IOWA CITY EELS

 

Contact: 351-3336 or swimice@aol.com            website: www.iceels.org     March 2005

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Thanks to our corporate sponsors: A.W. Welt Ambrisco, the Coral Fruit Market, Hills Bank, Hodge Construction, Iowa State Bank & Trust, The New Sycamore Mall, Oral B Industries, Scheels All Sports and Universal Climate Control- their generous support helps keep our Club in the water!

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Coming up:

 

3/10-13:                        USAS Central Zone Sectionals in Minneapolis, MN

4/3:                              ICE Annual Recognition Banquet at the downtown Iowa City Rec Center

4/4:                              Long Course season scheduled to begin

4/30:                            Swimposium at Coe college

                                               

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COACH’S CORNER      

Part #4 in a series of 4

 

The Future of Swimming In Iowa

 

What to expect for the future and what can we do to improve?  I think about both issues pretty much on a daily basis.  After growing up in the state and swimming around the country I have seen how things work and which areas are the most successful.  We have a lot of good people involved in the sport in our state.  We have some very dedicated officials, parents, coaches, and administrators who help the sport move along every season.  We also have some issues, as I have pointed out in the last few articles, which keep our sport from growing and getting faster.  Here are my thoughts on what we can improve upon and what is working well.

 

We need to get all coaches, administrators, and BOD members talking – YMCA, club, and HS – to keep things moving forward for all of our swimmers.  Somewhere along the way, and I can not figure out a certain point but a series of points maybe, we have put up artificial walls and barriers that have hindered competition and channeled swimmers into narrow systems of competition and training. I think the Iowa Games are a step in the right direction.  If the summer meet were held in a 50-meter format it would be on our ICE meet schedule.  I love the idea of a statewide championship open to all levels of swimmers held in an “Olympic” style festival environment.  With a few more events and access to a 50 meter facility (for LCM) events this would be an awesome meet.  The thing that I really like about it is that YMCA, USA-S, and summer league swimmers are allowed to compete and for one meet it does not matter with which group we identify ourselves. I salute the efforts of Mason City Swim Club coach Eric Fullmouth who has his team competing in both YMCA and USA-S meets and is providing a bridge for the rest of us.  I hope that more teams start doing this and that we USA-S folks start having a more consistent conversation with the YMCA teams.   This may get political and some people may have to bend a bit but we all need to start talking to each other for the good of our future swimmers.

 

I think teams like Circle Swim Aquatics and other seasonal programs are a great thing for smaller towns to consider around the state.  We need to keep older swimmers, especially of high school age, in the water for the better part of the year to improve the overall quality of swimming in Iowa.  We need to foster the growth of these smaller clubs and I think it would be a good idea to start setting more money aside by ISI for this reason.  I also hope USA-S keeps club start up prices and fees at a minimum.  It is from these clubs that we get bigger and better clubs and opportunities grow.  With a high percentage of people dwelling in smaller cities and larger towns this should be a focal point for our sport to grow in the state.  There are pools out there and there are high school teams and I am hopeful that there will be some more clubs here soon.

 

I think we can all educate ourselves a little more.  Websites like www.swiminfo.com , the USA-S homepage, and others are great for athletes and fans to gain knowledge and get more up to date on the sport.  Subscribing to Swimmers World magazine is a great idea for anyone who loves the sport- parent or swimmer.  All of these outlets provide us with up to date information on the sport whereas the general public only takes a good look every four years.  While we get some press in magazines and newspapers sometimes these other sites, along with the USA-S publication Splash magazine, keep us loaded with current information and news specifically on our sport. Swimming may revel in an extreme amount of attention every four years but in between it keeps moving and we need to keep up with the trends or be left in the wake.

 

Getting involved with Iowa Swimming Inc., USA-S swimming, and our club (and changing the sport) is needed.  Adding 8 & Under swimmers to our state meet was a step forward (I admit I was skeptical at first on this).  Making it easier to receive ISI travel funds was a good idea.  Expanding the national USA-S outreach program is a great idea and would be a great way to get more minorities and disadvantaged kids into the sport. We should be looking at ways to set up more sporting events in conjunction with other civic events (like Track and Field) and get our sport into a position to be a bigger part of things going on in the community.  I think having a blood drive at a swim meet is something along these lines and I am glad my club has taken a lead role on this.  Having the USA Swimming Splash tour stop by our State meet was a great thing too. Anything to get swimming in the public eye and get kids hooked on the sport sooner is only going to help. In Iowa we are competing with soccer, softball and baseball, wrestling, and basketball activities that all pull very hard at our kid’s time and attention. My hope is that by better promoting swimming we will make it so kids will give our sport, at the very least, a fair shake. 

 

Lastly, we should be proud to be swimmers from Iowa.  Take a look at our state records or the NAG Top 16 rankings or peek at some college team rosters and you can see we are part of a growing and rich tradition with our sport in the state. While we are a small sized swim state our future is very bright and our swimmers have plenty of opportunities.  I would be the first to admit we have some things to deal with and some big mountains to climb but we also have some very smart people out here to lead the way.  Hopefully we can get a new pool at the University of Iowa soon and further establish Iowa City as the fast swimming town of Iowa.  Hopefully we can extend a hand to High School, summer league, and YMCA affiliated people and improve our meets and get our participation numbers up so the level of competition rises across the state.  Anything worthwhile is going to require hard work but I think we can pitch in and keep our sport moving forward.  The swimmers of Iowa deserve our help and best efforts. 

 

 

See ya at the pool

Donald P. Spellman

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Annual Recognition Dinner: The ICE Annual Spring Recognition Dinner will be held on Sunday, April 3rd. We have secured the social hall (upstairs) at the Robert Lee Recreation Center in downtown Iowa City. We will begin the festivities around 5:00 PM. Each family should bring their own plates, cups, tableware, and a dish to share as follows:

        Frost and Cubes:  main dish
        Waves:  salad
        Morays:  vegetable/potato dish
        Eels:  bread/rolls or salad
        Masters:  your choice
        Drinks and dessert will be supplied by the club

 

 

Long course season: The 2005 Long Course (spring/summer) season will begin on Monday, April 4th.  Registration materials will be available at the Recognition Dinner and online at our website. ICE policy requires that past due bills be paid prior to registration for the next season.  If you have a question about your bill please contact Daming Zhu at (dmzll@yahoo.com) as soon as possible. If you will not be returning for the Long Course season please fill out a “Withdrawal from ICE” form and return it to either the office or the drop box at Mercer.  Since we “rollover” registration from the fall/winter into the spring/summer season you may receive bills for practice fees if this paperwork is not turned in.  A copy of the form can be found in the ICE notebook or online at our team website (www.iceels.org).

 

Swimposium: On Saturday, April 30th ISI will be hosting a Swimposium at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. The Swimposium is a USA Swimming project with programming for swimmers, coaches, and parents.  The swimmers will get to work out with a former Olympian and there will be USAS workshops for coaches, officials, and parents. Sign-up forms should be available at the ISI website soon (www.lornet.com/iowaswim) and the deadline for registration is April 8th.

 

All about swim officiating: The following is Part 4 of Bryan Lawler’s series on swim meet officiating.

 

STROKE AND TURN JUDGES

Submitted by Bryan Lawler

 

 

 

In last month’s article we got the swimmers into the water and racing.  We now turn to the role of the Stroke and Turn Judges.

 

The Stroke and Turn Judges are responsible for ensuring that the swimmers comply with the USA Swimming rules applicable for the stroke being swum.  Before the meet begins, the Meet Referee will assign the jurisdiction for each Stroke and Turn Judge.  A Stroke and Turn Judge may only issue a disqualification for a rule infraction that occurs in his or her jurisdiction.  Assuming there are a sufficient number of officials, a Stroke Judge’s jurisdiction covers one half the lanes in the pool; and a Turn Judge’s jurisdiction is one or more (usually more) lanes.  When there are too few officials, the Stroke Judge may also have to cover turns for at least the outside lanes.

 

A Stroke Judge will walk along the side of the pool observing the swimmers in the lanes within his or her jurisdiction.  This judge is watching for proper body, arm, and kicking action.  In addition, in the freestyle, butterfly, and backstroke events, the Stroke Judge must also watch that some part of each swimmer’s body breaks the water surface at or before the 15-meter mark after the start and after each turn.  You have probably noticed the orange cones on each side of the pool marking the 15-meter point.  The lane lines are also required to have distinctive floats marking this distance.  During the race, the Stroke Judge will normally walk so as to stay abreast or slightly behind the swimmers in order to best observe each swimmer’s stroke. 

 

A Turn Judge is stationed at one end of the pool (they get less exercise than stroke judges) and is centered on the lanes within his or her jurisdiction.  The Turn Judge will normally be responsible for watching the swimmers prior to the turn, through the turn and the first strokes out from the wall.  This judge is watching for the proper stroke form, as does the Stroke Judge; but the Turn Judge’s primary responsibility is to observe that the swimmers comply with the turning rules for each stroke. 

 

As with the Meet Referee and Starter, the Stroke and Turn Judges are present to ensure that the competition is fair for all the swimmers.  This requires good positioning as discussed above and equal observation of all lanes within a jurisdiction.  A judge must not focus on a swimmer in only some the lanes, but rather give equal attention to every lane.  This includes watching lanes with no swimmer so that swimmers in heats that are not full do not get more scrutiny!  Fairness also requires that the Stroke and Turn Judges be evenly spaced around the pool so that swimmers in parts of the pool do not get more scrutiny than swimmers in other parts of the pool.

 

Stroke and Turn Judges have the authority to issue disqualifications for infractions committed within their respective jurisdictions.  When a Judge observes a rules infraction, he or she must immediately raise one hand.  If an official does not raise a hand, then no disqualification can be made.  This is to help ensure an official is certain an infraction occurred.  Because disqualification is a drastic result, officials need to be 100 percent certain, and the benefit of the doubt always goes to the swimmer. 

 

Officials are on the deck to help ensure that safe, fair and equitable competitive conditions exist for each swimmer at every meet.  Well-trained and dedicated officials are essential to help provide our athletes the best competitive swimming experience possible.   If you are interested in learning more about officiating, please contact me at blawler@universalclimate.com or call me at 354-9005.  

 

Air quality issues at Mercer: Operating an indoor swimming pool is a complex task.  Especially when that facility serves many different “publics”- from swim lessons and aquacise classes to special needs programming and competitive swimming.  Each group places it’s own unique demands upon the facility and it’s staff.  Some of you may be aware that there have been complaints regarding air quality at Mercer pool. Typical concerns include breathing difficulties, rashes, etc. In responding to this issue, the City of Iowa City has been examining the problem with the goal of alleviating, to the greatest extent possible, the source of these health concerns. Part of what we can do to help is to provide information to the City regarding the specifics when such incidents occur.  You will find in the file cabinet at Mercer an “Environmental Complaint” form and another folder in which to place the completed paperwork.  Please feel free to fill out this form, as it may prove most useful in the effort to make corrections to the air quality system at Mercer. If you have general questions regarding pools and environmental quality it is suggested you read a recent summary prepared by the folks at USA Swimming.  This summary can be found at our website (www.iceels.org)- on the homepage or at the USA Swimming website (www.usswim.org/) - look under “Facilities”.  Questions specific to the Mercer situation can be directed to either Kelly (keleyn@inav.net) or Erin (Erin-Herting@iowa-city.org).

 

 

 

Final note from communications: Enjoy the break between short course and long course seasons.  Everyone with ICE will be taking it a bit easy for the next couple of weeks prior to gearing back up for the Spring/Summer season beginning in April.  If you have questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact us but we may be a bit slow in getting back to you.