Gators is now open to families who are not members of Great Hills Country Club, Jester Club or Lakewood Homeowners Association. These families will be able to join Gators for an additional registration fee.
Gators swim team is a great opportunity for children to meet new friends and improve their swimming skills. Swimmers will gain a sense of team participation, pride, and confidence that will stay with them for a lifetime. It is also an opportunity for the whole family to be involved in the swim team experience.
Gators Swim Team is made up of children between the ages of 5 and 18 prior to June 1, who can swim the length of the pool.
See "Practice Schedule" link on front page for information on when the season starts and finishes.
See "Meet Info" for information on the meets.
Registration Fee $125.00 for Great Hills, Jester Club or Lakewood Assoc. Members.
$175.00 for non-members.
We do not have a rain out number.
Practice cancellation policy in the case of inclement weather. We will follow the club pool policies that state:
"For everyone's safety, in the event of thunder or lightning, the pool must be evacuated and remained closed for a minimum of 15 minutes to ensure lightning is no longer a threat."
Practice is therefore canceled in the event of thunder/ lightening.
Practice will go on if it is raining, however, it is up to the coach's discretion on whether to cancel practice in the event of rain.
We will do our best to send out an email to the gatorswim group on the days practice is canceled.
The "age-up date" is a date used to establish the age of a swimmer for event eligibility purposes. In the Austin Aquatic League, this date is June 1st of the current year. The swimmer's age on that date will be used for the remainder of the summer in determining which events may be entered. This means that kids with summer birthdays will be in a different age group than some of their school friends. Later in the summer, the age shown for the swimmer on heat sheets and other reports may not be his or her actual age.
It is important that a swimmer's birthday is correct in the team database. If you notice an incorrect age or birthday, please contact the Computer Systems volunteer to correct it.
Some of the pools where we swim are 25 yards long, while others are 25 meters long (known as "Short course meters"). This difference (about 7 feet) means that event times in a meter pool are usually a couple of seconds higher for every length of the pool. Fortunately, the time software that we use understands this situation and performs conversions when necessary.
The heat sheet for a meet will show all seed times in the units of the home pool. Depending on absolutely nothing but pure chance, times which have been converted may or may not be followed by a "C" (Yahtzee!™) on the heat sheet. Event results posted at the meet will also be in the units of the home pool. However, subsequent reports like those for best times may be shown in either yards or meters. This choice typically matches the length of the team's home pool and the header of the report will indicate the units used. Sometimes times may be followed by a 'Y' (for yards) or 'S' (for meters), or maybe even an 'm' (also for meters, because m stands for meters everywhere on the rest of the planet ). Since the Great Hills pool is a meter pool and because of the webmaster's zelous adherence to the metric system (as it's the only one worth using), our team records and other results are usually shown in meters.
| Meter Pools | Great Hills | Westover |
|---|---|---|
| Yard Pools | Balcones Woods |
Tentative relay team assignments are made automatically each week by a computer program. The program uses recent best times for all swimmers on the team and a list of swimmers to be excluded for absence or other reasons. The two primary objectives in team assignment are:
To achieve these goals, the program uses a strategy approved by the Gator coaches which will sometimes cause swimmers in the 11 & Up age groups to be assigned to teams in older age brackets. After the 'A' relay team in an age group has been seeded, the 'A' team in the next-older bracket is allowed to use the best swimmers currently available before any 'B' teams are formed.
When constructing medley relay teams, the program considers all the permutations of swimmers and strokes to form the fastest teams possible. It also determines the best available substitute for each leg of the race. Swimmers with NT (no time) for a stroke are not considered for that leg of a medley relay, so don't miss time trials.
Once the tentative team assignments have been made, the coaches have an opportunity to review the results and make any adjustments they wish prior to the meet. After the meet is seeded, reports are generated in different formats for the coaches, ready bench, and age-group parents.
Last-minute adjustments to the relay teams may need to be made at the meet if a swimmer is unexpectedly absent or cannot swim. In this case, the age-group parent should immediately contact the ready bench personnel, who will consult with a coach if necessary. Adjustments may involve simply choosing a swimmer from the substitutes listed on the relay report. However, if the affected team is an 'A' or 'B' team, swimmers may be shifted up from other teams in order to maximize scoring potential. Sometimes a team may be forced to drop out if another swimmer is unavailable.