A Day of Remembrance at the NCSA All-American Meet

By Jason Marsteller

HONOLULU, Hawaii, June 9. BEFORE completing the final night of competition at the National Club Swimming Association's All-American meet held in Honolulu, Hawaii from June 8-9, many of the swimmers had the chance to go to Pearl Harbor.

It was a deep experience for many of those that had the chance to go see the site of the original 9/11 in the history of the United States. One of the greatest parts of this entire trip has been the chance for the athletes to see much of Hawaii during the various excursions.

Here are some other various thoughts from the day:

* Each and every coach made a point of coming up to me to ask that I include something for everyone that is reading. They have been supremely impressed by every swimmer at the meet. The one thing they have heard more than anything else has been, "Whatever you need, coach." Sprinters being asked to go the distance, while distance kings being used for short work is a big part of trying to win a dual meet. No one tried to get out of anything the coaches felt would be needed to help each respective team win. Kudos to the great young men and women that represented themselves and their home clubs well on this trip.

* There were probably two things I heard the most while on this trip. The first was, "Where's Bob?" in reference to Bob Gillett – the meet organizer. Bob was always around and where he was most needed, but a lot of conversations ended with needing Bob's input.

The other thing I heard a lot was, "You know, that thing I just said, that's off-the-record!" No one really said anything that I felt was crossing any lines during the trip, but it is funny as a reporter how much you hear that phrase when people just want to make sure.

* Brian Barnes, an assistant coach from Auburn University, did indeed make the trip. I was personally excited to see my old co-worker from Indiana. Talk about a rough life he has had in the past two years. Four NCAA Championship meets – four NCAA title rings – four trips to the White House. Barnes is a hard worker and has always been there for me whenever I needed a friendly ear. It was great to see him again!

* Another great part of this week has been watching the teams gel into competitive units. Some of the swimmers on the teams had never been in this type of an environment, so it was great to watch everyone develop a strong team spirit. Swimmers were doing whatever they needed to do to help their teams win.

* On the other side of the competitive coin, the coaches made a strong point as soon as the meet was over. The swimmers weren't East and West anymore – they were Team USA. Many of these swimmers will likely go on to become Olympians and national champions for the United States, so it was great to see them come back together and unite on the bulkhead.

On my way to knocking out the final night's recap. It was a barn-burner where two teams both used the "press" option to get back into contention.

* It has been fun bringing our readers some insights into the trip as an embedded reporter here. Since tomorrow is a pretty wide-open day for what activities occur, I might not have a lot of observations for a Saturday blog posting. So, in case I don't post something, I wanted to personally thank everyone that has been reading these journal entries. It has been a blast.

2007 NCSA All-American Meet

2007 NCSA All-American Meet

2007 NCSA All-American Meet

2007 NCSA All-American Meet

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