Mission

To educate the young by developing competitive swimming skills and commitment. To develop future successful athletes who, through self-improvement and personal leadership, may set and accomplish goals.

Objectives

1. Growth - To achieve sustained competitive success through participation in a diversity of competitions: international, national, state and local. It is the intent of the coaching staff to allow the swimmers to progress at their own pace in a positive climate. Winning is improving each swimmer's own time.

2. Environment - To create a positive training environment where high self-esteem, hard work, goal setting, perseverance, self-discipline and dedication are promoted.

3. Process - Process is as significant as the achievement. Athletes are encouraged to be process oriented, not outcome oriented, instilling in the swimmers an appreciation for values such as personal accountability, constructive self-motivation, goal setting and goal achievement in training and competition.

4. Outreach - To expand membership in order to share the sport of swimming with as many other people as possible. Committed to sharing values of the sport with young people who will discover swimming is a life-long enjoyment.

Program for Athlete Development

Our program is designed to understand and develop each athlete to maximum individual potential on a series of levels. The design consists of seven levels that encompass the following critical areas: training, competitive performance, biomechanics, physiological, psychological, character and life development skills. With time, these progressions will become a reflection of the time developmental process each and every swimmer goes through; a process that recognizes that every swimmer who enters this sport begin a journey with his or her own road map. Each swimmer's journey proceeds at an individual pace and with many different levels of success.

The seven levels are ranked according to color and reflect the swimmers abilities in all the six aspects mentioned. The colors have set practice schedules that accommodate the training amounts that we feel are necessary for improvement. Each color has an entrance test that the athlete must pass in order to be allowed to train with that group. The training test have been refined from the United States Swimming Progressions for Athlete Development text and adapted to our coaching philosophies. Descriptions of the seven levels are as follows:

• Level 1 (White Team) - Comparable to a Pre-Competition training level. This level takes swimmers from the age of 4 and teaches the fundamentals of competitive swimming. Athletes are taught streamline positions, diving, and flip turns with an emphasis on teaching freestyle and backstroke.
• Level 2 (Yellow Team) - Entry-level athletes ranging in age from 6-12. This includes athletes who have moved from the White Team onto the swim team or athletes who have just joined the team that have proficiency in freestyle and backstroke but are in need of some refinement and teaching butterfly and breastroke.
• Level 3 (Green Team) - A more advanced training group of novice athletes who have demonstrated proficiency in all four competitive strokes so that the emphasis can be placed on developing a higher physical capacity to train with longer distances or faster pace intervals. Age ranges are 8-12. Generally, these athletes are attending regular competitions and are on the edge of achieving a B standard in all events available.
• Level 4 (Blue Team) - The first intermediate training group consisting of ages 10-15. Mainly swimmers who have worked their way through the first two levels (the younger ages) or novice high school athletes who have just started in this sport. These athletes are capable to train at faster intervals and have the ability to swim longer distances in practice while maintaining their own pace intervals by utilizing the pace clock. These athletes are usually competing at the BB time standard level with times close to A standards or have one or two A standard times.
• Level 5 (Red Team) - The intermediate to advanced training group consisting of 13-16 year old. These athletes have achieved A time standards in all events available to them and are either on the verge of moving into the Texas Age Group Championship (TAGS) level or have achieved one or two TAGS time standards.
• Level 6 (Orange Team) - Comparable to a Senior I training group. These athletes are finalist at the Age Group Championship (TAGS) and have achieved a Sectionals time standard. This group is the first training group that we allow to train for 2 hours at a time on a daily basis.
• Level 7 (Black Team) - Comparable to a Senior II training group. These athletes have achieved multiple Sectionals time standards and either have achieved National or Olympic Trials time standards. This training group resembles the Orange Team training group with faster training intervals and longer swimming sets.

Benefits

Athletes learn about perseverance, determination, goal setting, achievement, dedicating, and commitment. They learn to win and lose with grace, and what it takes to strive for excellence, as well as time management skills, courage, and self-control. As an after school program, the team provides a safe and healthy environment for athletes.

About Keller Swim Team