Hello Woodmont Wahoos!

We have some exciting changes for the upcoming Swim & Dive season. Although registration for the Swim & Dive team won’t begin until early April, we want to share some important details with our families now, because we know summer planning begins early.

Coach News

We are thrilled that both Coach Abbey Crank and Coach Erica Stanley will be leading the Woodmont Swim team again, this year as Co-Head Coaches! Their strengths compliment each other beautifully and we can’t wait to see where they take the team together this season. In another stroke of good luck, Coach Molly Nelson is returning as Junior Assistant Coach for our 8 & Under and 9/10 practices, and she will again be leading our Swim Team Prep program to help develop our youngest swimmers and get them ready to join the swim team in a future year.

In big Dive Team news, Mason Laine will be joining Woodmont as our new Head Dive Coach. Coach Mason has been coaching diving in the Richmond region since 1986, and is currently coaching at St. Catherine’s and St. Christopher’s. A former collegiate diver at James Madison University, she co-founded DiveRVA, a year round travel dive team. Working side by side with returning Assistant Coach Hillary Mills, we are looking forward to seeing our Dive team continue to grow and thrive this season!

Practice Updates

We spent a lot of quality time during the off-season discussing and reviewing last season with our Swim Coaches and have developed a practice plan that will really help our swimmers develop their strokes, have fun, and get the most out of their practice times with the coaches.

We are breaking our Swim practice sessions up into shorter 45-minute practices with fewer swimmers per lane, and we will have firm maximum participant numbers in all of our age group practice sessions. When the maximum number of participants has been reached for an age group practice session, that session will be closed and we will not be able to allow any additional participants to add into the session, so please register your swimmer as soon as you receive the registration link in early April to be sure they get a spot on the Swim team for the 2022 season.

An additional change to Swim practices is that Woodmont will only be offering morning practice sessions (aside from 2 weeks of evening practices before school is out.) Our small, 6-lane pool size and our burgeoning pool membership made evening practices very complicated and crowded in 2021, and the Aquatics Committee and Coaches decided Woodmont would be able to offer a better swim team experience overall to our kids if we focus on morning practice sessions in 2022.

Dive team practice sessions will continue to be morning only. There will also be a firm maximum participant number for the Dive team to make sure all of our athletes get the best experience possible this season, so as with Swim, be sure to sign up as soon as registration opens in early April.

Practice session times for Swim and Dive will be shared at registration, but will occur in the same window of time that morning practices have occurred over the past several years, between 8am and 11am, broken down by age groups.

Requirements For Our Youngest Swimmers

If you are considering Swim team for the first time for your child, to ensure safety and a positive experience for them, please make sure that they meet the following requirements:

–Must be able to swim the length of the pool unassisted. Doggie paddle is completely fine, but swimmers need to be able to comfortably get across the pool without assistance or prompting. There will be a swim test on the first day of in-the-water practice and any young swimmers who are not able to swim the length of the pool on that first day will be referred to our Swim Team Prep program.

–Must be a rising Kindergartener or older. Younger swimmers who will not be entering at least kindergarten in Fall 2022 should sign up for our Swim Team Prep program to help them get ready for the swim team in a future year.

If you are not sure if your child can swim the length of the pool unassisted, there is time to sign them up for some spring lessons at nearby locations, such as: AquaTots, YMCA, ACAC, MAC, as well as SwimRVA, NOVA Aquatics, and other local swim clubs and gyms.

In order for practices to be safe and successful we will be adhering strictly to the above requirements this season. If your child is not yet quite ready for the Swim team this season, some lessons combined with our Swim Team Prep program is a great way to help them get ready for the Swim team in a future year!

Watch for the Registration Email in Early April!

We can’t wait to get everyone back in the water in May, and we look forward to a great 2022 Swim & Dive season! Watch your email for the registration email in early April!

Go Wahoos!

Aquatics Committee