The Cienega Swim Team is being taken over by a storm known as Coach Sam McGee. Coach McGee is a new staff member of the school, but he is far from being new to the sport. This former NAU coach and club coach has decided to take over half of the swim team.
Along side last years Assistant Coach, Elaine West, Coach McGee has a great year planned in hopes for an awesome season. He and Coach West have had many meetings and conversations about how they would like to kick off the season. It will all begin with a team meeting Monday August 7 in the Gym at 3:30 pm. After the team meeting, there will be a parent meeting on Wednesday August 9 at 5:00 pm, also in the gym. Meetings will be about what both coaches expect out of the season, new policies, a swim suit fitting and votes on swim suit designs and other goods. New policies will be addressed with the team however; coaches would like to inform swimmers that a new attendance policy is in place.
“I would like swimmers to know that attendance will be pushed harder,” said Coach McGee.
Turns and touches will definitely be a major push along side of attendance. The last step to kick off the season is the first practice. Practice will begin on August 14 after school. McGee insures that the first couple of days will be possibilities of time trials so he and West can place swimmers in different levels. In between time trials McGee will be working with those who are struggling, while West pushes those who can begin their practice for the first meet which will be a little over two weeks later in the end of August.
In recent days, both coaches have agreed to take 10-15 minutes out of two days of the week to do some out of the water drills. These drills will include, core strengthening using medicine balls and pilates. McGee and West hope to have a strong team, both as a team and individually. McGee called this a whole team workout.
Returning swimmers are hoping that McGee's past skills will help put and keep this year's team on top.
“I hope that this year we can get more people to state for every event possible and hopefully the new coach has enough experience to help get us where we want to be,” said Sophomore Michelle Donnelly.
McGee has had many coaching experiences which include, coaching masters since he got out of high school, coaching what is known as the F Pac in Flagstaff and a club in Prescott. In his experiences at NAU, training played a major part.
“I like to train all events,” said McGee when asked his favorite events to work with.
He was deeply involved in life guarding and the swim classes which involves different levels and comfort zones.
He is ready to tackle the new faces here at Cienega with many expectations. He says it will be a day by day adjustment with weekly grade reports, but he's willing to work with it the same as he always has. When it comes to time in the water during meets McGee hopes everything will work into place.
“Everybody should be able to swim at least two events every meet,” said McGee.
As for the 2006-2007 Cienega swimmers, the day has come. Swimmers will be encouraged as well as pushed to try strokes that are not normally swam by them. Coaches ensure that swimmers will swim every stroke.
“I train all strokes and I'd like to have the team train more IM workouts, all strokes, and push people to try events that they would not normally try,” stated McGee.
Storm McGee is rising quick and he is insured to take Cienega's swimmers by storm.
