Coaches Corner for October 19th: Chris Mann, Boone Girls Swimming

Joining us on coach's corner, KWB, Jig and a talk boom girls swimming. Torridors have conference meet coming up in a Grinnell on Friday. So kind of working toward that. Actually, Chris, pretty busy week for you guys last week. And we want to talk about senior night. That was the last time. But you had a couple of events last week. Yeah, we actually, homecoming week, we had two home meets. So very busy for our girls and always a lot of fun to swim at home. But yeah, that kept us pretty busy last week. And we're kind of looking forward to, well, I'm looking forward to just getting back into some practices and get back in the swing of things and and not have all those interruptions or whatever. But yeah, we had a couple chances. So last week and the girls are pretty excited to do that at home. Well, and you had a chance and senior night I know is such a big night because you guys always do such a nice job, Chris, when it comes to getting girls to come through. But you also had a chance to to honor somebody who's been a part of the swim program for a long time. Chris, can you tell me about that a little bit? Yeah, so this summer, I got an email from our official Jack for Health and he's been officiating long since before I've been here. And has taught many people to swim in Boone and used to work with the Y program in Boone and is officiated. But yeah, over 60 years of of working with the swimming in general and being an official for 61 years. And so just took a chance as he retired this summer to recognize him one last meet. And just a lot of people came out and showed their support. And he's just had an impact on so many people in our community and their abilities to get started swimming and you know, just seeing him on deck as an official all those years and just being our constant. And that was awesome to be able to recognize him and all the dedication that he's put in. Then the girls union has named him this year's a swimming official of the year. So he'll be recognized at the state meet as well in November. Well, and you go from from a big night there and boy, anytime you get a chance to swim at home, that always feels great. But then you go into senior night. Chris, I know you've always told me that you're kind of 5050 on senior night. One, you love being able to honor the seniors. But then two, you're like, Oh, boy, now we're gonna lose these girls next season. But how was how was Thursday night? What was it like to honor everybody? Oh, man, you know, it's crazy to think back on their freshman years. It's always like, you know, time, time goes slowly, but then time gets away from you. And all of a sudden, like, it's kind of over. And so just thinking about all that these girls have done over their four years is amazing. And, you know, we were their freshman year, we were a pretty bad team. I think we were, we were probably fifth at the conference meet, we were well under 500 in our record. We barely snuck in, we swam one event at the state meet, just snuck in 30 second qualifier. And so like to go from there to where they are here, you can just see that it wasn't just the seniors, of course, but their constant leadership and their their direction for the team has just been tremendous. And I think a lot of our underclassmen realize that they owe a lot of the success and the groundwork that's been laid to these seniors. So it's just a lot of fun getting to recognize them in their last home meet on Thursday. Well, and you guys got to do something kind of extra special this year, because you got to kind of have more than just the boon seniors, because Chris, you had a chance, obviously, and we've talked about this since August, but Perry has joined you guys this past fall. And, and you had a chance to honor the Perry seniors too, which I think was outstanding. Yeah, so kind of a different situation where they haven't been on our team for four years, but boy, they made an impact just in one year. And coming into the season, it was a little unsure about, you know, how kind of merging, merging a few girls from a different team onto our team would look and man, between our seniors and their seniors, and, and just the whole bunch of girls, they, they've really meshed together like a team that's been together for four years. So it feels like they've been around for four years. But man, they're three years at Perry, they also did a great job as leaders and continue that leadership over here in Boone. So yeah, just a unique situation, but super fun to be able to recognize a couple more on top of our four seniors that we've had for all four years. Chris, I've seen you guys have a fantastic season. I've seen you score a bunch of points. 146 in a duel. I don't know what the record is for a duel. Chris, that's got to be up there. Is it not? It's close. You know, we had a lot of a lot of first places and a lot of depth show up show up on Thursday. And, you know, the girls just get excited. And I tell them before the meet, there's senior night usually goes one of two ways. One, you get really emotional and you swim poorly. Or the other one, you get really emotional and you swim lights out. And so they they chose the latter and obviously performed performed very well on Thursday and got to choose. A lot of them got to choose what events they were swimming on Thursday. So we made sure that they especially the seniors were doing some things they wanted to do. And we're on some relays with other seniors and getting to enjoy that last moment. And I tell them all the time, you know, you're not going to remember what the score was on senior night. You might not even remember that we won. You might, but you're going to remember, you know, cheering on your teammates and having fun with them and how the how the vibe on deck felt all night. And that kind of stuff's going to stick with you. So they did it. They did just such a great job all season, but on Thursday night, really bringing that energy. Chris, what was that like walking out of the pool that night? I mean, with that kind of energy that that had to have been in there, that's got to be tough to get sleep that night, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, sometimes, sometimes, you know, I haven't lost a lot of sleep yet over losing these seniors, because we still got a few weeks left. But there will be a time towards the end of the season, and especially rolling into next spring and next summer, where the it's always the realization of what you lost last year and how you're going to replace it. But I tell you what, the way that they lead, they do such a good job making sure that the program's still in good hands when they do leave. They've done such a good job with the juniors and the sophomores and showing them what it looks like to be a leader that I mean, girls just fill their place. They're not replaceable, but they have people that'll step up into those those roles for sure. Alright, so we mentioned it when we got started a conference meet is coming up on Friday. And I don't know, I guess it's kind of a different format, just because normally when you hear conference meets, you know, they're during the week, you know, like a Tuesday or a Wednesday or Thursday or maybe sometimes you see it on a Saturday. Chris, what about doing this on a Friday morning on into the afternoon? We love it as as coaches as athletes. You know, we do on Saturdays and as smaller schools, there's some other speech and band competitions that are going on. So we were missing out on a lot of girls. So as coaches, we decided, Hey, let's just do it in the middle of the day. Last year was on Thursday this year. It's on a Friday. And I think that's fantastic. One, it gets us a little excited to miss a day of school to go to go and compete. But on the other hand, like we're competing at the same time that we normally do. It doesn't kind of waste your whole Saturday. Yeah, you know, but yeah, it's a great time to compete and be able to get all the all into the conference schools together and at full strength and not missing half their girls for various events around the state. So it'll be a great competition over there on Friday. Final thing for me, Chris, what kind of schedule do you put together this week, knowing that you do have a Friday morning meet? So it's not like you'll get up early Friday and obviously have a practice or anything. But how's the week going to progress? That's what you think. To Shay, I could be wrong on that one. No, we won't practice Friday morning. But so our conference meet will be the last meet for our JV squad. So they will be, they will be on rest this week on afternoon practices only and their yardages will be cut down. So they're primed for Friday's meet. Our varsity girls to go two a day is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And then we'll practice again on Saturday. So we're just in the thick of it. We kind of use it as a, Hey, this is a good chance to swim fast, but we're not going to rest for it. You're going to swim fast while you're tired. Because we have regionals two weeks later, which is our main focus of our entire season, regionals in state. And so we can't, we can't rest and then rest again. So we're in the middle of some pretty hard training this week, but these girls are really good at swimming fast when they're tired. They've done it all season and looking forward to that opportunity again on Friday. Absolutely. Chris, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck coming up on Friday and we'll talk to you again before regionals. Thanks, Ryan. You bet. Chris Manigan joining us Boon Girl Swimming here in Coaches Corner.