Today I’d like to introduce you all to the Webster BlueFins competitive swim team. I’ve been considering a blog about the BlueFins for a long time; perhaps seeing all the swimming events in the recent Olympics finally motivated me to do that. But having one of the coaches hand me a brochure at the Webster Fireman’s Parade and saying “You should do a blog about us!” also helped.
So, with brochure in hand, I started doing my research and checked out the BlueFins website and Facebook page. Those sites will tell you pretty much everything you’d want to know about the club, like when and where they practice, the age groups, cost of registration and the like. That’s all well and good, but to really get a sense of what this club is all about, you have to go to one of their practices.
So I went down to the Webster Aquatic Center last week to meet head coach Donna Johnson (“Coach DJ”) and check things out for myself. Before heading into the pool, we sat outside for a bit, and Coach gave me some background about the club. But she also gave me a sense of the quality of the young people who swim with the BlueFins. She kept using words like “really great people” and “remarkable individuals” who have fun together and support one other.
When I finally went inside, I saw what she meant.
The pool was alive with activity, 18 lanes filled with swimmers of all ages, repeatedly propelling themselves from one side to the other and back again. I saw smiles … LOTS of smiles. I saw kids laughing and chatting with their friends as they did their warm-up laps. One group of young swimmers was having a blast playing water polo.
Those are the kinds of things you don’t see online or in a brochure; the joy of not just being part of a team, but being part of a community.
The Webster BlueFins is a competitive swim team for children and young adults from age 7 to college age. Right now there are 209 members, split into six different age groups. Most are from Webster, but the team also draws swimmers from as far away as Honeoye Falls and Mexico (east of Oswego). Practice is held four to six days a week, depending on the age of the child. Swimmers are encouraged to participate in local, regional and national-level meets, which average about two per month during the 11-month season.
Established more than 50 years ago, the team has always focused as much on the swimmers’ character as on the swimmers’ training. It’s driven by a mission to “inspire and motivate our swimmers to become champions in and out of the water,” focusing on core values of inclusion, accountability, leadership, teamwork and perseverance. And you realize they’re sincere in those goals when you see that nowhere on the website or in the brochure is the emphasis placed on competition and winning. Instead, this is what you’ll read:
Our aim is to provide a competitive environment in which children experience the joy of self-improvement, physical conditioning, discipline, and being part of a team. Particularly with the younger age groups, the emphasis is not on winning, but rather on self-improvement.
Coach DJ is also committed to taking that focus on personal growth even further, encouraging her team members to go out into the Webster community and give back by working with charitable organizations. She’s even found a way to help build leadership skills.
She said,
I put it in the hands of a couple of the older kids this year to see what we could do to give back to the community. The kids are really into it. Maybe I’m biased, but swimmers in general are really great people. We’re dealing with 209 remarkable individuals. There’s not a day that I don’t look forward to coming here because of who these kids are. … So I’m 100% confident that once we unleash that, it’s going to take off.
Interested in checking out the team for yourself? Registration is now open for a FREE two-week trial program, running Sept. 16 to 26. The tryout is open to swimmers of all levels who want to experience competitive swimming. For more information, visit the BlueFins website.
You can also find the Webster BlueFins on Instagram and Facebook.
By the way, I have to share this photo, which I took at the 2010 Fireman’s Parade. I didn’t even know what I had gotten until I was looking at the photos later. It kind of sums up everything I said about how this is a fun-loving group of kids and coaches.
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(posted 8/21/2024)
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