Strathmore swim team
concentrates on improving
Nobody ever said that losing was easy. But when your ultimate goal is to improve with every competition, sometimes the losing is overshadowed by obvious improvement.
Take, for example, the Strathmore Bath and Tennis Club’s swim team, which has struggled to this point in its season but has not lost any of the enthusiasm that it started the summer with.
The Strathmore Bath & Tennis Club’s swim team may be 0-4, but its athletes are improving steadily, Coach Rocco Celentano said.
"It’s nice to win, but our purpose is not really winning, it’s learning the basics of swimming and getting used to race situations," the first-year coach said. "When you see kids walk away with faster times, they know they’re getting better and that’s what we’re here for."
Strathmore has 80 swimmers and they all compete in meets, said Celentano, who is assisted by Kristy Thiess. The team is broken into girls’ and boys’ divisions and competes in five different age groups.
Monitoring the progress of all 80 swimmers is certainly a handful, but Celentano has established a routine which enables all of his swimmers to log plenty of practice time and competitive swimming.
The girls swim the breaststroke and butterfly in Wednesday meets, while the boys compete in the backstroke and freestyle. They switch events for Saturday meets.
The team’s top swimmers include: 8-and-under, Kathleen Cogland and Sean Gleason; 9-10, Bianca Frizzino, Peter Bozzo and Nick Williams; 11-12, Danielle Gleason, Ryan Moore, Pamela Robie, J.T. and Jeremy Maurer, and Nick Tupper; 13-14, Mandy Hazeltine, Colleen Murphy, Amanda Weiner, Nolan Doyle, Andrew Faughnan and Vincent Tupper.
Celentano said that one of the most important characteristics of his team is the sense of team unity that it illustrates at each practice and meet.
"This is a hardworking group and they’re having fun," Celentano said. "We’re trying to teach them the basic skills and to learn how to swim the strokes properly. Our team spirit is great. Everyone encourages everyone else. They’re there for each other."
Celentano is hoping that his team’s work ethic will translate into a few victories as the summer season progresses.
However, he maintains that his goal will continue to be to help each swimmer improve, regardless of the outcome of the meets.