

67, 68 – 125 Graduated Relay

These relays start in the deep end of the pool. All 5 swimmers (one from each age group: 8&Under, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-18) swim Freestyle.

Swimmers 1, 3, and 5 should line up on the deep end and start off the blocks.

Swimmers 2 and 4 should line up on the shallow end and start in the water.

For those of you that have been to our meets, you should already be aware of a few facts – it’s loud, it’s crowded, it’s chaotic, and we are all volunteers. Our focus at each meet your child participates in is to give them the best possible opportunity to earn valid times in the events they were seeded in. We do our very best to make sure this happens. It takes a village to make these meets run, and it is our expectation that each and every one of you will support that mission. All parents and volunteers should pretend that any swimmer they interact with is THEIR kid. Help them out just like you want others to help your swimmer.

If you are a volunteer and a swimmer is asking where they should be, please help them find an adult that knows that information if you are not sure. If they are asking about relays, ask if they have a card and a team – and if they do, help them find the right lane and even assist them with figuring out which swimmer should be on which side. If a swimmer looks sad and says they missed their event, notify a coach immediately. There are often times available lanes in other heats or events that this swimmer can be placed in (with the approval of the meet ref) to make up their missed swim. Any questions about helping swimmers, please feel free to reply to this email.

Additionally, we used to have parent volunteers that assisted the coaches in rounding up and placing our younger relays. This would be GREAT to start up again. These amazing parents did this on their own time. Relay helper is NOT an official position – it’s just something you can do to help for 15 minutes to make sure that our kids get to participate. If you are interested in being a relay helper, please let us know and we can get a group together and give instructions.

Does anyone have other general questions or things that seem confusing? We’d be happy to send our tips, tricks, and answers to help all of you have the very best swim season possible.

As always, thanks to each and every one of you for helping, volunteering your time, showing up for your kids and others, and making the pool generally just the best place to be during the summer!