Minnesota Swim and Vibe is built on the belief that the stronger the swim community is in the state, the more opportunities become available for success for everyone in the the sport. The Wright County WAVE swim club was on the edge of having a summer or longer without swimming. They shared their story on how the swimming community came together so that wouldn’t happen.
We were left unexpectedly without any coaches for our long course season back in April and had two weeks to figure out a plan. Our board immediately reached out to surrounding clubs for guidance (SDVL) and the amazing Terri Moser said first and foremost, keep your kids in the pool and swimming while we figure out the next steps.
She also asked if we had any USA Swimming officials/parents at WAVE. We did, and she suggested that we see if any of them would be interested and able to get certified as coaches because they had the training half-done. We had three parents that were ST and SR officials. We also had a fourth parent who agreed to take all the training to help us out. Two of us had a background in competitive swimming and two had backgrounds in marathon and triathlon training.
All four of us had full-time day jobs. We completed all the online training through USA Swimming, and the amazing Mikaela Bagley at MTKA was able to get all four of us the in-water training needed during that two-week period. We had a past WAVE parent who volunteered her time all spring and summer to be our on-deck lifeguard for 8 hours a week due to facility requirements. Her daughter also became trained to be our junior coach.
Becky Vonderhaar at MSI was up at all hours of the night entering our coaching certifications into SWIMS so we could be on deck for a meet the last weekend in April. Danielle Wentzel offered support in her role at MSI and coordinated with AQJT to coach any of our kids that wanted to attend meets where our team was not attending.
Tracy Meece made herself available via Zoom and conference call when she was out of town. Brian Wright (TUNA/Breck & Blake) and Jeff Lee (BAC) were available for advice and consultation. We had many email exchanges and conference calls with Ellery Parrish and Mitch Gold, our team services reps at USA Swimming. Neighboring club coaches VCTY, MONC and SDVL helped our coaches at meets with logistics and answered questions.
If we have realized anything from this experience, we did what we had to do for the kids. Our goal was to keep swimming alive in our small community of Buffalo. We were able to offer our kids 11 swim meets this season. We have secured a new head coach; assistant coach and four junior coaches are working through their certifications currently.
We are humbled and overwhelmed by the support we received from the MN Swimming community. Coaches, boards and MSI staff were nothing short of amazing. We are so appreciative and could never have done this without all involved as it truly was a collective group effort by many. It truly took a village. We’ll never forget this season; we will pay it forward!