The Bolles Sharks NewsletterVolume 2 - November 15 “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don The Bolles Sharks Newsletter

Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali

The Bolles Sharks Newsletter

S.O.T.M.

By Sergio Lopez

I hope all of you had a very good Holiday and you are having a very good start to this New

Year. Now it is probably the hardest time of the season for you swimmers to get going but probably it is one of the most important times for you not to fall asleep. You just got back from a break, recently started back with school and had finals, plus the weather has been getting very cold.

Continued on page 2

Sergio Says...Sergio Says...Sergio Says...Sergio Says...

By Jon Sakovich

As we head into the final phase of the 2007-08 short course season, I think we all need to reflect

on its beginning. Let us take a deep look at ourselves and ask, “Why are we swimming?” What drives us to get up in the morning earlier than any sane person 3-4 times a week, to do a swim practice that is done before most people have left their homes for work? Continued on page 3

Swimming with Sakovich...Swimming with Sakovich...Swimming with Sakovich...Swimming with Sakovich...

Helping Your Child At Practice By Martin Zubero

The best thing you can do is to encourage your children to “have fun, be safe, and swim smart” before practice, and be sure they have a warm towel after practice. After practice ask them if they did anything they had never done before and offer your praise. Sometimes children will express feelings to their parents that may help the coach provide a more suitable environment for the individual. You are encouraged to talk to your coach about your child’s responses to the practice sessions. If you decide to watch practice the most important thing you can do is allow your child to focus on the coach and on the tasks at hand. We know it is common in many other youth sports for parents to stand at the sidelines and shout instructions or encouragements and sometimes admonishments to their children. Continued on page 4

Swimmers Of The MonthSwimmers Of The MonthSwimmers Of The MonthSwimmers Of The Month (January)

January birthdays on page 5

Connor Shoemaker

Tyler Rice

Liz Watts

Izaak Butensky


Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...

February birthdays on page 6

Volume 2 - November 15 “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”


Page 2

Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”

Continued from page 1 But you need to make sure that you keep your goals in mind and that you are diligent at

doing your school work and also at working the best you can every day at practice. Sooner than you will realize you will have the next big meet knocking at your door and if you aren’t careful you may find you are not ready.

You need to make sure that you take one day at a time and that every day when you are about to come to practice you come mentally ready to work towards your goal. The pool

should be a place where you can forget about the stress of school and do something that is really meaningful to you. The window of opportunity to excel at a

sport like swimming is very small, and swimming is probably one of the sports which demands more of an individual than any other sport. But I can assure you that when you end up being my age you will look back and you will either be very happy that you took that chance to develop one of the talents that you have or you will be very upset at yourself for not giving yourself the chance to see how good you can be, how far you can take that talent. Taking your talent far does not have to mean being an Olympic Champion but instead giving 100% honest effort each moment of each day and seeing where that takes you by the time you decide to move on from this sport. I know that probably the last thing you want to hear is how wonderful one of your coaches had it and we (coaches) probably end up talking about ourselves too much, but at least you can get a real example of what really happens in life


Volume 2 - November “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

with someone you think had a great career. I was one of those swimmers who did not improve for many years, not even by a single hundredth of a second. You may think, “But you were an Olympic medalist!” I will tell you that it makes it even harder to keep going day after day with all the social pressures you have at that level and meet after meet not being able to improve. The last six years of my swimming career I worked the hardest I ever had and I did not improve a single bit in my best event. I was ready many times but when it was time to do it I did not do it. Why? That is not the point here. It could take a long time to explain. The point is that mentally it was very hard after a big meet to get back to training. But the next day I was in the water trying to give myself that chance to see how good I could be.

I think the most important thing that got me through all those bad moments, especially when I thought that I was wasting my time, was the fact that I took OWNERSHIP of MY swimming. I had a lot of

pressure from my government, federation, media, swim club, and many others but at the end of the day, if I closed my eyes, I knew that this was for me and nobody else. What I am trying to tell you is that you need to understand that you are doing this for you and nobody else, not your parents, not your friends, not your coaches, and not for some social status. You should be

swimming because deep inside you want to find out how good you can be, how far you can take your talent and, most importantly, to feel those goosebumps that you get when you swim a best time or when you have a very good practice and not even your coaches notice what you just did…but you feel very strong and powerful and you walk away feeling in the top of the world. Continued on page 3

Meditating can help you get mentally ready!

Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali

Feel the Goosebumps



Page 3

Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”

Continued from page 2 Your parents, your friends, and your coaches are the best support group that you can have

and you need to make sure that you understand that. I can’t speak for your parents and friends but I can tell you that, as a coach, I don’t expect you to swim FAST because it makes me feel good. As a coach I want to help you develop your talent and, most importantly, I want you to experience the great personal journey that swimming can take you through. I want to help you understand that no matter whether you win an Olympic medal or you make the Sectional cut, if you take ownership of your swimming and if you give every day your honest 100%, at that moment in time you will never have any regrets. Make sure that you sit down and think what it is about swimming that makes you feel good and what your goals are in the short and long term. If you need to come and talk with me about it please do so. At this level you put too much time, energy, and passion into swimming that you need to really have a sense of why you are doing what you are doing instead of going through the motions and doing this because of the social environment. Well, hopefully I make sense and you understand that YOUR SWIMMING is YOUR SWIMMING and that you need to take ownership and responsibility for everything you do with it. See you around the pool deck, Sergio


Volume 2 - November “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

What propels us to drive 30-45 minutes to and from practice to swim up and down a pool, stare at a thick black line,

and do stuff that is uncomfortable and painful for 3 hours just to drop .01 off our best time? Why do we swim when the temperature outside is not fit for a polar bear? (To see if Coach Jon will still wear shorts on a day like that is not a good answer.) How many of you can answer these questions and believe in those answers? There are many reasons why we endure all of this even though our non-swimmer friends may think we are nuts. So why do we do it? Is it in hopes of becoming a professional swimmer and signing that multi-million dollar contract? Is it so we can eat whatever we want? So we can wear really tight swim suits that cost more than a house payment? Maybe it is all the free stuff we get every year. Or because we love the sport of swimming for what it is; swimming. Some of us enjoy swimming for the competition. Some like to stand up on the blocks and go toe to toe with the best and see who wins. Maybe we have a lot of pride in challenging ourselves to be the best we can be each and every day. Maybe we like the smell of chlorine or do not like to take showers every day. Some of us might not be coordinated enough to do another sport. Whatever your reasons, there are many to choose from. Each one of us has to know why we swim and believe in why we swim in order to be successful. Continued on page 4


Don’t forget to have FUN!

Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali

Giving it all you have is all you can give



Page 4

Continued from page 3 As we wind up the season, many of us are starting to feel the pressure and you may begin to doubt yourself. We start questioning ourselves and our training. Did we work hard enough? Did we come to enough practices? Did being sick for two weeks hurt my chances to have a successful season? You start to hope that you will swim fast because of all the hard work you have done. You tell yourself that it better work or else you will be very upset. But are you forgetting that all important question, “Why do I swim?” We do not want to forget “why we are swimming” because that is the backbone of our success. Without knowing the answer to that question we would not come to practice, we would not work hard, nor would we strive to be successful. Our answer to the question is our mantra, it is the reason we keep on going, and it is our swimming bible. It is what keeps us from quitting. We need to have the confidence in ourselves in these last few meets that we are going to be successful. We have to believe that everything we have done we did to prepare ourselves for this moment, for this race, for this meet. When we get nervous we ask ourselves, “Why are we swimming?”, and then we answer with a resounding belief that we are doing the right thing. Each of us has our own answer as to why we swim. It has to be an answer that you believe in or you will not be successful. If you can not answer this question, don’t you think it is about


Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - November “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

What’s wrong with encouraging your child during practice? There are two issues. First, we want the child to focus on the coach and to learn the skill for their personal satisfaction rather than learning it to please their parents. Secondly, parental encouragement often gets translated into a command to swim faster and swimming faster may be the exact opposite of what the coach is trying to accomplish. In most stroke skill development we first slow the

swimmer down so that they can think through the stroke motions. Please save encouragements and praises for after the practice session. What’s wrong with shouting or signaling instructions to your children? I understand the overwhelming desire to shout instructions to

your child, but those instructions might be different from the coach’s instructions and then you have a confused child. Sometimes you might think the child did not hear the coach’s instruction and you want to help. The fact is that children miss instructions all the time. Part of the learning process is learning how to listen to instructions. When children learn to rely on a backup they will have more difficulty learning how to listen better the first time. What’s wrong with helping your child fix their goggles? Quite simply, we want to encourage the children to become self reliant and learn to take care of their own equipment. We encourage you to come to the pool and see your child’s progress but to sit back, relax, and enjoy the practice session. See you on the deck. Coach Zubero

Volume 2 - November “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali

Continued from page 1

We ask you not to signal them to swim faster, or to try a certain technique, or to offer to fix a goggle problem, or even to remind them to listen to a coach. In fact, just as you would never interrupt a school classroom to talk to your child, you should not interrupt a swim practice by attempting to

Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...Age of Aquatics...

A group of good listeners

What’s Going on in November


“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.” Tom Stoppard

Page 5

Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - November “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

Yuankai Wang-1st Cheyenne Tombo-1st Brighton Hakimian-2nd Elizabeth Zubero-4th Gwen Vanden Nort-6th Annie Yin-8th Jackie Watts-9th Gabriel Valdes-9th Toni Reeves-13th Reed Wynn-16th Pablo Marmolejo-20th Audrey Ware-22nd Isabelle Vandenbroucke-22nd Cameron Saffell-23rd Lauren Gibson-25th Robin Landy-26th Chris Musco-28th Max Glober-28th Alexis McIntosh-30th Kyla Hess-31st Karaline Gavin-31st

January’s Birthdays

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thurs

Fri

Sat

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

January 2008


It is the new year, and that means a new round of birthdays. As this calendar indicates, these are January’s birthdays. I know what you are thinking: But this is February! Well, you are correct, but as we did not have a January newsletter issue we couldn’t just ignore our January celebrants! So take a look at the birthday list and pick someone to whom you’d like to wish a happy belated birthday. Not to worry, February’s birthday’s are on the next page.

What’s Going on in November


Page 6

Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - November “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

Walid Quadri-1st Blair Schiller-4th Tyler Rice-4th Pink Kinanti-4th Vincent Mancheno-5th Jaqui Moran-6th Ivan Tolic-9th Paul Numbers-10th James Gaston-11th Daniel Zubero-12th Jackie Schaeffer-16th Sydney Van Dyke-17th Katherine Kincaid-19th Bradley Stamper-23rd Rachel Sowell-25th Emily Wynn-27th Christa McCullough-28th

February’s Birthdays

February 2008

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thurs

Fri

Sat

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29


“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know

everything.” Oscar Wilde

So here they are, the February birth-days. This is a leap year, but as you can see we don’t have any “leaplings” on the team. Those are people born on February 29th in a leap year. Here is a little leap year trivia:

• One tradition says that women may propose marriage only during a leap year

• In Greece, getting married during a leap year is considered bad luck.

• Anthony, Texas, is the Leap Year Capital of the World.

• There are exactly 365.2425 days a year, which is why a day is added every 4 years to create the Leap Year.



Page 7

Volume 2 - December “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Volume 2 - November “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”

Faces In The CrowdFaces In The CrowdFaces In The CrowdFaces In The Crowd

Volume 2 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 3 - December “Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Volume 4 - February I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'' Muhammad Ali

Aubrey Peacock sans cap

Regina Rodriguez, Caitlyn Mumford and friends

Chase Teeters-One serious competitor

Eric Vanden Noort-A look of his own

Coach Sergio wondering who can eat more, Branden Whitehurst or Jimmy Gaston?

Chase Teeters, Brooke Owens, Liz and Jackie Watts

Tatiana McLaughlin-The next Jackie-O?

Abi Wilder, Lauren Trummel and friend-Girls just want to have fun!



Letter From The Editor

First and foremost, my apologies for those who were so eagerly anticipating a January edition of the Shark Attack Newsletter. Going forward we will now have one at the beginning of each month. Obviously, because we missed January’s we still had to include those January birthdays, so along with February there are two pages worth of birthday announcements in this issue. The good thing is you now have a leg up on wishing a happy birthday to someone celebrating their special day in February. Because of the time lapse between this newsletter and the last issue, published in December, the Swimmers of the Month featured on page one are those who were given the honor in January. From now on we’ll post the Swimmers of the Month for the current month on the website and honor those of the last month during the newsletter.

This may not make the most sense to everyone but hey, we’re swim coaches! Just kidding. It’s the only way I can think of right now to be sure everyone gets their day in the sun. Another new feature you’ve likely noticed is the Faces in the Crowd segment on page 7. I’d like to keep this segment going each and every month. However, as noted in last issue’s Letter from the Editor, in order to do things like this I will need all of you wonderful parents to please send me pictures of your wonderful kids, your wonderful coaches, and your wonderful selves. It’s funny how each feature written by our coaches has the ability to be augmented by pictures currently “in-house.” But that won’t always be the case. We will always need new content. So please, keep the pictures coming. And to those of you who have sent pictures in the past, and others who allow me to continually use the pictures you’ve taken, a sincere Thank You on behalf of myself and all those who read this newsletter.

Above all things, we are a team!

Documents

The Bolles Sharks NewsletterVolume 2 - November 15 “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don The Bolles Sharks Newsletter