South Dearborn Swimming

Sunday afternoon closes the 2005 Fall Splash contest held at the South Dearborn High School. With that event under our belt, it was a great opportunity to see your child's hard work payoff. I have several highlights from the event and wanted to share several great stories with you. Before the accolades start, I want to thank our workers and officials who put in countless hours both in front of the crowd and behind the scenes. Timers, runners, and the computer staff kept the meet flowing along. Our officials made the event smooth and in compliance with all rules and regulations. I always like to offer a special thanks to Pat Lunsford, who attended our meet as an official. For those of you that don't know Pat, he was on-deck and starting in both the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games. His attendance at most every high profile meet on the State, Masters and Olympic level gives our meet something not everyone can offer. Pat has a host of stories and tips for anyone involved in swimming. His knowledge and reputation in our sport is beyond reproach. It is not everyday your child can get the words "take your mark" from an Olympic level official.

Our concession stand was successful in part to everyone who carried, sold, stood a post, and cooked our fare. A special thanks to Paula Stevens for her A+ BBQ which arrived on Sunday. It's parents like this who make our sport fun and enjoyable. If you had an opportunity to look around beyond the busy clerk of course area and camping area, I hope you saw some familiar faces. Some of those workers were our high school team members. Those students came to work the meet and I hope your child had an opportunity to see them giving back to a sport that produces some of the best student athletes in the school corporation.

The buzz word of the weekend seems to be "double digit" club. Many of our swimmers dropped double digits in their events. Another credit to our coaching staff and dedication from our swimmers. Just think, as one kid put it "that's like between 10-99!" Yes, some pretty big numbers for each swimmer. Oak Hills, East Central, Batesville/YMCA are great ingredients for a fast meet. The coaches and staff were super to work with and we hope to see all those teams back again next year.

The after meet clean up was smooth and quick thanks to Bobby the facilities maintenance person from the high school. As always, he goes above and beyond his scope of duty to help the swim team. Not everyone stops to think about how many jobs are required to have this caliber of event. If you are new to the team and didn't participate because of some apprehension, please let me know and we can assign you to a mentor through your first year.

Before I close I have one more special thank you to send. On Saturday afternoon you might have noticed the smell of pancakes in the air. No, not another addition to the concession stand, but the new fragrance worn by Roger Fehling. Roger came to the afternoon session to work the computer since we were in a bind after starting his day at 4 am with the Lions Club Pancake Breakfast. Roger has a unique background with the team, since he was one of the pioneering families that set this in motion. While Roger has no immediate children swimming, his daughter is Coach Jones and his granddaughter is Morgan Jones. As we all know it takes a special person to be a swim parent. It takes an even bigger person to be a alumni- swim parent and still work a session of Fall Splash! Back to Top