For some reason Austin has never been able to get good pools built. Not one public school district in Austin has a pool! They didn't do it years ago when financing was easier. Now there is little support for bonds for natatoriums. Eanes ISD (Westlake) tried to get an outdoor pool approved in November, and it was defeated.

San Antonio on the other hand has 3 indoor 50M pools capable of hosting meets plus the very good competition SC pool at Josh Davis. And of course they recently approved the new world class outdoor 50M to be built this year.

I think the Austin swimming pool problem is due to UT's dominance - Austin ISD never felt a need to build their own pool.

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 1/6/2011 7:04p).]

It's almost funny how spoiled we get in Houston/San Antonio with the pools.

The problem at this point is, like Spice pointed out, that UT is there, so nobody ever thought they needed pools, and now that they've outgrown the one, nobody wants to pay for them.

At this point, the only choice is going to be a partnership between the club teams and/or a school district. No club team, after seeing the Nitro system's success, will build anything more than that level of indoor pool (alone, anyways).

I think that the ideal system would be for the LSC to go to a school district and sign some agreement guaranteeing to rent the pool X times a year for the next Y years to host meets (pay rental fees) there. Doesn't have to be a Conroe facility. Friendswood ISD just build a 40-yard pool for $6 million, and unlike a lot of what we see in Houston, they're being smart about it-they're opening the pool to the public during the summer/early morning hours for public adult swims. In a place like Austin, that would be quite popular I'd imagine.

Denton has something like 4 1/2 ships and continues to maintain a deep team every year. Two of the three fish this year are redshirting as the team has so much depth. Both expected to play in the top 3 next year. While we have four foreign players this is lower than most top teams.

Women's tennis recruitng has been poor the last four years. Kleineke is a good coach but needs an assistant coach who can recruit well.

Looks like women's swimming has added two new athletes to their class of 2011. Samantha Bosma out of Georgia (top recruit out of that state) with a 23.3 50 free and 50.3 100 free. Also has 55's in the 100 back and 100 fly, all as a junior or below. That's a solid first step in rebuilding that sprint group.

Alexa Morris from San Antonio, projects as more of a mid-distance swimmer. 51.1 100, 1:50.9 200. Also a sub-24 50 free.

I think Kelli Benjamin has been discussed on here for a while, 23.0 50 free and 50.1 at AZ State Champ in November. 1:49.3 200 free also.

Great start to the class! Gotta keep going after those sprinters!

[This message has been edited by AGBlastoff (edited 2/14/2011 1:44p).]

Also, Emily Neubert from Texas Gold/Midway High. Another one to watch this weekend at State. 55.6 100 fly, 2:01.9 200 fly, 51.6 100 free, 23.6 50 free.

Talked to Emily Neubert's Mom late last week & Emily's pumped about State. She's in it to win it!

Neubert seeded first in both of her events at 4A state this week. One of our own seeded 2nd behind her in 50 free.

I don't know her but I just hope she isn't overtrained like some of Texas Gold's swimmers have been over the years.

Spicewood, she's not over-trained! And her Mom thinks the world of Texas Gold!

roboag, I wouldn't expect you to think any differently of someone you know personally...

But TG does have a little bit of that reputation...

Roboag - I'm glad her mom is happy with TG. Aubrey has a long established rep for a yardage based program. I personally know several TG swimmers who were fried by the time they got to 16-17 years old and eventually changed teams. The interesting thing about TG is that for some reason the team has produced a number of very good girls, but the boys have not done as well.

For some time in Austin there were actually two Texas Gold teams - one coached by Aubrey, and the other coached by Sharon Churchin. Two different pools, two programs, one team at championship meets. Sharon coached David Friggel and Shawn Kemp, two very good former A&M swimmers. She also coached Wesley Wheeler early in his swimming years. Sharon was a very different coach from Aubrey.

Aubrey's best swimmer is probably Micah Lawrence (Auburn).

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 2/16/2011 9:03a).]

I saw that Michah was on the PanPac team over the summer.

Also, Laura Slesnick (with the Ags now) and Emily Neubert to be with the Ags later both come from TG. Don't know how all the recruiting stuff works, but could this be the makings of a pipeline???

quote:

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But TG does have a little bit of that reputation...

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AgBlastoff: I don't know what you mean by this statement. Could you please elaborate?

aaaand RYAN KEMP



slightly different

What Spice said...minus the Shawn Kemp part.

BAGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oops on the wrong Kemp!

As for the TG pipeline, not so sure about that. Laura had two brothers that swam for TG. They swam for Rutgers and (still) Binghamton U. The whole family is distance oriented, a good match for the Aubrey version of TG. I am actually surprised Laura came to A&M. I kinda thought their family preferred non-public, smaller universities. Great family by the way and I hope Laura does well here.

Spicewood: Just checked, one of her brothers swims for Boston U. Sounds like it does fit though seeing that I don't think Boston U is that big.

I don't know the family. But you kind of point out one of the great things about age-group swimming. A lot of these kids come from great families!

Spicewood: Oops - I stand corrected! Her brother swam for Rutgers 1st, then went to Boston U!

My son swam with Nolan at the Sharon Churchin TG. But when she lost her pool, the Slesnicks moved to Aubrey's TG. We switched to TXLA for a while, then WFLY. My son regularly raced Nolan, most often in IM and sometimes breaststroke. They raced each other in 200 IM at 2007 state.

Spicewood: Cool! Did your son decide to swim in College?

BTW: Both Nitro & TG have several swimmers on the Pysch sheet for the Class 4A State meet. But you'll probably notice that not many Austin area teams/swimmers are represented in the 5A meet, which from what I understand is typical.

Roboag - in 5A the Austin area is in a bit of a down year I suppose. Westlake is way down from their power years of the past. Round Rock and Westwood lost both Dax and Kerrington, Wesley, etc.

Austin 4A schools are fairly well represented by LBJ (Austin Johnson), Lake Travis, Vandegrift, Dripping Springs, Vista Ridge (was 5A last year).

My oldest son swam 1 year at TCU. (don't let your kid swim for TCU!) My other son (also a state medalist (yeah I am proud) is at A&M now but obviously not swimming.

Spicewood: Oh, oh. What's wrong with TCU? How is the Women's team?

TCU's head coach (32 years) is not very good. No details to be posted here.

Spicewood: Understood, thanks for the info. If it becomes an option later for my daughter academically, I might have to confer with you off-board about the team.

But I thought TCU went undefeated in their dual meets last year...

TCU - helping good high school swimmers achieve mediocrity since 1978

5-Doubt on a roll! welcome back to the boards!

It's good to be back! Maybe I'll finally graduate from rookie-dom.

I am interested in opinions on TCU. My daughter is a swimmer and won her 5A Region in the butterfly. She has been accepted by TCU and has been asked to visit. We are waiting to hear from A&M.

She started late at the age of 13 and is getting better every year. Still dropping time, we will be at sectionals at A&M in a couple of weeks.

She was a going to play for a Division I soccer team when she decided she did not want to play soccer anymore. I will never forget that drive home from practice.

I went through the recruiting process with one of my best friends who swam for the same high school and club team. We were on the same recruiting trip to TCU. I was offered a full ride, and he was offered 50% scholarship. Either way, that's very attractive to a high school senior. I didn't have a good feeling about the staff and the program on my trip, so I decided to walk on at another school (Gig 'Em), and have never regretted it.

However, my friend ended up at TCU, and had a lackluster career (though he was still one of their best swimmers in years past). Yes he got a little better, but nothing significant compared the time drops of his peers at other schools. I had countless conversations with him where he talked about how terrible the coaching (in particular, the head coach)was.

From what I can tell and what I have heard, TCU rests for dual meets (hence their undefeated dual meet season), and, as expected, when conference came around, TCU underperformed.

I advise you to take a close look at the progression of the swimmer's times when looking at any college. Do your due diligence. Sure a school like TCU can throw a lot of money at you, but if it comes at the expense of reaching your full potential I personally don't believe it's worth it.

Great post 5-doubt. Really good insight. It's all about what one wants out of the experience.

I've only seen the TCU coach a couple times in my experiences -- at NCAA's watching his diver who grabbed the last spot at zones struggle against the big boys. He, of course, almost never has a single swimmer at either meet. I'm under the assumption he does a sell job with his dual meet record to his A.D. and that seems to be enough for him to keep his job -- forever.

A&M has done exactly the complete opposite -- punting the dual meet season away (though this year's was actually quite nice) in order to be rock stars this week and next month.

5-doubt - TCU offered you a full ride? Seems pretty generous when they have the same 9.9 to give as everyone else. And TCU has quite a few international guys on their roster to eat scholarships up.

Yes they offered a full ride. I do know that they often are able to give a lot of academic scolarships to their students as well though.

I also don't think the TCU team was as internationally diverse back then as it is now.