SEQUIM — Enthusiastic about adding new swimming programs, Taylor McDonald said youth water recreation is close to the heart of the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center’s mission.
“It’s kind of nice to end your day in the water with the kids,” McDonald, the director of SARC, said of the center’s first swim team that focuses on competitive swimming for youths between the ages of 6 and 16.
The SARC board of directors came up with the idea and approved the formation of the swim team program in early June.
McDonald wasted no time forming a team of 13.
That’s seven short of the 20 needed to compete regionally, but she said it’s a start.
“I’m seeing this as a recreational thing,” McDonald said of the team that meets to practice from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at the SARC pool at 610 N. Fifth Ave.
“We’re gearing it toward summer right now, but we’re trying to meet the community need.”
She sees the team as a way to get young children interested in swimming, which could ultimately lead to their joining the Sequim High School swim team.
Co-coaches
McDonald and Kevin Smith co-coach the team, and both were busy recently working with youngsters swimming laps.
“I swim a lot, and it’s been really exciting to me,” said Sean Weber, 10, a Helen Haller student.
“I’m really practicing my strokes.”
Emily Webb, 12, and a Sequim Middle School student, is already a tri-athlete who rides a bicycle and runs cross-country as well as swims routinely.
“I’ve been coming to the pool three times a week since I was 5,” she said.
Her father, Mac Webb, himself taking a break by the pool, said his daughter swims so much “she’s part mermaid.”
He gives high marks to the swim team program as well.
Swim team moms Kacey Eichacker and Pam Payne watched their kids through the glass pool enclosure and joined in the praise for the new swim team idea.
Jumped at chance
“We came from Arizona, and they were on the swim team for two years there, so as soon as this opportunity came up, we took it,” Eichacker said of her 10-year-old twins, Dylan and Hannah, both Helen Haller Elementary students in Sequim.
Payne’s 10-year-old twins, Liam and Claire, both Greywolf Elementary students in Carlsborg, are also on the team.
“I grew up on swim teams and enjoyed the exercise and camaraderie, and I thought they enjoy the same,” Payne said.
McDonald said that, if nothing else, the youngest members of the team will learn swimming lap etiquette early.
The swim team is so new that it has not yet come up with a team name.
“I’m partial to Sharks, but we could be Sardines; I don’t know,” said the SARC director who started work in May, replacing Sue Jacobs, who retired.
General admission to SARC — which also includes a gym, racquetball courts and a weight room — is $10 for adults 16 and older, $5 for juniors between 8 and 15 and $2.25 for children up to 7 years old. Passes are available.
SARC is open from 5:45 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays. The pool area closes 15 minutes earlier.
For more information about SARC, phone 360-683-3344 or visit www.sarcfitness.com/node/1.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
