The Highlander Aquatic
Club--a division of Lake Highland Preparatory School-- founded in 1993,
is known throughout the country for a first-class, year-round swim program.
We offer a guided age-group youth program for children age 5 and up,
from the beginning swimmer to the most competitive and skilled swimmer.
When a young person becomes a member of the Highlander Aquatic Club
he/she learns the values of sportsmanship and team work. Swimming, through
the Highlander Aquatic Club, provides physical, emotional and intellectual
skills that will last a lifetime.
The Highlander Aquatic
Club is a United States Swimming (USS) affiliated team. Highlander Aquatics
was founded with the intent to provide the coaching and atmosphere which
will consistently allow current and future swimmers, novice to Olympian,
the greatest opportunity to realize their dreams. We are also an important
facet of a full service aquatics department which provides swimming
instruction and aquatic experiences from infant to senior populations.
We welcome competitive swimmers and will help and encourage them to
reach their full potential as swimmers and people.
Mission
The mission of the
Highlander Aquatic Club is:
Team
Philosophy
To educate and nurture
the whole child at every age. To realize that every child is different
and to allow each to develop as far as their dreams, talents and efforts
will take them. To provide coaching that develops self-confidence, character,
and skills. To encourage parents to actively support both their child
and the program as a whole. And through this caring and considerate
environment, provide the area with individuals who are becoming the
best they can be as students, citizens and athletes. The Coaching Staff
offers a program in which a child can learn the strokes, turns and techniques
to competing in an atmosphere that instills a sense of discipline, responsibility,
and a desire to achieve.
Through
a gradual commitment to practice, each child is taught to set goals
and work hard to achieve those goals. Through positive encouragement
and an occasional stern push, a child will learn to push themselves
toward testing their own limits each and every day. A child will
learn that hard work leads to achievement and success, and achievement
is fun!
Courage
and Perseverance
We can encapsulate
our philosophy in the words COURAGE and PERSEVERANCE.
COURAGE is the willingness
to accept risk and endure failures. Courage exists when there is a situation
that presents the opportunity for success, we encourage our athletes
to embrace these opportunities and to not fear the outcome.
PERSEVERANCE is
the backbone of success in life. One cannot succeed at the highest levels
without enduring some set-backs, difficult times can create a lack of
faith, low self-esteem, and an obvious drop in enthusiasm. Perseverance
is the quality that transcends these difficult times, allowing the individual
to find the true strength of their character.
The Highlander Aquatic
Club believes that COURAGE and PERSEVERANCE developed by swimming will
prepare the individual for the challenges they will face in life.
Winners
plan for the future. They know where they're going...and how they're
going to get there.
Competition
vs. Participation
Highlander Aquatics is a competitive program. Its purpose, as you
will discover by reading through this manual, is to instruct, train
and prepare its members for swimming competition. Since the
mid-1970s there has been a difference in philosophy among those
involved in youth sport programs that centers on the question of
whether the programs should be competitive or simply encourage
participation. As with many issues in American society a
polarization has developed between these two concepts. This doesn't
need to be
the case though.
The quality and
direction of any youth sports program depends on those who operate it.
In regard to youth sports it is our objective at Highlander Aquatics
to offer programs that meet the needs of all the participants, encouraging
each to reach their full potential and developing skills not only in
athletic endeavors but in areas such as character development and citizenship.
It does not come down to a question of competition or participation
because neither need be exclusive of the other.
Organizations that
offer youth sport programs can follow two paths on this issue. They
can dilute the program and offer activities that only serve those who
wish to participate and never compete or they can offer a true competitive
program and let the members decide how much they want to be involved.
At Highlander we have chosen the latter. A competitive program does
not preclude participation. Indeed, in many instances it relies on it.
Swimmers who give little thought to competing when they first join the
team soon find that it might be fun, they give it a try and realize
that they like it. They like racing; they like relays; they like cheering
for their teammates; they like the challenge that a swim meet provides.
Swimmers in our program are assured that there will always be another
challenge available to them with Highlander.
At Highlander we
believe that competition is a good thing. This idea permeates every
aspect of the program. While the most common definition of competition
is striving against another it is certainly not the only one. Highlander
swimmers do compete with others but they also compete with themselves
and the stopwatch. Competition is the platform from which the program
derives its purpose.
Every
great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph
of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The long term goal
of the age group programs are to develop an athlete who is educated
in the proper strokes and turns, who is conscientious about practice,
and who has the self discipline to move on to the next level, Senior/Varsity
Swimming. Swimming takes years to achieve perfection and this process
is by no means short. The coaching staff believes that there are factors
that must be present for a swimmer to reach the highest levels of success.
These factors are:
A talented, teachable,
coach-able, dedicated, swimmer with a big heart, a positive self-esteem
and enormous amounts of perseverance,
A committed,
ultra supportive, patient, and unselfish family,
