Good evening!

Throughout the chaos and fun of relocating practices and rescheduling dual meets, I forgot/didn't realize that entries for the Smoky Mountain Invitational (SMI) are due this Friday, June 26th. My apologies. This email is me asking you to RSVP as soon as possible on SwimTopia. Like, by midday tomorrow, so that I can do entries tomorrow night and Friday before midnight.

We have a lot of new families, so let me give you a quick rundown on this wonderful swim meet. It's our first "championship" meet of the season where basically all GKAISA teams attend. However, year-round swimmers who have competed in USA Swimming meets in the last year aren't eligible to compete, which makes SMI a great opportunity for true summer leaguers (or those who just swim summer league and for their middle school/high school) to shine. People used to say it's the largest outdoor summer league meet in the nation. Here is SMI's website where you can read more.

On Saturday, July 11th, swimmers 11 & Up compete. On Sunday, July 12th, swimmers 10 & Under compete. Whichever day your kid(s) compete, plan for a full day. While the schedule doesn't always stretch into the late afternoon, if there's bad weather, they will delay the meet until we're good to go—and it's out in Alcoa. This might seem like a miserable commitment to some parents, but many kids say that it's their favorite meet of the whole season. They love it. Additionally, we often see newer swimmers make huge progress in their racing ability, setting themselves up real well for the final meet of the season, the Tom Schumann City Meet Championship at UT. In other words, we want everyone who's able to attend to be there!

If you have questions about SMI as you're making your family's decision to attend, please reach out. I'll probably start texting everyone after lunch tomorrow who hasn't RSVP'd yet, but you doing it before then will save me some time and headache.

Thank you for reading! GO CUDAS!!!

Josh

PS: In case you didn't see the Remind message, on Friday, we will only have 2 practices: 8-9 AM at Morristown Landing and 5-6 PM at the Jefferson City Community Center. I was told earlier today that we can't have the 6-7 PM practice on Friday due to scheduled parties at the community center.