One of my favorite quotes is “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” The other day we were doing something challenging in dryland and in the pool. Several kids started with “I can’t do that today because of …” It got me to thinking about my own daughter, and all of the times that I told her, “That’s an excuse, stop making excuses and just get it done.” As your kids get older, you start to see this behavior for what it is—a bad...

We hear it all the time, from both swimmers and their parents: “I don’t want to swim that event because I’m not good at that stroke.” “He’s so close to an A time in that stroke so I want him entered in that event.” “Those events are back-to-back and he’ll be too tired if he swims both of them.” All of these things may be correct, but it’s important to work through them the right way. One of my favorite stories on this subject is about a swimmer who swam...

Good morning parents, As we start our new season and start to post swim meets that our team will be attending, I wanted to send out an update about how swim meets work and try to answer some common questions that I get this time of the year. Each season, we have a lot of kids starting with us who have previously competed in a summer league season, and we also have swimmers who will be competing in their first swim meet. Even if you’ve been on the team in...