Answer from Coach Mark:
Goalie, counter attack, passing, shooting, defending, teamwork, quickness, scoring, improving, trying, exercising together, listening.
Swim, SKWIM and Water Polo, summer recap
Dear Coaches and Summer Club Swim Team Leaders:
Please review this letter AFTER today’s meet when you have leisure time. Sorry for its length. Thanks in advance for the consideration.
This summer is not over yet!
Let’s forge a relationship by:
a) Introducing you and your team to an exciting new aquatic game, SKWIM.
b) Empowering you to incorporate these tools and game-play in your program in future seasons.
Just contact me by text, email or a phone call, and I’ll send you more detailed explanations. Then we can consider our options and customize a tailored approach to your liking. My cell: 412-298-3432. Mark@SKWIMUSA.org.
Local swim programs have already enjoyed wonderful experiences in 2018. I want you and your athletes to become engaged too. We’ve been on-deck and had a great time (generally on multiple occasions) at the Greensburg Country Club, South Hills Country Club, Edgeworth Club in Sewickley, Montour Aqua Club, with a Y team, and throughout the city at various camps and public pools.
Nationally, I’ve been an invited speaker to podcasts and made trips to deliver presentations in Seattle to the Washington Parks & Rec Conference and to Napa, California, for the Pacific Swim Coaches Clinic.
Our fun approach to water safety with SKWIM is new, fun, authentic and purposeful. I hope to share these concepts and their digital badges with you soon so Pittsburgh can lead the nation in deploying these assets and realizing the benefits.
Topics:
1. Let’s organize a no-cost clinic with your team at your pool this summer.
2. You (and your friends, lifeguards, board-members, guardians and swimmers) are invited to the city to participate in new, competitive, water safety events from August 6th to the 16th, as available openings remain.
3. New, scholastic water polo teams are forming now for both boys and girls, and both high school and middle school. Students from any school district can join Pittsburgh Combined Water Polo. Water polo happens in the fall sports season. As an expansion team and club sport, we’ll play a non-league schedule with practices and some games.
4. Pittsburgh’s adult / masters team, the Renegades, is accepting new (and old) water polo players. Monthly fees are $5.
5. Pittsburgh’s Underwater Hockey team is leading a drop-in clinic for anyone age 12 and older on Friday, August 10.
6. The Saturday Swim School can accommodate additional individuals and groups throughout the fall, winter and spring. Last year’s courses trained more than 100 new lifeguards.
7. On Saturday, September 1, 2018, Citiparks’ Highland Park Pool, is hosting NCAA Men’s Water Polo games (among W&J, PSU, Gannon, Mercyhurst). Spectators are invited and youngsters can sign-up for free clinic sessions with various college coaches and players.
Hopefully, you are interested and an email is sent soon.
Sincerely yours,
Mark Rauterkus
Mark@Rauterkus.com
412-298-3432 = cell
dear-team-coach-and-board
Competitive Swimming is in a crisis — reports Swimming World and Wayne Goldsmith
Must read! Must listen too. Check out a great article about competitive swimming from Australia’s Wayne Goldsmith, an author and coach. The commentary was published in Swimming World in March, 2018. Click the photo below to go to the article and then give a listen to the reply, an audio conversation from Mark and Kevin.
First, read the article
Second, listen to our reply, as an audio recording
Listen to a discussion in a .mp3 file and podcast format that provides a reply. Mark Rauterkus of Pittsburgh and Kevin McCarthy of Washington talk about the one-size-fits-all solution and reasoning behind the crisis and how it can be fixed.
Or click on the audio player control below to listen.
Third, express yourself and tell us what you think
Drop a comment in the box below and share your ideas.
- Is there a crisis in competitive swimming?
- Is there a crisis at your favorite aquatic facilities?
- Do you want to learn more about SKWIM?
- Can we help you put SKWIM to work in your settings?
PPS Middle School Championships
At the first part of the meet, an invite letter was delivered to coaches and guardians.
Letter to call participants to the new All-City Aquatics All-Star Team
Coach Mark Rauterkus
Head Boys Varsity Coach at PPS Obama
Executive Director, SKWIM USA
108 South 12th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203-1226
412-298-3432 = cell
January 24, 2018
Delivery to participants and spectators at PPS Middle School Championships
Dear Swimmers, Guardians and Coaches:
Three cheers to you for completing the middle-school season and competing in today’s championships. Hopefully, you choose to continue swimming, as we’d love to see you at 11:30 am on Saturday at PPS Oliver High School on the Northside.
You are invited to sign-up for a brand-new,
All-City, Aquatics All-Star Team!
First meeting and swim clinic is this Saturday, January 27, 2018, from 11:30 to 1 pm on the Northside at PPS Oliver High School, 2323 Brighton Road, 15212.
Second meeting and clinic is next Saturday, February 3, 2018, from 11:30 to 1 pm at PPS Oliver.
If interested, call, text or email.
Or, sign-up in advance at Play.CLOH.org/rsvp.
We are seeking 25 or more middle-school athletes, boys and girls, of any swimming ability, for this low/no cost program. It is a labor of love from the coach(es). We hope to organize the swimmers, guardians and boosters for an All-Star experience with specialized practices, coaching, training, and lots of play and competitions. We’ll swim, exercise, use technology tools. We’ll also learn, practice and play water polo and SKWIM, a water-disk game. We stress sportsmanship, teamwork, and conditioning with help of digital badges. Playing well with others happens with in-house meets and game-days — if we get your support and your participation.
Expect more information at the first clinics. Other practice opportunities in other city neighborhoods are possible too. Call with questions. See Swim.CLOH.org.
Boost your fitness, swim knowledge, circle-of-friends, swim speed and aquatic game-play so that you can become a future lifeguard and a stronger varsity athlete, in any sport.
Thanks for the consideration.
Coach Mark Rauterkus
Back of letter
Thinking again about aquatic game play — Presentation at NorCal’s Pacific Swim Coaches Clinic
Handout
The first page asked three questions:
- Name: ___________
- Email: ___________
- Title of your favorite game played with your team: ___________
See the results and insights gathered from the willing participants in the audience.
Slides
Photo credit: Tisha Steimle.
The presentation slides are split between two Keynote files due to size issues. If you are using an iPad or Macintosh, send me an email or leave a comment below in the blog and I’ll send you a link straight to the Keynote file via iCloud.
Slides in PDF format:
-
- Part one in PDF via Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iMEHeQYNmBnjqXtBBD2AVVTovy7ePZpW - Part two in PDF via Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mfQEgtrQOpKaBxkYL8TvwI3ppIk_ICOk
- Part one in PDF via Google Drive
Slides in PowerPoint format:
Slides in SlideShare, embedded here:
Part 1 of 2:
Part 2 of 2:
Audio
Included videos
Five videos do not embed in the PDFs nor with PowerPoint. They do play with the SlideShare or below.
Swimming and Water Polo co-exist
Pittsburgh Public Schools Westinghouse afterschool program doing water polo across pool
North Allegheny Tiger Water Polo doing ball control
Show off swim at PPS Summer Dreamers by Nahayo in early summer across deep end
Squad, called Voyagers, doing a cheer at end of SKWIM game at Swim & Water Polo with Summer Dreamers
Interact
Use the comments box below to submit your questions, comments and perhaps the name of the game you play with your team and swimmers.
Snapshots from Napa:
New Executive Director of SKWIM USA, a 501(c)(3)
Press Release:
Attention aquatic enthusiasts, professionals, associations and organizations:
The Board of Directors at SKWIM International are very pleased and excited to announce the appointment of Pittsburgh aquatics coach Mark Rauterkus as 2018 SKWIM USA Executive Director.
Coach Mark’s duties will include SKWIM Certification and #playskwim education with U.S. aquatic facilities and local communities, partnerships with USA aquatic sports associations and organizations, and educational sponsorships with key commercial entities.
In addition to building SKWIM programming throughout the Pittsburgh community, Mark is a veteran youth and collegiate swim and water polo coach, and currently holds leadership positions with Obama Academy Aquatics, Summer Dreamers Aquatic Camps, the Pittsburgh Project, Saturday Swim School, Pittsburgh Citiparks Aquatic Safety Education and several summer water-sport events in the greater Pittsburgh area. Coach Rauterkus is a beloved aquatic ambassador on the central east coast, and proven to be invaluable in building SKWIM community and goodwill.
Mark is a sought-after aquatics expert/speaker and currently presenting at the Pacific Swim Coaches Clinic in Napa, CA, January 6th 2018.
Mark continues his duties as swim coach at Obama Academy of Pittsburgh Public Schools, The Ellis School, as well as The Pittsburgh Project’s summer camp.
Please join us in wishing Mark the best of success in the coming year!
#playskwim
Coach Kevin I. McCarthy
kevin@skwiminternational.org
www.skwiminternational.org
Coach Mark Rauterkus becomes Executive Director of nonprofit, SKWIM USA.
Alterntive URL, https://tinyurl.com/SKWIMUSA-executive
SKWIM Press Release Rauterkus 010618r
NA senior team visits the Saturday Swim School
A bunch of swimmer from the north got in the pool at Oliver as part of the efforts of the Saturday Swim School at Oliver.
After practice, we took about 10-minutes to introduce the swimmers to SKWIM and played a quick game, slot-style, to 3-points.
In the future, we’d love to get a cooperative alliance with ANSC, as we have had with Tiger Water Polo, so we can get employees to help as swim instructors, lifeguards, coaches and demonstrators at our events and camps in the city. In the summer of 2017, two of the NA students worked for us as part of the Summer Dreamers Swim & Water Polo Camp on the Northside.
Lesson Time
After the big kids departed, we had some lessons and on guy figured out how to make a monofin from the PDF fin. Two feet into one adult fin works! Your miles may vary. Patent pending.
Other swim coaches posted about the creative monofin solution too:
Saturday SKWIM School with Northgate and others
Wonderful time playing SKWIM at the Saturday Swim School with a nice collection of folks who supported Nick’s Eagle Scout project. It was a pleasure to help. Thanks for the snacks, and the donations raised are getting applied to supplies that furnish the next phase of the project.
Underwater Hockey too
With Dave’s help, a 4-on-4 game of Underwater Hockey was also played. He had the sticks and a puck. Kids had their own goggles. Some wore fins. Gloves were not used and neither were snorkels. Kids had a blast.
Games of SKWIM in different quarters and a different pitch
The game approach to SKWIM was different and noteworthy. We played slot style, so the disk has to go into the gutters. Good water height and deep gutters too. Two teams, 6-players on each team, one referee. Everyone played. No subs. All the kids were swimmers from a few different clubs. Team Pittsburgh, Northgate, and later a swimmer from PEAQ attended.
First quarter was played in shallow end across the 6-lane pool. Goals stretched from the ladder near the corner to the 5-foot marker painted on the wall / bulkhead. That was about 13 years wide. Quarter ends when the first team reaches 5 goals. Score was 5-4.
Second quarter was played in the deep end across the 6-lane pool. Goals stretched from the deep end ladder near the corner of the pool to the painted mark that read 7-foot. Again, wider than 10-yards. Quarter ends when the first team reaches 10.
Third quarter was played the length of the pool. One team defended the deep wall and the other defended the shallow end wall. Goals were from the mark that reached between lane 2 and lane 5. That was about a third of the span of the end wall. The third quarter ended when the lead team reached 15 goals.
Fourth quarter was played the length of the pool, again, but the two teams switched ends. Game ends when the first team reached 20 goals.
We had played SKWIM in the shallow, in the deep, and both across the width of the pool as well as the length of the pool. But today was the first day we played SKWIM and incorporated all three formats of the lagoon into the same game.