Farewell Remarks

Early this morning at MVP, after the campout, Jim Phelan suggested I post the farewell remarks I prepared for last night.  After some consideration, I thought it was a good idea.  So, here goes:

 

FAREWELL REMARKS

When Carol and I took this job over from Ken and Paula three years ago, we had five simple goals:

Continue to build a program that we all could be proud of. One that focuses on sportsmanship and skill.
Have a program in which kids – whether they swim all A meets, a handful of A meets, or only B meets – become better swimmers so their parents have confidence in their ability to enjoy swimming.

Have a program in which the kids have fun, whether it is pep rallies, teen night, nights like tonight.

Continue to build friendships among adults, which in turn builds a stronger community.

Be the leading summer swim team in the greater Mt. Vernon area.

And, thanks to coach Paul’s leadership, a great group of assistant coaches, a bunch of great kids and great parent volunteers, we believe the team continues to meet those goals, and will continue to do so under Tonda and Jim.

Here is a short list of the things that make Gator swim so special:
　
There is no other sport in which a seven year old girl is as important as an 18 year old boy.

Maddy has been on this team for 13 years – there is no other youth sport where you are on the same team for 13 years. She’s gone from a little Gator who lives in a hut and likes to shake her butt to a senior assistant coach position. 

We have had remarkable stability in our head coach position – Paul has been our coach for eight years. If your swimmer is age 13 and joined when they were five, they have never had a different Gator head coach.

Not only do we have stability in our head coach, he is a great coach and a real leader for our swimmers – not only as swimmers, but as children and teen-agers. I’m not sure people know just how hard Paul works. In the school year he is a physical therapist who works with special education students in Stafford County. He also coaches year round, except for August, for NCAP, which is one of the nation’s top swim clubs, and he handles the demanding schedule that the Gators require from May through the end of July. He focuses on technique, he focuses on building leaders, and he focuses on sportsmanship and how our swimmers should act with class and dignity.

The discipline and focus it takes to be a good swimmer is incredible, but it pays off in the classroom and in life. I’ve gone to 13 years worth of senior days at A meets, and guess what – there are no dumb swimmers (well, maybe Ryan Lochte).
When our 20 year old, who’s now studying at Oxford for the summer, made her first A meets at age 7, neither Carol nor I knew the first thing about swimming. But we volunteered – Carol in concessions and me as a marshal, then Stroke and Turn, then Starter, then Ref, and we grew to love this sport. We already loved MVP as a family place, but through the friends we made on swim team, it has become the centerpiece – year round – of our community. Even at age. . .well, my age. . .I’m proud to see a car in the area with a Gator magnet on it.

Thank you for entrusting Carol and I with your swim team these last three seasons. We’ve loved nearly every minute of it that did not involve the team computer’s problems. Torie is a Gator for another two seasons, and already we can’t wait for next year.

As we leave the stage, can we get one more Gator grunt!