4 ALL AMERICANS!

I figured what better day to announce an All American award than the 4th of July! Our 200 Free Relay of Michael Stryszowski, Ted Grasso, Tommy Gilbert, and John Montgomery that went 1:27.63 at Sectionals were named All American this week by NISCA. NISCA recognizes the top 130 performances as All American and this is the 4th year in a row we've been recognized. You can check out the lists here. Congratulations guys, we are all very proud of you!

1 New American!

Vlad competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials last Monday. He finished in 81st place with a time of 1:57.68. Pretty impressive for an "old man" who trained for a little over 2 weeks. He said the whole meet was just awesome, very exciting. I've been to the Trials a couple times myself. If you get a chance go, it's an unbelievable experience! Anyway, congratulations Vlad! Any plans for 2012?

Vlad - An American Story

Our own, beloved Vlad became a U.S. citizen today! Passed his citizenship test/interview and took his oath all in the same day. No more threats to have him deported, he's here for good and we couldn't be happier. Next stop, Omaha and the Olympic Trials, the U.S. Olympic Trials!

Class of 2008

Graduation Day! 4 years, gone in a blink of an eye. Congratulations to Melissa Kolod and John Montgomery for winning the GBN Swimming & Diving Alumni Association Scholarship at the Awards Assembly and to Tommy Gilbert for being awarded the Spartan Sportsmanship Award at the Senior Athletic Banquet. Congrats Class of 2008 and good luck, stay in touch. HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!

Chris Koeppen Update

Coach Koeppen underwent his 3rd (and hopefully last!) brain surgery last Friday. The operation was done out in Phoenix by a world-renowned surgeon and by all indications it was a success. They think they cleared all of the tumor and his prognosis is good! I will keep you updated as we learn more.

All Swimmers Unite!

ASU, used to be a school in the desert, now a rallying cry to save men's college swimming. Last week, Arizona State University dropped men's swimming along with 2 other sports. The number of men's collegiate programs are shrinking every year. If something is not done, and soon, I really believe men's college swimming will be gone in the next 15-20 years. This may also impact women's programs. It costs a LOT of money to run a pool. Are colleges willing to pay? We'll see. With ASU gone, the Pac 10 now only has 5 men's teams. The Big 12, only 3. The MAC lost so many teams, they've combined with the Sun Belt Conference. There is hope, people are fighting these cuts. A year ago Syracuse dropped their program and people fought like mad and it has been reinstated for at least the next 3 years! Here is a link to the site trying to save the program at Arizona State.

ASU = ALL SWIMMERS UNITE!!!

"If you want to swim fast,

you have to swim fast”. This is a quote from Jon Urbancheck, who used to be the men's coach at the University of Michigan and still coaches with Club Wolverine. Pretty simple idea, makes a
LOT of sense. I was at a clinic this weekend and learned a lot. Jim Richardson, women's cach at Michigan and also with CW, spoke about the the changing trends in training. I've been toying with the idea of changing some of the way we train. I really believe the days of pounding out yardage and hoping to drop time at the end of the year are gone. We need to work at thriving, not surviving. Don't get me wrong, we still are going to work, we are just going to be smarter. You want proof that this works? This weekend at Santa Clara, Peter Vanderkaay broke the American record in the 400 free meter(3:43.82-6th fastest ever) and Erik Vendt set the US Open record in the 1500 meter free (14:46.78). This was done about a month BEFORE the Olympic Trials. Can't wait to see what times are thrown down at that meet, when they're rested! By the way, Peter and Erik swim for Club Wolverine!

Sectional Water Polo

The Spartan Water Polo teams finished their seasons this week at the Sectional Tournament. The boys lost on Wednesday night to Evanston, 11-3. Brett Heniken led the way by scoring 2 of the Spartans' 3 goals. The girls ended their season Thursday by losing a heart breaker 11-9 to Prospect. Despite Emma Goldman scoring 7 goals, the Spartans' furious 4th quarter comeback came up a little short. If you want to see some good water polo, GBN is hosting the Sectional finals on Saturday. The boys game is at 12:00 PM, followed by the girls at 1:30. Congratulations on great season and congratulations to ALL OF OUR SENIOR SWIMMERS, DIVERS, & WATER POLO PLAYERS ON YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CAREERS! WE WILL MISS YOU!

The Times They Are-A Changin'

And they've gotten faster! This is the second year of the 2 year experiment where the State cuts are based on a 3 year avg. of the 24th fastest relay time and 30th fastest individual from Sectionals. After the 200-2009 seasons, the Advisory Committee will re-examine the process. THESE ARE NOT OFFICIAL YET AND HAVE NOT BEEN APPROVED! THESE ARE THE RECOMMENDATIONS! Click here for the times.

Gilbert, Again

Congratulations to Tommy Gilbert for being named to the NISCA Academic All American team. Athletes must be on a varsity team for at least 1 season and have a GPA of at least 3.75 out of 4.0. Here is the link to the list.

Conference T-Shirts

The t-shirts for boys JV and Varsity swimmers & divers are in. You have to have all your equipment returned to get your shirt. Come see me in Driver Ed. office to pick yours up!

Pretty Amazing!

I just came across this and I think it's definitely worth some time. It's a lecture by Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and titled "The Last Lecture". He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only given a few months to live. It's about living your dreams and is very moving, puts things in perspective. He gave the short version on Oprah. If you want the one he gave to the school, it's also on YouTube. Here is the link to the Oprah episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ya9BXClRw

He is Everywhere...

Even in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Hope everyone had a good Spring Break!

More Awards

Congratulations to Tommy Gilbert for being named to the IHSA All-State Academic Team. This is pretty impresive considering only 26 people were picked from over 500 candidates from around the state. Tommy and the rest of the All State Team will be honored at a banquet on April 21st in Bloomington.

And It Begins...Spring Version

In the immortal words of Coach Rebora, "let's play some polo"! The girls opened the season last night at home with an 8-5 loss against #13 Mundelein. I saw Coach Walker in the hallway and he said he was pleased with the effort of the girls and was real happy with the defense. The boys open their season tonight against Rolling Meadows at home.

College Confrences

Here are how some of alumni did at their conference meets:

Jason Choi/Yale - ECAC
Maggie O'Brien/Ohio State - Big 10
Nick Renold/Northwestern - Big 10
Trevor Stack/Tufts - NESCAC
Francie Szostak/Missouri - Big 12

Awards Night

Last Thursday GBN hosted the annual Winter Sports Awards Assembly. Good turnout, nice video. Steve Ioannou did a great job as one of the Senior Leaders/MC's. Montgomery obviously knows every cameraman at GBN! We had a lot of awards to pass out. Here were the recipients:

All-Conference - Michael Chen, Tommy Gilbert, Ted Grasso, Brett Heniken, John Montgomery, Jonathan Roby, & Michael Stryszowski.

CSL Scholar-Athlete - Tommy Gilbert, Stephen Ioannou, John Karalis, John Montgomery, Patrick Schulze, MATT Seanor, Michael Stryszowski, & Kristian Trakov.

MVP - John Montgomery

Diver of the Year - Jonathan Roby

Most Improved - Ted Grasso

Coaches Award - Tommy Gilbert

John Ward Memorial - Tommy Gilbert

SI Picture

This is the best one I could find. You see Vlad on the deck to the left and our parents in the stands.

STATE!!!

It's hard to believe the season is over. It was a wild ride, lots of ups and some downs, but another great season for the Spartans. The guys did a great job at the State meet. It's always tough to hold onto a taper for an extra week, but we went in and competed at THE championship meet. Although we didn't go any faster, the guys can hold their heads high about their efforts. But, there was a definite highlight to the weekend. We scored at the State Meet for the 4th straight season! Congratulations to Jonathan Roby on his 11th place finish in Diving. I have to admit this was the 1st State Meet that I watched a lot of diving and it was AWESOME! There are some great divers in Illinois and that includes one of our guys! GREAT JOB JONATHAN!!! CONGRATULATIONS SPARTANS ON AN OUTSTANDING SEASON!!!

WOW!

Where to start? Well, we finished 2nd to our friends from Glenview, but that doesn't even begin to tell the story. When the day ended, the Spartans had 2 Sectional Champions, 6 State qualifiers in 8 events, 3 school records, and 1 pool recorded. Also, one really sore knee! I gotta learn to stay calm. I'll give a blow by blow recap, but you can check out the results and Vlad's Sectional Page for pictures and video.

Diving - You know it's a good day when you break the school 11 dive record in 10 dives! You know it's a great day when you break a pool record held by a 3 time State champ! Jonanthan Roby came up huge with a score of 489.75, easily winning the event. He heads into the State Meet with a great shot at making it to the Finals. While we were all blown away with that performance, Cameron Marsh came through with a score of 317.25, good enough for 7th place and just missing getting a medal. Cam's score was also the 1st time he broke 300 points! This was a great start to the day!

200 Medley Relay - we decided to make a change from the conference meet and to be honest, I wasn't sure how this group would perform. Ye of little faith. Dean Karahalios led off and only dropped a little over a second (28.05), pretty solid drop for a 50, especially in his 1st Sectional Meet! Next came Tim Kessler and a HUGE drop. Despite dealing with injuries all year, we got a solid 29.7 split out of Skippy (had only been 31.1 all season!). Next up was Ted Grasso who got an awesome start! Ted went faster than last year's split in the 1st meet vs. LT, but hadn't really been having great splits until last week when he went a LTB 24.4. I would've been happy with 24.0, Theodore had other thoughts. 23.50!!! ARE YOU KIDDING!!! Fastest split in the meet! Just when you thought we had squeezed all the juice we could, along came Michael Stryzsowski on the end. We got a 21.97 out of Stry, a little different than last week! We ended up in 5th place with a time of 1:43.23.

200 Free - This was the race that I thought would set the tone for the meet. I didn't realize what we would get of diving and the medley. Neverless, this was a solid event for the Spartans. John Montgomery got his 1st state cut with a school record 1:45.26. John swam a solid race, being a little more controlled first 1/2. I was waiting for "I just got excited" split of 49 low, but instead a solid 50.10. A couple lanes over we just missed a second cut by about a second with Brett Heniken's 1:48.25. After finally picking out a suit and a cap (nice color combo!?!?), Brett looked great the 1st 50 and then pressed a little too much on the second 50. His 50.97 split is his best 100 ever! That fast 2nd 50 really cost him on the last 50. Even so, finish 2nd & 4th, with 2 sub 1:50's, I'll take that.

IM - This was probably the event that made me the most nervous. We started out with Sean Sullivan throwing out a LTB 2:12.27, about 1.5 seconds faster that last week, when that was a 4.5 second drop. Not to bad for a freshman on a 2nd shave/taper! Next came one of the best performances I have ever seen. To be honest, Tommy Gilbert had been struggling a little the last couple weeks. He looked tired at conference and very sluggish early in the week. Looks can be deceiving. Tommy hit the 1st 100 almost exactly as planned, and although was about 3 seconds behind the leader, was right on track to go the State cut. After a fast breastroke split (34.71), Tommy was about a second behind the leader, but comfortably within qualifying. With that yours truly decided to take a victory lap and not see the end of the race. Big mistake, HUGE! As I was standing about 1/2 way down the old pool looking up at the clock, I heard the crowd getting louder and LOUDER! 1:58.74!!! SECTIONAL CHAMP!!! SCHOOL RECORD!!! If someone has this race on tape, I'd love to see the last 50! 4 events, 3 school records. Pretty good.

50 Free - Could we continue the roll? YEP! Michael Brennan threw out a LTB 23.60, just out of the top 12, finishing 13th. Not bad considering he has spent more time icing his shoulder and kicking that he did swimming. Another guy on a 2nd shave & taper and another drop. Not a bad way for a Senior to finish his career. Next up was Stry in lane 7. For whatever reason, that lane has been very kind to us at past Sectionals. Although Stry came up a little short, finishing 5th with a time of 22.45, that is still a good lane. That time would've been good enough to qualify last year!

100 Fly - I was concerned about how we would react to Stry just missing the 50 cut and the 15 minute break. Obviously I worry too much! Sean Sullivan came up a big, with another LTB 1:02.00 finishing 16th. That's a tough double in this meet, not a lot of recovery time between the IM and this race. Solid swim by the newbie! Then came what seems to be a family tradition in the Grasso home, a HUGE fly swim at Sectionals their Senior year. A couple of years ago Vlad was trying to convince me that Pat would go 52+ in the fly. I didn't believe him, but a 52.83 should have made me a beliver. The other day, Vlad proclaimed Ted would go 53+ on Saturday. Coach, athlete, ping-ponger, gadget guy, Vlad is a prophet! Ted, good old lane 7, went out in a smoking 24.39 split and was leading at the 50. He faded a bit but held onto 3rd place with a State qualifying time of 53.86. WHOA!

100 Free - After sitting around for about 90 minutes, it was time for Alex Hsieh to join in the fun. Alex went an LTB (I'll quit typing that; they were ALL LTB's!!!) 51.90, finishing 12th. Preadtor struggled a little the 1st 25, then found his way. Maybe he should've shaved the bottom of his feet!?! Next we had John, ready to build on his 200. He was out in 22.7 and leading through the 75, but faded a little the last 10 yards. He still finished 2nd, breaking that 48 second barrier, with a 47.98.

500 Free - The Legend of Stoichku grows! The other day my wife and I were talking (we try to do that at least once a week), and somehow we ended up talking about swimming. We got talking about my best friend who swam for my dad. Back in 1990, he got 2nd at Sate in the 500, went 4:38. Swam the 1st 400 like a man possesed, and then held on for dear life the last 100. I'm sure I didn't talk this strategy with Kristian Trakov, but that was exactly how he swam. He went his best flat 100 & 200 on the way out and was about 20 yards ahead of the field. Stoich paid for the blistering pace the last 100, but still finished 5th with a time of 5:11.19, just a mere 15 second drop. Next up was Tommy, swimming in same lane and next to the same guy as he did in the IM. Evidently Tommy made him mad! Congrats to Hengels on the 4:41, shattered the pool record. I was sure Tommy would be lost with nobody to race, but again proved me wrong. When he threw out a 1:00 split for the 4th 100, I thought he would end up going about 4:54/4:55. Once agin, Tommy had other ideas. With a fast last 100 (58.3), he ended up with a 4:52.62. That would have been good enough to qualify last year, but about .5 off of this year's cut. Another great swim!

200 Free Relay - Another break, but this one was good. It gave Tommy a chance to recover from the 500 and get ready to be a sprinter for the rest of the day. I was confident we could get this relay in, I just didn't think it would be by that much. Stry got it going with a 22.47 lead-off, almost identical to his time earlier. Next up was Ted. I was hoping for a 22.5-22.7 split and got a 21.98! Then came Tommy. Wasn't sure he would still be wiped out from the 500 - he wasn't! He threw down another 21.98. On the end was John. His 21.20 nearly pulled out the win, but put us under the cut easily with a 1:27.63. That was faster than the old pool record, but we finished 2nd. Oh well! That's also under the All American consideration cut!

100 Back - Dean had an excellent race. Dynamo ended up in 9th place with a time of 59.93. It only took me 1/2 the season to figure we should focus on the back with Dean and he had a great day, getting under 1:00! In the last heat we had Brett and his techniclor suit. He got out good (26.83) and tired a bit the last 25, but had enough to go 55.38, just getting under the cut of 55.47 and finishing 4th.

100 Breast - What size was Skip's suit? It may have been small, but it was fast. A 1:07.7, a 4.5 second drop, keep wearing that tiny thing! Tim got out in a 31.69, what he was splitting on the medley relay most of the year! Skip ended up in 10th and Alex ended up in 7th with a 1:06.78. I think swimming the 100 really helped and let Alex get into flow of the meet. Needless to say, the breastroke was a much better event this week than at conference.

400 Free Relay - On Thursday, the guys were trying to figure out what they needed to each go to get under the 3:17.83 cut. With GBS having been 3:11 early in the season, we knew we probably couldn't win it and had to go the time. I told them the last time we entered the Sectional with a 3:24 free relay, we went 3:14.99. This was doable. While we didn't go that time, we came close - 3:15.29! Tommy got us off with a 49.44! Stop the presses, TOMMY GILBERT IS A SPRINTER! Actually he swam it just like a distance guy, but who cares! We had Brett going 2nd, and he gave us a 50.20 split. He was pretty gassed coming out of the back. At State he'll have more time, hopefully we'll see a sub :50 split. Ted was 3rd and continued his outstanding day. He was out a little fast (22.85), but still pulled out a 48.83 split. Not bad for a guy has never been under a 52! That put us right back in the race. John had a monster 1st 50 (21.69!) and actually came a little faster than he did in his 100. He ended up with a 46.79 split and almost pulled out the win. A GREAT WAY TO WRAP-UP THE DAY!

ON TO STATE!!!