Following a great week in Liberty, Mo, with William Jewell College, I drove up to Iowa to visit my former club, Ames Cyclone Aquatics Club (ACAC). It had been 8 years since I left Iowa, and this was the first time I came back to visit. As you can imagine, the club changed a lot during that time, and I was impressed with what I saw.
My first day vising the club was a Sunday evening – you read it right – and there were well over 60 kids from 3 different groups attending practice. I probably would have been against adding Sunday workouts to the schedule, but ACAC has had to adapt to some shortcomings in pool space, and Sunday has proved to be a very popular option.
I followed workouts all the way through Friday (making this my longest stop so far), and every day there was a lot going on in the pool. The club has grown a lot, and in many nights they were swimming 7 to 9 deep in their Pre-Senior group, and 6 deep in Senior. And in every case, they were clearly making it work! It was really great to see how much the club has blossomed since I left, and in a small town they managed to became a fairly sizable club.
Head coach Mike Peterson was not only welcoming, but he made sure to show me around all the gadgets he came up with when trying to improve his athletes’ training. In fact, he’s gotten – and followed through – on so many ideas, he’s got a partnership on a SwimSmart – you should definitely checkout some of their products!
The club has also been lucky to land a few great coaches that just happen to have set base in Ames and so, in Mike’s words, they currently have 4 potential head coaches on staff. Having plenty of time in tow, I got to sit down with 3 of those, and I’m really looking forward to releasing those podcasts – it might take me a while, but they will all be worth it!
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