Golfing with Alumni

As you can tell from the title, today was a great opportunity to get out and play golf with some of our former Duquesne Swimmers. Ed Wicker and I had been trying to find a date within our schedules to meet up, play golf, and just "shoot the breeze". I was fortunate enough that we were going to play later in the day and my wife, Christina, was able to hold down the fort at home. We played at Birdsfoot Golf Club right outside of Freeport, PA. If you are ever in the area and want to play golf, I highly recommend it. I had been there once before and was looking forward to playing......I had not seen Ed in a while and Doug Yeager was also planning on playing.

Doug graduated from Duquesne in 2006 and he and his wife Maria were working as teachers, but decided to leave their teaching careers to move to Pittsburgh and pursue their Master's Degree's at "the other Division I Pittsburgh school." Doug is attending Pitt working towards his degree in The Teaching of Visually Impaired and Orientation and Mobility, while his wife Maria works towards her Master's in Early Intervention. It was great to see Doug and I look forward to seeing him around the pool for the meets this year.

Ed, who is now working for Bombardier, will be getting married in 29 days to former Duquesne Swimmer Dani Newcomb (08'). I am looking forward to their wedding for many reason's: It is always great to see two people that you care about get married to each other. I love Lexington, KY and will have an opportunity to stay with my parent's who live there (my parent's will love it because they will get to see their grandchildren for three days), but also to hopefully catch up with all of the former Duquesne swimmers that swam with both of them. Anyway, back to the golf.

Ed and Doug were partners, and I was responsible for bringing a fourth to be my partner. I asked the coach from St. Francis (and also the husband of our former GA Megan Trimbur), Pat Gallagher to be my partner. The game was very enjoyable and because we were playing so late, took us right to dusk. Ed had some fabulous drives and Doug had some great putts. Pat and I just plugged along. The last few holes were quite a challenge and it always seemed, regardless if one could see the balls off the tee, that Doug's and Ed's always landed in the fairway. They did beat us in match play, but Pat and I won the outright holes as a team. Regardless, it was a great time with friends and we hope to play golf together again very soon.

Speaking of golf, the Duquesne Athletic Fund (DAF) golf outing is right around the corner. Last year Coach Bocci and I had a blast playing and were happy to see all the hole sponsorships from Duquesne Swimming Alumni and parents. This years golf outing will be Monday, September 28th. Unlike years in the past, every sponsorship that comes from Duquesne Swimming, half will go directly back to the program. I am attaching the link to the site so you will have access to it. www.goduquesne.com/daf/duqu-events/html If you can't play and want to sponsor a coach to play that would be great. If your business can sponsor a hole, a cart, or any of the other sponsorship packages just fill out the information, let them know you are associated with Duquesne Swimming and return it. If you have any questions feel free to call me.

Dave

2009-2010 Meet Schedule

The schedule is finally done for the upcoming season. I was waiting to hear back from one of the schools I had contacted regarding a meet. They have since gotten back to me and now everything is finalized.

We will have two home meets this season. One against PSAC power Clarion and the other against Pitt (this will be our Senior Day). We will also be swimming our traditional A 10 opponents, (St. Bonaventure, LaSalle, Fordham, Rhode Island and Xavier) and have added two Big East teams (the afore mentioned Pitt and WVU), as well as an ACC school (Virginia Tech). This, in conjunction with the venues of the meets will give the student-athletes a great swimming experience and help all of us prepare for the conference meet at the end of the season.

We will be competing against Bucknell and St. Francis in Lewisburg at Bucknell's great facility. We were able to secure The ECC facility (this is where the conference meet is held), for a double-dual meet against St. Bonaventure and LaSalle. We will also be traveling to The Bronx to swim Fordham and Rhode Island as well as traveling to Cleveland State to take on CSU and Xavier.

As you look at the schedule you will notice quite a few back-to-back events as well as a three day prelim/final mid-season meet at Akron. I think these meets are a great way to prepare the team for the grueling four day conference meet format. I am certain it will give us the ability to learn how to swim fast day after day.

We will start the season with an Alumni Meet in October and hopefully conclude the year with NCAA's in March . Between those two events we have developed a great schedule that will give our freshmen time to grow, generate some great competition and allow some fast swimming. I look forward to seeing all of you at some point in the season!

Dave

Oct 2: ALUMNI MEET (Tentative) 6 PM
Oct 10: RED & BLUE MEET 11 AM
Oct 23: @ Buffalo 4 PM
Oct 31: @ Bucknell w/St. Francis 2 PM
Nov 6: @ Niagara 2 PM
Nov 7: @ ECC (St. Bonaventure/LaSalle) 10 AM/3:30 PM
Nov 14: CLARION 1 PM
Nov 20: @ St. Peters 4 PM
Nov 21: @ Fordham w/Rhode Island 12:30 PM
Dec 4-6: @ Akron Inv. Prelims/Finals
Dec 28-Jan 6: Florida Training (Pompano Beach)
Jan 16: @ Cleveland State w/ Xavier 12 PM
Jan 23: PITT TBA
Jan 30: @ WVU w/Virginia Tech 12 PM
Feb 17-20 @ ECC (Buffalo, NY) Prelims/Finals
Mar 18-20 NCAA Women's Champs. Purdue University
Mar 25-27 NCAA Men's Champs. Ohio State University

Men's Recruiting Class 2009-2010

I thought that collegeswimming.com would have posted the men's top recruiting classes by now but it seems they are bogged down with other things. With July 1st right around the corner and another recruiting cylce soon beginning I wanted to get all of you caught up on this past men's recruiting class.
I think the staff did a great job of filling Tony's departure with another breaststroker that I feel has not even reached near his potential. Along with filling Tony's spot we also added a backstroker that has top five conference potential as well as some needed depth to the roster in the sprint freestyle, the mid-distance freestyle, the backstroke and butterfly. I truly believe that each guy coming into the program will be a contributor one way or another and will give us the depth we need to be more competitive at the conference meet. Dave and I have always thought if we can recruit good kids that are talented, love to swim and work hard the fast swimming will take care of itself.

As always, you can find the recruits that committed at the athletic website.... http://www.goduquesne.com/ . I am also in the midst of finalizing the meet schedule for next year and will post in within the week.

Take care,
Dave

Open Water Swim is Finished!!!

Now, that was an experience. I thought that swimming 4.4 miles was going to be a challenge but I did not realize how mentally challenging it was going to be. We (John, Jason and myself), went out in the first wave with the slower swimmers to try and avoid the individuals that were actually at the race to win. Our philosophy was just to finish....a feat we all accomplished! However, I did not realize how fatigued I would become with about 1.5 miles remaining. The first mental blow was when five yellow capped swimmers (the second wave finally caught me)....I was leading the race up to that point. These swimmers blew by me like I was standing still! So, I decided to "float" a little bit, do some backstroke and regain my composure. That was stupid. For any of you that have ever done a marathon it was like slowing down to walk with only three or four miles left. It took quite some time to get moving again and get back into the rhythm (what was left) of my stroke. When I finally turned the corner for the last 800 yards I was thinking to myself..."finally". That 800 yards seemed to last an eternity. I tried to muster up one last charge to make it to the finish. I was fortunate that the young lady that eventually won for the women was next to me. I went stroke for stroke with her to the finish and eventually pushed her out of the way running up the shoot to finish ahead of her (of course I did not push her out of the way) but managed to touch bottom before her and out run her to the finish line. I did win the race for all of the swimmers in the first wave but ended the day 57th overall. Not too shabby for 700+ entrants. John ended up finishing 169th and Jason 209th. Jason exclaimed as he exited the water, "I will never do that again." I think I will take some time to reflect on that.

The one thing I did realize was it was not the race that I was looking forward to but the opportunity to spend some time with some old college teammates. We had an opportunity to spend a few days together before the race talking about the "good old days" when we were in college but also catching up with our new lives as professionals, fathers and husbands. I think that was the real reason we did the race, not to prove that we could do it, but to be able to spend time together as friends. Here is the link to the results enjoy. https://www.lin-mark.us/results_files/bay4409.txt Hopefully the pictures come out as well.



Dave

Chesapeake Bay Open Water Swim

Wow! It is now less then 24 hours until the open water swim in the Chesapeake Bay. I must admit I am a little nervous. However, I do remember feeling this anxiety before I ran my first marathon and that worked out well.......at least I finished. I have never done an open water swim before so this will be something new for me. I am happy that I will not be doing it alone....some of my former college teammates at Clarion University, Jason Miller and John Traube, have decided to swim it as well. I keep telling everyone this must be my "mid-life crisis" swim. However, I cannot take credit for "plunging" into this. Jason is the one back in October that got the wild idea of doing this swim. He also talked John and I into doing it. I was content swimming laps up and down a pool to prove I still "had it", or thought I did and I am sure John thought he would never see a pool again from any kind of training standpoint. Well, those thoughts are over and we will go into the Bay tomorrow hoping to arrive on the other side....the other side of the bay that is. Here is the link for the swim, so check it out and wish us luck! http://www.bayswim.com/

Women's Recruiting Class 2009-2010

Well, the recruiting season for this year is finally over. We got the last piece of the puzzle for the women's team in mid/late April. The roster has a lot of depth, which we needed on both sides and some critical holes have been filled. The class has gotten some recognition from college swimming.com so we are hopeful the class lives up to some of the hype it is getting. You can find that information at the following link: http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2009/jun/11/womens-recruiting-11-25/ . To get a full break-down of the class head on over to the Duquesne Atheltics link... www.goduquesne.com and click on swimming. The men's update should be posted next week some time.

I hope all of you will enjoy this new part of Duquesne Swimming and follow us regularly. Have a great summer!