By Natalie Strauss – Maple Grove High School Girls Swim and Dive
Just like everything, a successful swim season often comes down to proper preparation. As I enter year 11 of coaching girls swim and dive, I feel I have figured out many things needed to be done for a smooth start as well as WHEN to do these things without needing to scramble. Remember that for some coaches and teams, what I do won’t work for them. But hopefully this timeline will help coaches both new and old streamline the preparation process and create smoother starts with less hiccups along the way.
May:
Spring Info Meeting – This was new for me this year. We held an info meeting in the start of May which served a couple purposes. I advertised it at the middle schools that feed my program and at the high school. At the meeting, I shared general info like registration process/timeline, local summer training opportunities, captains talked captains practices, and got new families added to communication forms. Most importantly, my boosters shared fundraising info. We prefer to do the bulk of fundraising outside of the season so during season we can focus on training, competition and fun. Our largest fundraiser of the year was held in May and was much more successful this year than last, partially thanks to holding this meeting and disseminating information in person rather than via email.
June:
Captains Meeting – I sit down with my captains mid June to has through things they are responsible for. I try to make captainship a role for the athletes, not the parents, so this meeting helps keep them responsible for things while I guide them through the process. These things include designing apparel, superfan shirts, team shirts, planning captains practice, brainstorming summer and season social events. The bulk of this meeting tends to be on designing apparel in a realistic way. I have learned a LOT about this process through the years and it is good to give the captains a realistic understanding of what is possible while keeping things like order minimums and set up fees in mind. My biggest goal leaving this meeting is to be able to pass a design and type of apparel requests onto whatever company we are using to get an online store open ASAP. I’ve found ordering openings take anywhere from 2-4 weeks so it’s important to do this early so orders can be received early in the season.
July:
Finalize Schedule – Check for conflicts at the schools and facilities we host at (conferences, musical concerts, open houses and orientations). If there are conflicts or meets need to be moved I start this process so it is done early. If there are invitationals I haven’t heard from I reach out to coaches at this time. I like to have my schedule finalized by the end of July.
Apparel – Work with apparel company to modify designs and options. I like our first store open by the end of July if possible.
Team T-Shirt – Last year we did a team t-shirt that only athletes and coaches got. These were purchased by the booster club so everyone got the same shirt. We ordered them the first week and had them in time for week 2 when we took our pictures. This is a more “fun” design than the apparel design, it is dated, and have a quote of some sort on the back. In July I make sure the artwork is done for this and the company has our general order (minus number and sizes) ready to go so the quick turn around time can be met.
Finalize Budget – This is a booster club task that I work with them on. We look at the fundraisers done in the previous off season as well as our financial status after last year then set a budget for each event or item the boosters support. I try to be in on this meeting less to determine the budget and more to give input on needs and wants from the team. By doing this mid-July, anything needing to be purchased can be ordered and arrive prior to the season starting.
Revise Handbook – My handbook at this point stays mostly the same year to year but I do like to revisit it to ensure I don’t have any big changes or even minor updates I want to make.
Prepare Pre-Season Handout – My school does an all sport meeting at the end of July to share general information from the AD with breakouts for each sport. I share as much as I can at this meeting (schedule, apparel, volunteering) so families can plan and know what to expect. This is why I like things finalized prior to the end of July! I also have links ready to apparel ordering and a yearly athlete info form I do through Google Forms (more on this later).
Set Up Pictures – I like to do team pictures early in the season if possible so getting on photographer’s schedule is important. Check with your school AD in case they have a company you are supposed to work with. We do our pictures on the second Friday of the season instead of practice then the girls head to a team bonfire.
August:
Pre-Season Meeting with AD – My AD likes to meet to go over any needs, concerns, and/or questions for the upcoming season. We typically talk outlook for the season and any changes I’m implementing. I also provide him a copy of my handbook to approve at this point. I like my handbook approved by my AD so that if any issues come up they know my policies and can support me – If they cannot support policies I want to implement we discuss at this meeting and work to find compromise (this hasn’t really ever happened but would be the plan if it did).
Check Sign Ups Obsessively – Just Kidding! But really, our sign ups open the first Monday of August so I like to check them every couple days and send reminders to get signed up. Some years it is very stressful when my roster on the morning of day 1 of the season has 25 athletes and I end up with 60 by the end of the day! If physicals are needed, signing up can take more than a day so I try to remind families to sign up early so as to not miss the first day of practice.
Check In With Captains – I check in with my captains regularly starting in August. We use GroupMe to communicate and have a group message thread to chat. I check in on any needs or concerns throughout the week of captains practice and on what I need from them during the first days and the try-out process.
Get Pool Space Ready – I stop by the pool the week or so before the season starts to check in on it’s condition. I make sure the things I need for the first day are in place, rearrange and reorganize as needed, put things away, and hang any signage. I make large wall calendars that are color coded with each training group’s schedule for swim and dryland and anything else the athletes need to know about so those get hung prior to starting as well.
Plan Try-Outs – Last year I implemented a try out process. Not to cut anyone, but to separate into training groups. I am lucky to have a large team – last year I had 10 divers and 50 swimmers. We have a 6 lane pool with no separate diving well so there is no way to fit everyone at the same time. Divers practice later in the evening but I still need to split the swimmers for safety and space to truly train. I have a varsity and JV training squad and to separate them I do 3 days of test sets. This also allows me to figure out a baseline threshold pace so we can start training at threshold pace right away. For the first 3 days groups are split by grade (last year’s section team plus any 10-12th in one group, 7-9th in another group). I have an overlap of out of pool time between the two groups to do some team building stuff. Thursday and Friday of the first week is whole group stuff then we split into the varsity and JV training groups the following week.
Plan Dry Land – This I tend to hand off to one of my assistants but I do plan what days each group will do dryland. This year we are exploring having an outside group help with dryland so this planning looks a little different.
Plan and Reserve Space For Any ‘Extra’ Events – We do an alumni meet the first Saturday of the season, the girls have a few team bonding events throughout the year, and we have our Senior Night which need spaces outside of our normal practice time reserved. Getting these spaces reserved early prevents scrambling and possibly needing to change days.
Plan Mental Training – The mental side of swimming is something I am super passionate about. I like to have a theme for each season for what we do and have the girls journal usually 1-2 times per week about a prompt relating to what we are talking about. Last year we listened to a podcast to center our mental training, this year I have a couple books I’m exploring as read aloud to center us. Planning this ahead of time keeps it as an intentional part of our training routine.
HAVE AN AMAZING DAY 1 – The first day of the season is always nerve racking for me but has become less so each year due to having so much planned ahead of time. It is one of my favorite days as I get to see the potential in all the athletes – even though they may not see it in themselves quite yet.
There are of course so many more things that come through the season that need to be planned for but I tried to focus on things I do BEFORE the first day to give an idea of the lead up. We are now at the end of July with the season beginning in a few short weeks. If any of these things aren’t done, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a successful season! Things can always be done on a different timeline and each coach must figure out what works best for them and for their team.
A few final tips that are helpful to have in mind before the season starts:
- Decide how you will communicate with families and how often. I do not text with athletes or families outside of (sometimes) my booster club for quick, immediate needs. If an athlete or parent texts me, I respond that I need them to message me through Remind. Remind is the platform I use to disseminate information and communicate. This allows me to keep all team related communication in one app/web platform. My email is so full of school related emails that I found I was missing team related stuff sometimes. I send a weekly message laying out any information needed and the schedule for the week. I write the message on Friday or Saturday and schedule Remind to send it at 8am on Sunday morning. This routine helps me not forget and worked really well last season.
- Learn to use Team Manager and Meet Manager BEFORE needing to send your first line up and/or host your first meet. MNSV has offered mentorships for assistance of this and I would be happy to help anyone in need as well.
- Learn how to set up your timing system BEFORE hosting your first meet. Where are all the cords? Do they all work? Do you have a working printer? With ink and paper? There is nothing worse than finding out you don’t have all that is needed to run a meet when the visiting team is already in the water warming up. I use the alumni meet as a chance to test out our system each year and ensure things are working as they should. If we aren’t doing this meet, I do a time trial with pads and everything set up as a test. When we do this, I have veteran swimmers teach new athletes how to set up the system as well as teach my team managers how to hook things up. I also use these times to train parents interested in learning to run the Colorado and/or computer in how to do those.
- Ask for help! Find a coaching buddy who you can talk to and bounce ideas off of. This could be someone from another team or assistant coaches or really anyone in the swimming world. I have many coaching buddies who are always there to listen to me vent, talk through athlete/parent issues with, help with logistical questions and anything else that comes up.