Thursday, January 6, 2011

New Team!

Our faithful readers know that Ryan is a swimmer. He made the South Davis Tsunami swim team in late August 2009. There are five levels of the team. Generally, kids spend about a year at each level before moving on. We know many kids who have spent even more time at the various levels, depending on their abilities and the open slots on higher teams. Each level has its own coach, with one head coach that oversees all of the teams. The two lowest levels swim for an hour a day, 5 days a week. The three upper levels swim for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and also have “dry land” time, which is weight lifting and other conditioning.

The lowest team used to be called “Pre-Comp,” but is now called “Developmental-Silver.” Ryan was on that team from the last week of August 2009 to the last week of May 2010 (9 months). In early June 2010, he was invited to move up to the next level (formerly “Pre-Junior,” now “Developmental-Gold.”) In August, the head coach identified Ryan as the recipient of the “Most Improved Swimmer” trophy out of ALL of the kids on ALL of the teams!

On Tuesday, January 4, I noticed that the head coach was walking along the bulkhead watching kids on Ryan’s team. Ryan also noticed, and even commented to a couple of less-committed teammates that they needed to perform especially well because the head coach was watching.

As Ryan and I were leaving the pool after practice, the head coach approached us. He said, “When are we moving Ryan up to the Junior Team?” I said, “Whenever you’re ready!” He said, “How about now?” He explained that he transitions kids from the 1-hour team to the 2-hour team by having them swim the first hour with the lower (current) team, and then moving over to the higher (new) team for the second hour to see how they do. Ryan is thrilled! He knows he’ll likely be the youngest, smallest, and slowest on the new team, but he is excited to be moving up after only 7 months on the Developmental-Gold team!

Ryan doesn’t go to swimming on Wednesdays, so today, Thursday, January 6, Ryan planned to begin the transition to the new team. Just a few minutes into his warm-ups, the head coach came over and pointed to Ryan, and then motioned for Ryan to follow him. Instead of taking a while to transition, he apparently is just moving Ryan up!

We’ll keep you posted on how it all goes!

2 comments:

ME Moon said...

wow. good thing ryan is so self motivated and willing to work towards accomplishing hard things. i think jonah would be overwhelmed (unless, of course, his personality changes in the next 5+ years... ;) )
go ryan!!!!

oh, and every so often jonah asks to go play at ryan's....and then says, "oh yeah, he's at school"

Kelli said...

Way to go, Ryan!!!!!