Gold Team Update
So last night we had the team banquet. Figured I’d take a minute to go through our evening - it's kind of long as you can tell...
The location of the event was a Catholic Church (beautiful location) considerably south of our home, but north of my office, so the wife and I met at the facility (in fact, I pulled into the parking lot right behind her). We parked headed to the door, where we waited in a long line to register. When we got up to the registration table (20 minutes later) we found 2 people sitting there, 1 taking names, 1 handing out the meal tickets. This understaffing combined with the fact there were around 450 people in attendance would explain why it took so long.
We luckily were able to sit at a table with the same people we sit with at practice almost daily. After a short wait food was served, only this was also a problem. Remember there are 450 people, and there are only 2 food lines…with two servers in each line for 5 items of food:
- Chicken Parmesan – dry but not terrible given the number of people being served
- Roasted Vegetable Pasta Alfredo – very, very, very bland
- Cesar Salad - it's salad hard to screw that up...
- Roll – served cold
- Cake – white sheet cake...I didn’t eat, but kids said it was good (of course they would think so)
Obviously this took forever as well…
Finally, everyone was fed and the festivities started. I have to admit that I was concerned about this being terribly boring and long, but I learned quite a few interesting things that I will incorporate below.
The first thing discussed a few tidbits about the team, including that Chattahoochee Gold sent 6 swimmers to the Olympic Trials in 2012, and the goal appears to be 10 swimmers in 2016. The second thing on the agenda was recognizing the graduating seniors. This was the largest class of seniors the team has ever had (makes sense considering the team is growing), and this group of seniors basically re-wrote the team record book for the age group this season only failing to break 2 standing records.
Some items I found interesting:
In the 20 year history of Chattahoochee Gold there has never been a senior swimmer that has not gone on to college.
In this graduating class 70% will be swimming for their college teams. Of the kids not swimming in college….1 has had 3 knee surgeries, 1 gave up swimming for years and returned as a high school junior just to be with her friends, and 1 will be going to Oxford (yes the one in England) on an academic scholarship.
Some of the universities where the seniors will be going include: LSU, GaTech, NC State, and UVA.
--------------------------------------------------------
The next part of the night was handing out plaques to the record breakers of which there were quite a few, including Brett’s friend Jack who broke one of the backstroke records and Bear’s friend Jack who broke a fly event in long course and 3 or 4 in short course.
---------------------------------------------------------
Team pins were handed out for 1 year, 3, year, 5 year, 8 years swimmers
---------------------------------------------------------
Top point getters on the different team levels were recognized
---------------------------------------------------------
Then the big awards were handed out. Unlike many swim teams that hand out a ton of awards for best swimmer, most improved, coaches’ award, and any other title that can be dreamed up, the Gold team only hands out 1 award per age group. It is called the “Gold” award (I know very creative), and it encompasses much more than just swimming. Other items taken into account are: effort at practice, attitude, leadership, personality (friendly, helpful, positive, etc.), and dedication. The kids are nominated by any number of methods (coaches, volunteers, other swimmers, etc.) and the team officials discuss and whittle down the list over a 5 week period.
The trophy is a pretty cool one. It has the ubiquitous swimmer on top of a cup, but the cup is on a wooden base with a black plaque on the front that says the age group and Gold Award Winner, below that is a gold plate with the swimmers name and year. The trophy is given to the swimmer for a year, at the end of the year that swimmer presents the trophy to the winner for the current year, and the swimmers plate is taken off the front and added to one of the pedestals the trophy sits on. The previous year winner then gets a small trophy to keep.
Each recipient was discussed in great detail with stories about their dedication, efforts, items they overcame and more. This is the award that I felt Bear had a good shot at winning because of his hard work, positive attitude, leadership and more. When the 9/10 girls award came up and the twins coach started talking I knew that Bailey had won…I’ll paraphrase the statements of the coach to the best of my ability:
“When this swimmer came to me, she was suffering from a shoulder injury and was unable to swim for over a month. However, she still came to practice every day. She stood next to me on the side of the pool asking questions about who was doing it right, when someone was doing it wrong she wanted to know way, and the whole time she encouraged the other swimmers to keep going.”
“When she eventually got back into the pool, she showed patience, worked extra hard to clean up the technique issues that had led to her injury, and she went on to excel getting several sectional cuts. This girl is always one of the loudest voices at meets cheering for her friends and she is very considerate. In fact, just the other day she requested to move down a lane at practice. I asked her why and she said she didn’t want Gracie to be the only girl in a lane full of boys. It’s this kind of thoughtfulness and attitude that makes me proud to award the 9/10 Girls Gold award to Bailey.”
I was very proud that she received this award, and thinking back on the season for 9/10 girls across all of the Gold facilities it probably was the right choice. Bailey did work very hard, was extremely positive, was a leader in her lane for practice and was a standout in dry land. She attended 90+ percent of practices and was a top performer in the age group. However, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Not because Bailey won, she deserved it, but because Bailey winning meant Bear wasn’t going to. I doubt with team politics that Gold would have allowed Bailey and Bear to both win the 9/10 age group awards. Moreover, Bailey has been on a roll lately, winning medals, breaking times, swimming in multiple events at Sectionals. Bear on the other hand has been scrapping around, working his butt off but with little to show for it. I was hopeful he would get this award and it would add to his motivation. I’m comfortable in saying that if Bear keeps swimming he will certainly win this award at some point, but it would have been helpful if it was last night.
If you’re curious about Brett, he was very focused on what was said. He realized that several of the award winners weren’t the best swimmers on the team, and I believe he sees an opportunity to be recognized in the future. He also heard about several of the senior swimmers that weren’t great swimmers when they were young. They were late bloomers who have developed to the point they are getting a scholarship of some sort to swim in college, and he’s made the correlation that he could easily be that same type of swimmer before he is finished.