The Sharks are in the stretch for home. With one month remaining the Sharks Swim Team is preparing for the greatest finish in team history. Through out the season the Sharks have prepared themselves for this final moment of glory.

All of the hard work is about to pay off as February will prove to be the month that changes everything for the West Chicago Sharks Swim Team. February will be a very fast and furious month of swimming. We will open the month with a tri meet at Lyons Township then move on to one of the best run swim meets, the Feb. Frenzy.

Most of the swimmers will continue to see more competition as later in the month will feature Gold Conference Champs and A+ Champs. Both meets are extremely important and those who have qualifying times will be expected to be there.

It looked as if the team could not progress any further. Then the month of January came around. January was the most successful month to date. We qualified more swimmers to JO's and A+ Champs than in the previous three months. Congratulations to the coaching staff and those swimmers whom have qualified. Your hard work is paying off. To this date, the West Chicago Sharks have not lost a Dual Meet. We are a perfect 5 and 0 as we head into the most difficult Dual Meet of the season with Lyons Township. Our record goes to show that we as coaches, swimmers, and parents are 100% committed to this team and to the future success. Remember, as we get closer to the end much more will be expected of you. Remember to be on time to all practices and meets. Make sure that you check yourself in as the coaches are not responsible. Eat right, drink plenty of fluids, and rest as much as possible. The hard work has come to and end and now it is time to rest and relax.

The West Chicago Coaching Staff would like to take this time to honor those swimmers for the month of January for Swimmers of the Meet and Swimmers of the Month.

The Honors for Swimmer of the Meet for St. Charles go to:

8 & Under: Kelle Driscoll
Novice: Stephanie Fester
9 & 10: Jared Wetmore
11 & 12: Shalia Shallcross
Senior Dev.: Brian Mehrman
Senior: Justin Mitchell

The Honors for Swimmer for the Meet for Elmhurst go to:

8 & Under: Anderson West
Novice: Ania Skorupski
9 & 10: David Fairbairn
11 & 12: Kaitlin Walker
Senior Dev.: Steven Vandernaalt
Senior: Katy Coffman

The Honors for Swimmer of the Month for January go to:

8 & Under: Jessica Hinterlong
Novice: Angela Lindorff
9 & 10: Corrine Coffman
11 & 12: Matt Russell
Sen Dvlpmnt: Heather Prochnow
Senior: Tracey Drzal

Congratulations to those listed above and to the rest of the team for a great January.

This has been a wonderful season. Everyone has worked very hard and learned a lot. Now is the time to show off all of your hard work. The Feb. Frenzy will be one of the first meets to show case your talent.

The Feb. Frenzy is a great meet every year. We get to swim all the events in our home pool. There are always great swims with huge time improvements. For those that have faster times you will have the Gold Conference Meet to compete in.

The top 3 swimmers in each event and the fastest relay combination will swim at the Gold Conference Meet on February 22 at Naperville Central High School. I feel the 8 and unders have a great chance to score big team points at this meet.

The rest of this month will focus on starts, turns, and speed work. This will allow us to maintain the great work we have done thus far and will allow the swimmers a chance to swim there very fastest at the last meet.

We started out January with a BANG. Kelle Driscoll was the swimmer of the meet as she finished a great weekend by anchoring the 1st Place free relay. Anderson West showed his improvement at the Elmhurst Meet with two best times by more than 2 seconds in each. Finally, Jessica Hinterlong walks away with the Swimmer of the Month award for her great 9 & 10 debut.

Congratulations to those swimmers for a great January and congratulations to the rest of the 8 & Unders. I am extremely proud and looking forward to a great ending.

Wow!! What a great season this has been. It is so exciting to look back at how much our division has improved over the past several months. Regretfully the end of our winter season is upon us.

As stated earlier the remaining meets, after our February Frenzy, are what we consider our state swim meets. First is Gold Conference which is limited to the top few swimmers in each age division. Then comes A+ champs, Junior Olympics and Senior Champs, all of which have time standards that need to be met in order to be entered.

There are a few select swimmers out of my group that will be in contention for being in the Gold Conference line-up. I will be speaking with you individually in the future. All told, the February Frenzy will be our last swim meet of our season. It has always proved to be a great swim meet. Please enjoy your break from the Winter to Summer Sharks. Speaking of summer here are a few details about the summer season. It is slated to begin late April to early May. Practice times, etc. will be available by the Awards Banquet. More information on this will be distributed once a date and time are set for the banquet.

Meets in the summer are exact age meets. This includes both duals and ISI's. The away ISI's we will be attending are Long Course ( 50 Meters ) vs. Short Course ( 25 Yards ) like they were this winter. Our Dual meets and practices will be swum as Short Course Yards ( 25 Yards ) unless noted otherwise. I look forward to seeing all of you returning for the summer season. Perhaps my favorite part is next. All of you have improved so much that this summer you will register for your respective age groups.

This truly has been a great season !! My thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm and the great effort each of you have put forth. January was an outstanding month. To give you an idea of how great a month it has been, our division had 73% time improvements at the Elmhurst Dual. This is an EXCELLENT accomplishment.

I can't wrap up this months notes with out recognizing a few of our outstanding swimmers. Swimmers of the meet are: St. Charles ISI - Stephanie Fester & Elmhurst Dual - Ania Skorupski. Last but not least our swimmer of the month for the month of January goes to Angela Lindorff. She has been working very hard every practice and her time improvements reflect this.

The final run is in our midst as we prepare each other for the greatest finish in team history. The 9 & 10's have been working very hard and it will soon be time for them to show themselves off.

Our best chance is with the 9 & 10 girls as they are learning to fight to the finish. We have two relays that will prove to be difficult to beat and individuals in each of the disciplinaries that will be extremely competitive.

Our boys team is growing every meet with the addition of those Novice swimmers ageing up. We will be competitive in most events and very close in winning some. All in all we are looking better every practice and at every meet.

I would like to congratulate Jared Wetmore, David Fairbairn, and Corrine Coffman for a great January. Your hard work is paying off. Congratulations to all of the 9 & 10's for the best and most productive month to date.

The month of January was an exciting and successful time for our 11-12's. We saw a lot of improvement in our times and in our meet efforts. Our hard work in practice is starting to really pay off. Let's keep it going!!!

I'm especially proud of the great practice attendance through the month of January. With so many of our kids present at each practice we are able to use our practices as opportunities for the swimmers to push, challenge, and encourage each other. The friendly competition we have been able to develop within our group has been another important factor in our strong meet showing.

The remainder of our season will be focused on "fine-tuning" and continuing to work on racing skills. February and March are the months were we see the final rewards for our hard work. I look for even greater achievements in the coming weeks as we improve our times and look to qualify to the championship meets.

I would like to Congratulate Shalia Shallcross, Kaitlin Walker, and Matt Russell for a great January. Congratulations to all of the 11 & 12's and keep up the great work.

Our Senior-D group also showed us some wonderful performances in the January meets. Our times have been dropping so quickly that we have made one JO relay cut and are knocking on the door of three or four more relay cuts.

Swimmers with "C" times are achieving "B" an "BB" times and some of our "BB" swimmers have qualified to "A-Champs." It's great to see how far these guys and girls have come this season. It's a credit to their enthusiasm and hard work they show each day in our practices.

As we look towards the months of February and March we will be preparing to make even greater improvements in times and in racing. We will add more race-pace work into our practices along with our conditioning. With the great attitude and the goals our kids have set, I look for some strong swims in our upcoming meets.

I would like to congratulate Brian Mehrman, Steven Vandernaalt, and Heather Prochnow for a great January. Keep up the great work. And to all of the Senior Development swimmers, congratulations on a great month and I am looking forward to swimming fast in the future.

In addition, I would like to congratulate Jackie Vavrek. She is one of the fastest 100 11-12 Freestylers in the State with a :58.51.

The final part of the season is within eye site and I can honestly say that the best is being saved for last. With three more meets to be able to qualify for Senior Champs we have a great opportunity to qualify many.

Perhaps the biggest meet to notice the impact we will have will be at the 1998 High School Boys Sectionals. Our High School Boys will have the opportunity to swim against some of the fastest in the state. This will be a good chance to take notice at how hard work pays off.

The Seniors continue to swim well as they focus for Senior State Champs. We have been working hard on all facets of our racing mentality and I feel that they will be ready when the time comes.

We have qualified a number of Seniors to the State Champ Meet and are looking for more to join. In the coming weeks the Seniors will begin noticing a change for the better. They will begin to feel better in the water, react better to workouts, and sustain sprints longer. This is what I call Taper Time.

The Seniors will begin there taper Wednesday March 4. In the mean time, more emphasis will be placed on race strategy, starts and turns. I am asking for every Senior to be present at the Gold Conference and A+ Champ Meets.

I would like to congratulate Justin Mitchell, Katy Coffman, and Tracey Drzal on a great January. Your hard work is going to pay off. Congrats to the rest of the Senior team. Remember, don't lose focus.

The time has come for us to rally around each other as our most important meets to date are upon us. A large majority of you made the decision at the very beginning to take this sport seriously. In doing so you have set yourself up perfectly for great time drops in weeks to come.

Some of you have decided to take the short and narrow path and have been quite lucky in your pursuit of excellence. Nothing will ever replace hard genuine work. If you can honestly look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you went to 70% of the practices and worked 110% than you will be more successful than you can possibly imagine.

Along the way, coaches are forced to decide the fate of their team for that season. Many of us went through challenging situations that will prepare us for the future. Please realize that if you are among those that participated whenever you felt like it that you will probably not be as successful as you could be.

In the coming weeks and months many new things will take place. While some of you will be taking a break after the Feb. Frenzy the majority of the swimmers will continue to train for future competitions.

In addition, a new board is about to be elected as well as entirely new group structure will be defined and ready before the next fall season. New advertising and fund raising ideas are currently being implemented in order to make the Sharks more aggressive.

The structure of a Sharks Alumni Association is currently in progress as well as the creation of our own new web site. Coaching Clinics are being offered to our staff as well as a peer mentoring program being offered by United States Swimming.

In conjunction, we will be spending more time working with USS in regard to parent swimmer relations, swimmer coach relations, and coach parent relations. With so much change on the way we are going to ask for you to stay in touch as much as possible.

As we slowly progress between each year and season know that you can be doing your best by staying active. And the best way is to stay involved with the Sharks. Whether it be through competitive swimming, private stroke work with myself, camps offered by my staff or volunteering to work meets.

You are very important to this club. We have made huge strides to better ourselves and this team. It is now time to broaden our horizons and go beyond. For those who make their seasonal transitions between the Sharks and the River Rats, or any other recreational program, the coaching staff wishes you the utmost success in your endeavor and hope to see you back in the fall.

We will be working very diligently to provide you a new atmosphere when you return. Keep your eyes open for mail throughout the summer season. For those that will be here during the summer season we will be working together to make this the best summer season in Sharks history.

To do so we have modified the team practice schedule to accommodate all swimmers and families. I believe that it is the most accommodating schedule to date and will offer you a number of choices.

In the coming weeks and month be aware of new material being posted. We will do our very best to keep you informed through the mail but please realize the size of the team and the amount of money.

The swim banquet is on its way and is slated for April 19. This date is not official. We should be 100% within the next few weeks. We are asking for 100% attendance as there will be many awards given out. Those swimmers who participated this past Winter will be receiving an award for their participation.

In closing I would like to express how very pleased I am with the progress of this team. Even though we have much more to accomplish the basic building blocks have been laid and a great structure is on its way.

I would personally like to thank all of those that volunteered this season. Your endless hours at the pool and the meets will never go unnoticed. It is the volunteers that make up the backbone of this organization. We might not be the very best but we are certainly making progress.

I would like to thank the coaches for not only their support on what seems to be tireless weeks but for their friendship and extremely hard work. It takes great coaches to make great swimmers and we are very close.

Last but certainly not least and perhaps most importantly, to the new board of directors and committee chairs. We have come a long way in making this team great. Keep up the hard work and never forget whom we are doing this for.

And finally to those that make this possible, the swimmers themselves. You are a tremendously gifted bunch and can not wait to get you back in the water. Good luck to all of you.

There will be different types of programs being offered through out the summer that will allow your swimmer(s) to stay in the water. More information will be given out at the banquet.

The summer season is just around the corner and I am looking forward to it with much enthusiasm. We will continue to need help as we will be holding an ISI meet in mid May. More information will be available in the future.

You certainly deserve a break and hope that you make the most of it. Congratulations.