The goal for our team the fall semester, in terms of school, was to earn a team GPA of 3.3.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!  The team earned that 3.3 GPA and 8 of the 19 team members had a 3.5 or higher!!  Now we will have to wait to see where the team falls in terms of GPA ranking among all college swim programs, but I am extremely proud of this accomplishment of the team.  But I think we can grab a 3.4 this spring!

Out of those 19 team members, 5 made the Student Athlete Top 25 GPA List for Wabash College.  Juniors Adam Barnes and Brad Wise rocked the highest GPAs on the team with 3.9s this semester, and continued to lock down their spots as two of the smartest student athletes on campus.  Steven Batchelder, a sophomore, appeared on the list for the 3rd consecutive semester.  Sophomore Carter Adams and freshman Dylan Miller also made the Top 25 List.  To earn a spot on the list this semester, a student athletes GPA had to be higher than 3.85.  I have to be proud of the fact that over 25% of the team comprises 20% of the top 25 student athlete GPA list on campus!

And there are a number of guys with 3.5 GPA that will have a chance to earn Academic All American status this semester if there swimming falls into place as well.

So let’s keep up the good work and be the smartest team on campus, and the smartest swim team in the country!

5) Don’t Wake Me Up – Chris Brown (I think swimmers sing this every night before morning practice)

4) Gangnam Style – PSY (how many times will the team perform it on the beach?)

3) Let Me Love You – Ne-Yo (Nothing funny to insert here)

2) Die Young – Ke$ha (hopefully not, if we all avoid the apocalypse tomorrow)

1) I Cry – Flo-Rida (What would FL be without Flo-Rida?)

One of the best parts of the trip (outside of the great, uninterrupted, training) is the team bonding.  The team spends ALL their time together in Florida.  They eat together, sleep together, train together, bury each other in the sand, they talk about talking to girls on the beach (I have yet to see it actually happen yet).  This bonding brings everyone closer.  By spending so much time together outside of the pool, the team learns much more about each individual and strengthen may bonds of friendship.  Time spent together on training trip leaves more time to know people that you may not have spent as much time with before the trip and you learn more intimate details about the life of your closest friends.  The team chemistry soars off the charts during the trip and can make the team much better for the second half of the season.  Any coach will tell you that great success in the pool is much easier to accomplish when the team chemistry is great and everyone respects, likes, and loves each other.  Florida helps bring the best of this out in everyone.

We also do a few team meals on the trip as well.  All the guys have kitchens in their rooms so they often take turns making meals for each other, or in some cases, take turns pouring everyone bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  On New Year’s Eve we always go out to a team dinner.  It’s a great time for everyone to get together and have a good time.  Plus most of the guys dress up for it, and you might be surprised, but they clean up well.  The coaching staff also goes out to eat with each class individually to spend some time with each class and get to know them better as people, students, swimmers, and everything in between.

Don’t forget about the ocean mile.  Always done early in the morning on New Year’s Day, it’s a tradition that I started when I arrived four years ago.  We swim from our hotel to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, which is exactly 1 mile.  It’s a nice refreshing way to wake up, plus it’s fun to see those afraid of the rabid sharks and man eating manatees conquer their fears.

And finally, we started a tradition regarding music in Florida.  We travel about 40 minutes a day in the van to and from the pool and get to listen to the delightfully sweet tunes of Fort Lauderdale.  During the course of the trip, inevitably there will be a couple song that you hear once a day, that turns into twice a day, and by the end turns into 5 times during a 10 minute van ride.  We keep a running count going to see what song comes out on top as the most played.  And its’ always fun to guess what song will win.  I will reveal my top 5 over the next few days, but for now here are my honorable mentions for most played songs.

10) The Whistle Song – FLO Rida (Mike Nemeth once told me Flo-Rida got his name from the state of Florida.  Never would have guessed that!)
9) Don’t Stop the Party – Pitbull (The team wishes that training trip would never end)
8) Diamonds – Rhianna (the team motto is no pressure, no diamonds, so it fits)
7) Some Nights – fun (the entire trip will be full of fun, so who needs them in the top 5)
6) Locked out of Heaven – Bruno Mars (most of the guys would consider the training trip heaven if they didn’t have to practice twice a day)

The top 5 still to come.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

What a great start to a season.  When the majority of the team is comprised of freshmen and sophomores, a coach can never fully know what one might get.  But with a young team comprised of two superior junior student-athletes and a bunch of gullible underclassmen, there is one thing you can rely on:  HARD WORK.  And that is what the team brought to the pool every day this semester, buckets of hard work.  The team set some very high goals for themselves this fall, and we are working on swimming towards those goals.  The first half of the year left us happy, yet unsatisfied.  We left the Calvin Invite 2 weeks ago with 5 freshmen entering the Top 15 All Time Swimming Performance in Wabash history.  Chris McGue made  the list in the 50 free, Arturo Granados in the 1650 and 1000 freestyles, Joel Paquin in the 1000 and 1650 freestyle, Jack Belford in the 1000, 16500, and 500 freestyles as well as the 400 IM, and Elliot Johns in the 100 and 200 freestyles, and the 100 and 200 backstrokes.  Just about everyone on the team was faster at midseason this year than they were at this point last year, and that includes numerous personal bests.

We still need to work on our races strategies, and our starts, turns, and underwaters leave much to be desired, but those are the details I get to yell at them about in practice right now.  And practice without me picking on someone for an underwater or a turn just wouldn’t be fun (for me).

Our motto this year has been “No Diamonds, No Pressure.”  The team can not become great unless we face adversity and deal with the pressure dealt to us, whether it be academically, socially, or in the pool.  We are cultivating an environment that embraces challenge and sees it as an opportunity to improve and become a diamond.  Coal doesn’t turn to diamond overnight or in 3 months, but we are confident the coal will turn to diamonds in 62 days when we take off at the NCAC Championships.

Stay turned as next week, I will reveal my thoughts on Florida and more importantly, my list of the top 5 songs the team will hear during our trip as well.

And if you haven’t done so already, follow the team on @WabashSwimDive on Twitter.

Stay tuned.