Good morning, Barracuda Family!

Swimming is not just a summer sport. Many take a break in August, but it never really stops completely. Continuing to swim in the JCSC off season is the best way to keep your speed, or, for most people, get faster for next summer! Below are options as to how to do that.

USA Swimming

Club Talon (CT) is our sister year-round program that we most strongly recommend. They operate out of Carson-Newman with the college head coach, Ben Young, also being the CT head coach. Besides Ben, CT and JCSC share a lot of the same assistant coaches allowing us to "speak the same language" and easily coordinate with training and swim meet plans. Here is their website. They expect a higher level of attendance and commitment than JCSC, but also accept swimmers of all ages and abilities just like JCSC, including little ones who can only simply make it across the pool. Their top 2 groups return to training on August 18th, and the rest on September 2nd. I can't speak for what group your child may end up in, but CT has a guide for practice groups under the "FORMS" tab of their website. All further questions should be directed to CT via the "About" tab on their website.

We've had some families swim for Red Piranha Swimming (RPS) at Morristown Landing, which is also a USAS program. They're actually a satellite program of their main location in Kingsport. Here is their website. While we primarily recommend CT, RPS is still a great option for those wanting to stay in the water who may not be able to make it to Carson-Newman during the school year. Swimming anywhere is better than not swimming at all!

Middle School & High School Swimming

Grace Rathe and I coach the county-wide MS and HS teams for Jefferson County (grades 6-12). State law allows for all homeschool athletes zoned for Jefferson County to participate on their athletic teams. Additionally, the league we're a part of allows for co-op teams to form if you reside outside the county in a place where your zoned school does not have a swim team (and Jeff Co is the next closest public school team). Swimmers are allowed to be both homeschooled and out-of-zone/co-op. For example, Morristown-Hamblen doesn't have MS teams, so we have both public and homeschool kids that fall into that category competing for Jeff Co. For potential homeschool Jeff Co swimmers, I'm attaching a document with the procedures you'd need to follow in order to participate. Eligibility with us can be tricky to figure out, so please reach out if you have any questions. If you're interested in Jeff Co Swimming, send me an email and I'll forward you the email I sent last year's team this morning about our tryouts (Friday, August 22nd from 6 to 7 PM in the C-N MSAC).

Morristown East HS and West HS swim together under the same coach. Last year, it was Mindi Stokely, but this year, their coach's name is Gina Aten. I haven't met her in person, but she used to swim competitively and coached water polo. Her email address is [email protected] if you'd like to get in touch with her. 

Lakeway Christian Academy currently doesn't have a swim coach, but their administration is committed to hiring a new one and keeping their program. Unfortunately, I cannot coach LCA athletes due to being a JCS employee, nor can LCA kids co-op with Jeff Co.

BOTH?!

We have many kids who train with Club Talon but compete for their schools in Jeff Co, at Morristown East/West, and at LCA. Some compete for both CT and their school. I'm not sure what that would look like with RPS, but surely it's an option. You'd need to reach out to them to find out. Like I said before, staying in the water is the best thing you could possibly do to stay (or get) more competitive in this sport that we all love. I hope all the information above was helpful. If you're still unsure how to navigate these options, I'd be happy to help guide you.

Go Patriots, Go Lions, Go Hurricanes, Go Trojans, Go Eagles, Go Piranhas, but most importantly, GO CUDAS!!! While we may swim for different teams during the school year, I hope we can all recognize that we're still 1 swimming community in our greater-Jefferson County/Lakeway area!

See y'all around,

Josh Winn