Greetings from the pool deck!
The NCAA calls this time of year "March Madness". Holy cow, are they right! March is a huge month for us, especially this year. Next week, the Inter-Galactic Championships of Texas (a.k.a.TAGS) begins on Thursday with MARS hosting more than 1000 uber-fast age group swimmers. Four short days later, MARS is hosting the Speedo Western Sectional Championships with about 500 uber-fast senior swimmers from AZ, CO, NM, UT, CA, HI, WA, along with our fastest senior kids. We're honored to have an Olympic gold medalist competing at this meet. Mixed in all of this is spring break. March is quite a crazy time of year!
This all brings me to this....having the ability to host these types of events takes incredible effort and especially, team work. MARS has a long history of our family pulling together to pull off some fantastic events. Our families always rise to the occasion and bring our best ideas and efforts to the table. It's really no mystery why MARS gets asked to host such prestigious events. We're really good at it! While its true our staff work tirelessly behind the scenes for months preparing for these events, its really our families coming together during the events, doing the myriad of meet operational jobs, that really sets MARS apart. I'm very proud of what we do and what we've accomplished together.
A few days ago, someone who was on our team as a child, asked me how things were going with MARS. We reminisced for a while, bringing up memories of coaches and swimmers from the past. Some of us are old and still here. Others were children who became coaches, and as adults are here again (our team theme song after all is, "Hotel California"). This is my 20th year with MARS. Twenty years ago, we had just merged with the Mid-Cities Swim Team at Trinity HS. We had just over 100 swimmers, two pools and a staff of 4 coaches. We put on a meet or two each year at our "new" Trinity pool. Boy, how time flies and how things have changed. We're now over 500 swimmers, at 5 pools, with a fantastic staff of 15 coaches. We're a major player in all things swimming in North Texas, and have served in many positions within USA Swimming, "giving back" to this wonderful sport of ours. We have a US National Team and Olympic coach on staff. We operate a foundation that promotes water safety and provides swim lessons to all in our community. We've have more than a dozen medical doctors, two veterinarians, a handful of lawyers, bunches of teachers and coaches, and scores of successful professionals come from within our ranks. This past year, we had our first Olympian. So many success stories. We all need to be proud of what we do together each day. I certainly am. I hope reading this puts a smile on your face and a little more of a spring in your step today.
We are who we are, because of WHO we are....all MARSians. Have a great day!
Coach Brian
