As the summer transitions to fall with cooler days and diminishing sunlight, the GMA coaches prepare for the start of the short course season. Each week, our pool is filling with more and more enthusiastic GMA swimmers. This week, the Senior, Sectional and National swimmers welcomed the Age Groupers and the Fall Clinic to the Saint Michael's College Pool. Throughout the next month, we will see athletes join the program who are brand new to the team and eager to learn more about our sport. We will see our returning Regional and Age Group swimmers who, as 10 and 12 year olds, have already grown so much through competitive swimming and are ready to reach for new dreams in the water. Of course, our team leaders, the Senior, Sectional and National swimmers, have been training throughout the summer and have spent the last two weeks preparing to take the team in new directions this year, always conscience of our team goal "To win the USA Swimming National Championship." It is a thrilling time to be a GMA teammate, with the hope of a new season and the promise of an Olympic year!
Throughout the 2011 Long Course season, our GMA athletes have added to this hope and promise in our sport. The passion with which our athletes raced this summer inspires our team to keep reaching to achieve our team goals. At the New England Open Championships, our GMA women raced with tremendous pride in the toughest of all relays, the 4 x 200 Meter Free Relay. While none of the athletes in the relay truly loves the 200 Meter Free, each cared enough about one another and about GMA to race their hearts out. All four relay team members raced personal best times on the relay, most dropping significant time even though the relay was the last event at the end of a very long, hot day of trials and finals. The joy on their faces after the relay was over said it all . . . It sure feels good to race your best for the love of your teammates!
Another inspiring GMA race this summer was the Men's 400 Free Final at the New England Open Championships. How awesome was it to watch teammates Evan Grey and Michael Ubert push each other to perform their best? These two athletes train together every day, every week, year-round. In fact, I wonder if they spend more time with one another than they do with their brothers (and their brothers are swimmers!) When it came down to our big championship meet and the finals of the 400 Free, these athletes challenged one another better than any other competitors in the field. I know that they each raced their personal best times because they respect each other as teammates and as competitors. Is there a higher honor one can bestow upon his teammate than to view him as a worthy competitor and to race his very best when they are side by side?
What's really inspiring about our team are the unique hopes and dreams that our team members brings to their GMA experience. With over 100 athletes in the program, we are blessed to know so many outstanding young people, striving to achieve their own goals while supporting the goals of their teammates. This summer, we witnessed two GMA athletes continue on their road to the 2012 USA Swimming Olympic Trials. At the same time, we had numerous GMA athletes achieve new New England, Sectional and Junior National qualifying times and we had several GMA athletes attend new championship meets for the first time ever. Beyond the outstanding racing and the achievement of new goals, we saw GMA excellence in our athletes' attitudes and in their effort. One group that most impressed me this summer was our Knights Swim Team members. What an excellent group of young swimmers! I had the pleasure of coaching some of these athletes this summer and I have never met a more gracious, kind and hard working group of athletes. Every day, without fail, these Knights swimmers would thank me after practice. Every day, without fail, these Knights swimmers worked hard to develop better stroke technique and to get in shape. Our Knights Swimmers showed outstanding heart and team focus in training and in racing. While we were a very small team, our team spirit was enormous. The small ways in which our GMA athletes showed our excellence this summer - from our positive attitudes to our Olympic Trials racing - certainly sets the stage for an outstanding GMA short course season!
In fact, I am certain that we are carrying tremendous momentum, enthusiasm and passion for the sport into this short course season. After our first week of training, I asked each training group to come up with a word to describe the HEART of our GMA Team right now. These are the words that we associate with GMA athletes:
DRIVEN . . . DEDICATED . . . PERSEVERING . . . STUDLY . . . PERSISTENT . . . DETERMINED! These are the qualities that will define our team effort this season and we are so EXCITED to share GMA with YOU!
Green Mountain Aquatics: Team and Coaches' Blog
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Make It Yours!
Championship season always inspires me to be reflective. I think about where we are and where we are going. Now that I have a few championship meets under my belt with GMA, I can compare years and remember what worked and what detracted from the experiences. I have so many memories of champs and I often use them to identify specific years. The year Merritt scratched into the 400IM as an alternate and KILLED it. The year that Lindsay cried as she faced the 1000 free. The year of David Wood. The year my own son got so scared to be in a relay with the big boys that he swam the fastest 100 free he had ever swum by 4 seconds. All of these memories are critical components in our team history and have become bricks in the foundation of our growth.
So now I ask, what will it be this year? I want all of the athletes to take a moment and think about what the new bricks will be made of. I’m talking about more than memories and funny stories. I am talking about experiences, races, moments that will reinforce our long term goals; that will teach the up and coming athletes what a championship meet should be like. I am talking about real contributions to our team’s fabric, things that will endure and remind future championship teams why we do this great sport. So if it is your first year at champs or your last, you all have an opportunity to leave behind something of yourself and the team you are a part of right now. Next year it will be different. You will have a new role to play and a new responsibility so seize this meet, this time, this team. Make it yours! You have the power to be a legend and a hero! The impact of these moments will reverberate through the team during the meet, to your teammates still at home, and down through to the first year swimmer in the State group. So make a plan, and get ready to add to the architecture of this incredible team that is GMA! I am proud of you all!
- Eileen Hall
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Here Comes GMA!
This is the most EXCITING time of the year for our GMA team, as the short course championship season is finally upon us! The New England end-of-season and championship meets are starting to come at us fast and Regionals is this weekend! After that is the New England 12 & Under Age Group Championship Meet and before we know it we'll be at MIT for The New England 13-19 Age Group Championship Meet!
Throughout the season we've had team activities, team travel trips and team breakfasts. This team has become one of the more close knit and fun groups to coach here at GMA. However, it hasn't all been giggles and grins. It's been the fun and supportive atmosphere created by the GMA team members, coaches and parents that has allowed this team to grow. We've all helped each other through several months of hard training (both in and out of the water with a new CrossFit approach to dryland). We've been eating right and sleeping well, juggling homework schedules and practice schedules. We've thought day in and day out about goals. We've discussed what it means to set difficult goals and what needs to be done to achieve our own goals and to help our teammates achieve their goals.
All of this focus and hard work has resulted in many first time qualifiers for both Regionals and Age Groups. We have also seen several swimmers take their swimming to the next level, achieving more championship meet cut times and racing well enough to score points for the team. This has the potential to be one of our most successful seasons! Tomorrow night, GMA will be storming the Upper Valley Aquatic Center with almost 100 athletes, the most we've ever sent to Regionals!
We all know that success will not just be handed to us. This is the time of the year to increase our focus and intensity once again. We may be physically prepared to swim fast due to all of our hard work, but are we finely tuned and mentally prepared to hit our peak performances when it matters? We need to ask ourselves this question every day, as now is the time when those little things can get in the way of true success. There is no time left for excuses. Approach every day with a single minded focus of applying your absolute best effort to every little aspect of our training and preparation. This excellent attitude will help us be champions, win or lose.
Regionals is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the team momentum builder and the tone-setter for the entire championship meet season. How exciting that we have more athletes than ever at the meet to establish that tone of excellence! Let's continue to work hard to the end, GMA. Support each other, get PUMPED UP and SWIM FAST!
New England Swimming, are you ready for this? Here comes GMA!!
- Jarett Fitzpatrick
Throughout the season we've had team activities, team travel trips and team breakfasts. This team has become one of the more close knit and fun groups to coach here at GMA. However, it hasn't all been giggles and grins. It's been the fun and supportive atmosphere created by the GMA team members, coaches and parents that has allowed this team to grow. We've all helped each other through several months of hard training (both in and out of the water with a new CrossFit approach to dryland). We've been eating right and sleeping well, juggling homework schedules and practice schedules. We've thought day in and day out about goals. We've discussed what it means to set difficult goals and what needs to be done to achieve our own goals and to help our teammates achieve their goals.
All of this focus and hard work has resulted in many first time qualifiers for both Regionals and Age Groups. We have also seen several swimmers take their swimming to the next level, achieving more championship meet cut times and racing well enough to score points for the team. This has the potential to be one of our most successful seasons! Tomorrow night, GMA will be storming the Upper Valley Aquatic Center with almost 100 athletes, the most we've ever sent to Regionals!
We all know that success will not just be handed to us. This is the time of the year to increase our focus and intensity once again. We may be physically prepared to swim fast due to all of our hard work, but are we finely tuned and mentally prepared to hit our peak performances when it matters? We need to ask ourselves this question every day, as now is the time when those little things can get in the way of true success. There is no time left for excuses. Approach every day with a single minded focus of applying your absolute best effort to every little aspect of our training and preparation. This excellent attitude will help us be champions, win or lose.
Regionals is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the team momentum builder and the tone-setter for the entire championship meet season. How exciting that we have more athletes than ever at the meet to establish that tone of excellence! Let's continue to work hard to the end, GMA. Support each other, get PUMPED UP and SWIM FAST!
New England Swimming, are you ready for this? Here comes GMA!!
- Jarett Fitzpatrick
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