Dear Marlin families,

Thanks for a great first week. As a staff we feel it was very productive but we also have identified some areas that will need some fine tuning. This will come in time so we are asking for your patience as we learn your swimmers strengths and needs.

Practice Schedule for Week of 9/8

Penn High School

Splash 1 & 2: Monday and Wednesday 6:00-7:00

Splash 3: Monday and Wednesday 6:00-7:00, & Tuesday and Thursday 5:30-7:00

Fins Flex: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 5:30-7:00

Fins Compete: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 5:30-7:00

Elite: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 3:45-5:30, and Friday 3:45-5:15

New Prairie High School

Splash: Monday and Wednesday 5:00-6:00 CST

Fins: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 5:00-6:30 CST

Elite: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 5:00-6:45 CST

Knollwood CC

Splash 1 and 2:

Monday and Wednesday 4:30-5:30 or 5:30-6:30

Tuesday and Thursday 3:30-4:30 or 4:30-5:30

Practice Notes:

New Prairie families continue to use door N18 to enter the building. Penn families use door D. If you arrive at Penn and the gallery door is locked, please feel free to get my attention on deck to let me know. 

Due to the home football game at Penn on Friday we have been asked to leave the building by 5:30. Unfortunately that means we will not be able to offer practice for Splash 3 or Fins Flex. Splash 3 will add Tuesday this week.

Practices

I have included this week's workouts for the Fins and Elite Groups. Please share these with your swimmers. The more prepared they are for practice the more productive it will be.

Middle School Weight Program

If your athlete is a middle school student at PHM there is an opportunity for them to start a lifting program at Penn High School. This program, named Futures, is designed and led by Matt Cates, the 2024 National Strength Coach of The Year. This program is free of charge. It will be Monday and Wednesdays from 7:30-8:15. Bus transportation will be provided for Grissom and Discovery students. Schmucker students will walk to school. I have attached a flyer with more information.

I want to be clear on this point. I can not recommend this enough. Every one of our eligible athletes, male and female, should be part of this program. Stronger athletes are better athletes. My goal is for swimmers to be the largest group of athletes participating. Let’s be the example!

Contact Info

If you do not already have it, here is my contact information.

Email: [email protected]

Cell: 574-276-6057

The rest of the coaches emails can be found in the attached document

USA Memberships

We will need all of our athletes that have not done so already, to renew their USA Swimming memberships. Here is the link. From my experience with my own athletes just purchasing the membership will initiate the transfer process.

If you qualify for the Outreach Program email me and I will send you the link you will need to use for registrations.

If you have any questions about any registration issues you can reach out to me or our team/business manager Kelly Laneman ([email protected])

Swim–A-Thon/Penn High School/Oct. 12

Our 1st annual Swim-A-Thon is planned for Saturday October 12th at Penn High School from 8:00-10:00 AM. This is an event for our entire team. Each athlete will be required to raise a minimum of $100. Athletes raising $200 or more will win a logo’d team suit. There will also be other prizes for the overall top fundraiser and for the top fundraiser at each location.

Here is a preliminary breakdown of funds disbursement.

• 5% to the USA Swimming Foundation
• 10% goes to Michiana Marlins Foundation for scholarships for our athletes
• TBD % for needs for each location based on what each site raises.
• TBD % towards coaching wages/salaries
• TBD % coach education/clinics/professional memberships/required certifications
• TBD % future projects/travel/trips/clinics/guest speakers/emergency funds

I understand this is vague. I want to be as transparent as possible and will communicate exactly where the funds will go once it has been decided.

Switching to New Website Host

We are currently with SwimTopia and hopefully very soon will be switching to TeamUnify. We hope this will be seamless. But with all changes there will probably be few bumps and somewhat of a learning curve if you are unfamiliar with TU.

Spirit Wear

Hopefully you saw our social media posts with the link to our team store. If you missed it, no worries, here is the link.

Help Wanted!

We are looking for some volunteers. Thank you to Marinna Bittle and Micaela Wise for offering to serve as our spirit wear/social chairs.

We also have two volunteers for our advisory board, Andrew Martin and Rob Nichols. At this point we have not set a total number we need but I know we like it to be larger than two. If you are interested send me an email. The details for these positions are still a work in progress; we do have an idea of how we would like the board to function. As the name suggests, the board would advise our management team and handle some administrative type tasks.

We also had a candidate apply for the director of our swim school. Once this person is in place I am quite certain this program will grow quickly. If it does we also needd more swim school instructors.

We are also looking for some coaching help. We anticipate our numbers growing and could use help at all three sites.

If you know of anyone interested in the swim school positions contact our team/business manager Kelly Laneman,( [email protected] ). For all coaching positions please reach out to me.

Parent Meetings

Here are the tentative dates for our parent meetings at each location.

The KCC parent meeting will be Monday September 23 at 5:45 EST.

The NP parent meeting will be Tuesday September 24 at 5:30 CST.

The Penn parent meeting will be Wednesday September 25 at 6:00 EST.

Specific meeting locations will be communicated in a later email. These dates are all subject to change based on coach availability for practice coverage. My presentation typically takes around 30 minutes followed by a question and answer session.

Social Media Sites

Make sure to like, follow, or subscribe to our social media platforms. You can click here to our Facebook page, X, and Instagram. We will use these sites to enhance our communication. These sites will be filled with pictures from meets and practices. We will also be posting any last minute announcements here as well. These will include practice cancellations, weather or otherwise, time changes to meet warmups, and anything else that needs to get out quickly.

Fall and Winter Meet Schedule/Dates of Meet/Location/Deadline to commit

This is our tentative meet schedule for the fall and winter. We may add meets if we find ones that fit our club’s needs. There will be two different dates listed with each meet The first date listed is the day(s) of the meet and the second date is the deadline to commit.

Swimmers wanting to compete will need to commit to those meets. The deadlines will be based on deadlines that were set in previous years. They may change once the meet hosts posts the meet information. When committing to multiple day meets, if the option to select the days you want is not available, leave a message in the notes section stating the specific days you would like to attend.

Some meets will be marked with an * and those will require swimmers to meet minimum time standards. Soon you will be able to see all pool locations on our website under the "Pools" tab.

DUNE Sweater Weather Swim Spectacular/Hobart High School/Oct. 5&6/Sept. 20

CON Skypoint Transit Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Nov. 1-3/Oct. 12

GSI Goshen Rays Veterans Day Meet/Goshen Aquatic Center/Nov. 9/Oct. 13

IA Tim Welsh Invite/Elkhart Aquatic Center/Jan. 3-5/Nov. 5

CON IMXtreme Invite/Concord High School/Jan. 24-26/Dec.15

IA Jr. Superstar Invitational/Rolfs Aquatic Center/Feb. 15&16/Jan.12

CON Leisure Pools Last Chance Showdown/Feb. 28-Mar. 2/Jan.19

*IN Swimming Divisional Championships/TBD/Mar. 7-9/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Senior State/TBD/Mar. 13-16/Feb.23

*IN Swimming Age Group State/TBD/Mar. 21-23/Feb. 23

*USA Swimming Speedo Sectionals/IU Natatorium Indy/Mar. 27-30/Feb.23

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

--

John VanDriessche

Head Coach

Michiana Marlins

Penn High School

(574)276-6057

MichianaMarlins.com

#letsgoMARLINS