Making Waves: New Swim Season Begins

By Door County Pulse , Peninsula Pulse – November 25th, 2015

Coach Mike McHugh with at DCY SWIM practice. Photo by Suzanne Rose.

By Suzanne Rose

As the Door County YMCA swim program moves forward into the 2015-16 season with expanding record numbers of swimmers, a larger coaching staff and extended practice schedule, it is all under a new name: DCY SWIM, with a sharp new logo and official team sportswear.

McHugh has signed on a new assistant – Aquatics Coordinator and swim coach Steve Schendt. A graduate of UW-Oshkosh, where he swam competitively with the Titans, he comes to the YMCA with extensive high school coaching experience.

In addition to Schendt, Rachel Stollenwerk is a newly hired addition to the YMCA Aquatics staff. As an established multi-event athlete with a great coaching background, she works with the pre-team in Sturgeon Bay and with remote swim team on site at the Northern Door YMCA.

DCY SWIM is comprised of two groups of swimmers: the competitive YMCA swim club and the pre-team Dolphin program. The pre-team training group prepares young swimmers for the team, filling every session with new swimmers aging from 5 to 11 years old. Each season the DCY Dolphins are invited to swim in the three DCY SWIM home meets with all meet fees waived. This allows these burgeoning athletes to dip their toes into the competitive side of the sport.

The DCY competitive swim team has started out their winter season with 125 swimmers. They began preparing early with a fall prep session, a preliminary practice session for the team, which began in tandem with the start of the school year. According to Coach Mike McHugh, “This prep session gives our team an invaluable edge in endurance and stroke technique for the upcoming season.”

The first official meet of the season took place Nov. 14-15 at Stevens Point. Fifty DCY swimmers were in attendance, swimming hard and making best times across the board in every stroke and age group. DCY SWIM team, competing with six other teams from Northeast Wisconsin, took second with 1,223 points.

The upcoming State Swim Championship meet in March 2016 is the high point of the season for the elite swimmers. With the event still many months away, several DCY swimmers have already qualified for this highly competitive event.

Max McHugh, 15, with elite-level qualifying times, swam in the Minnesota Grand Prix in Minneapolis on Nov. 12. He swam the 100 Meter Breaststroke at 1:06.24, 50 Meter Freestyle at 24.93 and the 200 Meter Breaststroke at 2:34.93. Swimming against the top swimmers in the country, McHugh swam very close to his best times from the national meet last year in North Carolina. McHugh has started the season out with great strength and athletic prowess.

The DCY SWIM team is overseen by the head coach Mike McHugh, who has the amazing ability to not only bring out the best in his swimmers but also the swimmers’ parents. His passion and commitment clearly spills over with a vast pool of volunteer parents supporting the swim team in every aspect of the program – from the website to the pool deck.

The DCY SWIM coaching staff is one of the best in the state. Surprisingly the team of seven coaches is comprised of more volunteers than paid staff. On the whole, the volunteer coaches (most parents of swimmers) have been coaching for several years now. The level of commitment to the team is above par, donating more than 100 hours on deck each year. “Jeff Norton, Kelly Rankin, Kelly Hoernke, and Jane Haase are great assets on our team,” says Coach McHugh who highly values his volunteers. “We would not be able to maintain our level of excellence without them.”

McHugh credits the quality of positive influence of the volunteers on deck to more than just helping hands. Last year’s swim season, with the help of the volunteer coaching staff, the DCY SWIM team had the highest percentage of State Qualifiers, making it the third year in a row that the team has achieved this extraordinary distinction.

With the continued excellence on the part of the swimmers, coaches and parents alike, the season has kicked-off with great enthusiasm and cohesive team spirit allowing the newly branded DCY SWIM team to make waves in the 2015-16 season.

Upcoming DCY Meets