Indy Takeaways

We just returned from the NCSA Championship meet at the “Nat” in Indianapolis. As is the case with nearly every swim meet, we had some stellar success swims and some that we would love to do over. The good news for us was that when a swimmer had a successful swim it didn’t go to his/her head; when the swim was “not so much” there were no pity parties happening.

Jim Fannin says the most important word in sports is the four letter word “NEXT”. When you have a great race, awesome, next; when you are less than thrilled, too bad, next. Our team is getting good at this.

Don’t mess with a good thing. Our guys won the 200 Free Relay. I (Don) switched the personnel for the 400 Free Relay. I over thought the whole situation. I had my reasons and believed them to be accurate. We finished a very close 2^nd…should have left things the way they were…not the smartest coaching at the meet, let alone in the world; I actually strive for that daily.

Forget about the watch/scoreboard. If you are swimming with one eye on the scoreboard (figuratively of course) then you are not in the present. When you are not in the present you are guaranteed a less than satisfying result. In the game of “task vs. result”, task masters always win…always. You can take that to the bank.

Pace yourself. It is a 4.5 day meet. If you go full tilt boogie from the opening swim you will not finish the meet. We spoke about this every day at our team meetings. We swam very well every session. We had 7 girls and 10 guys. We had nighttime swims from 2 of our girls and 5 of our guys. We had almost everyone help score (top 24) either individually or on relays. We were strong all the days. We certainly had a few busts but we were in the meet every day; pace matters.

Logistics: our Moms made everything happen. We had really good food when and where we needed it. We had vans crisscrossing town on schedule. We could easily have competed in the “Drum & Bugle” competition that was happening in Lucas Stadium (home of the Indianapolis Colts)…our precision was inspiring. Oh, wait, we cannot play any instruments…

NCSA…what a crew…maybe equaled but not ever surpassed. These folks know how to run a meet for the swimmers. Some (not all to be sure) of our local officials could take lessons from these folks. When it comes to running a meet with lots of swimmers, coaches who need a nudge now and then and parent volunteers, the NCSA crew is superlative.