Friendships made on the network pool can regularly last a lifetime. Just ask a person at the Westminster Stingrays Swim Team.
Now celebrating the team’s 30th anniversary, crew members reflected on its history and the friendships born on the water.
“I suppose it is [about] the friendships that the swimmers on the team have advanced through the years,” team coach Alex Hanson said.
The nonprofit Westminster Stingrays Swim Team started in 1989 and has grown exponentially to a team of over one hundred fifty swimmers. It competes inside the Central Maryland Swim League and imparts a robust swim lesson application for the network.
Hanson said the team—whose home base is the Westminster Municipal Pool—is for experienced and summer-most effective swimmers.
“We are aware of stroke paintings. We do everything we can hold it a laugh,” he stated. “With pep rallies on Fridays, [we] get the children cheering for each different in the course of meets and feature a pal machine to get older and younger kids cheering for one another as well.”Team consultant Morgan Muse has been a member for 6 years, serving four years on its board and serving administrators.
“We practice Monday via Friday, starting the day after Memorial Day, and [we] run through the quit of July,” she stated. “We have dual meets each Saturday and a few greater invitationals and qualifiers for the duration of the season. In addition, we take part In the Central Maryland Swim League, which comprises 50 teams. They have nine divisions this 12 months, and we are in Division Three.”
Muse stated the maximum number of swim meets inside an hour’s pressure. The crew has hit capacity beyond years, with 30 humans on the waitlist this 12 months.
“We love that everyone desires to be part of the summer amusing,” Muse said. “We are constantly thinking of new methods to make room for more swimmers.”
Muse spoke of ways they have changed over time.
“We usually chortle approximately how we used to need to run the meets,” she stated. “When the swim team began, the whole thing turned on paper. Now we use the computer to run the meets, which tracks everything.”
For Muse, one of the excellent things about the crew is the age variety of the swimmers.
“We have 5-year-olds and 18-year-olds at the equal team,” she stated. “The little children look up to the huge youngsters, and the big youngsters can get worried about helping with exercise and swim training. I have three children in unique age organizations, and it’s the only recreation where all my kids may be in the same group. I also love that we have a wide range of capacity. We have swimmers who can barely make it the duration of the pool and one swimmer who is headed to swim at a Division 1 university in the fall.”In 1989, Linda Kephart started the Stingray Learn to Swim Program, which offers three-morning instructions for every age and skill.
“The software grew to consist of each morning and evening training,” Kephart recalled. “Lesson instructors have been the Stingray team coaches. Interested crew individuals had been educated as lesson volunteers to help the lead instructors. Over the years, many children participated in the Program, and many swim team members were skilled teachers. The lesson application keeps going strong and continues to do so.”Kephart’s daughter Brianne (then 7 years old) joined the Westminster Stingrays in 1990, followed by her youngest daughter Kelsey in 1993 at age five.
“Both girls swam till they graduated from high college, and each became head coaches of the team at some point of their college years,” Kephart said. “I began volunteering with the crew in 1990, became an assistant educator in 1993, and took over as head coach for several summers. We have been worried about the crew through 2011. The group has become a family hobby and a fun way to spend months of every summertime. Lifelong friendships between the swimmers and their mother and father developed over time.”Beth Serbian stated she joined the crew in 1997, just before seventh grade. Now, her children are crew members.
“I started out swimming because I didn’t make the tour soccer team, which has been my sport until that point. The summer swim team has quickly become the spotlight of my summer season.
