Cuda Swimmers & Parents,

Great job to all that participated on Saturday against the Waves and/or Sunday/ Monday at Sprint Sizzler! You all represented Northampton very well!!

Our Divisional meet is almost here so I wanted to share some important information with you:

Date/Time: Saturday, June 18th    Meet starts @ 8:30AM  Arrival time & Warm-up TBA next week

Location: Kingwood High School, 2701 Kingwood Drive, Kingwood, TX 77339

Participation: In order to participate in the Divisional Meet, the swimmer must have swum in at least one official meet (duel meets & invitationals).  The practice meet that we had on May 7th does NOT count as an official meet. A swimmer can only swim an individual event at Divisionals if he/she has an official time in that event obtained in one of the official meets.              For example: If a swimmer only attended one meet and swam the 50 free, 50 back, and 50 fly, these are the only 3 individual events that he/she is eligible to sign up for at Divisionals.

Volunteering:  This will be a huge meet with over 1000 swimmers.  All teams are jointly responsible for running the meet, but Northampton will be taking the lead in the general set-up and organization.  All teams are responsible for providing volunteers.  Angela Collins has set up volunteer slots on the Cuda website for our parents to fill.  Please help us all out and fill the slots!  We need lots of timers & scribes, safety marshalls, ready bench, ribbons, runners, etc!!

Meet Specifics:  The Hurricanes will be selling heat sheets.  Windrose will be selling concessions. Northampton is responsible for Divisional t-shirts (pre-sold. See emails sent by Erin Johnson. only a few extras sold at meet). All set up will be indoors in the KHS commons and small gym (We will let you know next week which location is our set-up area).

Meet Location Explanation: Because I have had a few people ask why we are having our Divisional meet at Kingwood, I will share a little bit of an explanation.  There are 7 divisions in NWAL Central.  We are Division C1. Divisions C1-C5 all submitted applications to use the Klein ISD pools. There were only 3 pools available in KISD because Klein Forest had an equipment malfunction that will not be fixed until the end of the summer. All 5 divisions were awarded the 3 pools on the same day at the same time. None of the Division Representatives wanted to give up the pool that Klein ISD had said was theirs. The KISD athletic office told NWAL to determine how to divide the 3 available pools for the 5 divisions.  Saturday was the only option because Friday is a work day and Sunday is Father's Day.  I called the Conroe Nat, Tomball Nat, Magnolia Nat, Aldine ISD, Spring ISD, New Caney ISD & Humble ISD to see if there was any other pools to help get all 5 Divisions water.  All pools, except Kingwood & Humble High School, were either booked or the ISD would not rent out their pools. After much heated discussion among the divisional representatives about why each division should have a KISD pool, I conceded to have our Divisional meet at Kingwood High School for two reasons: 1. All teams in our Division have easy access to the Grand Parkway, which will make our drive 25-30 minutes tops to get there.  2. We have to have an 8 lane indoor pool due to the time length of our meet with over 1000 swimmers. I realize that having to drive to Kingwood is not ideal, but it will be very similiar to the distance that we had to go to Stonegate. 

This situation that has been an ongoing saga since February has caused some good things to happen.  In the past, most pools have been assigned by whatever division has connections to that pool.  For example, the last couple of years we were awarded Klein Oak because Glennloch Farms (their coaches are the Klein Oak Principal & Swim Coach) was in our division.  This year Glennloch Farms moved to C2.  As of next year, no pools will be assigned due to connections.  Klein ISD will no longer assign the pools.  This role will be done by a NWAL committee.  This benefits our division because our division is so large and has to have a high school pool to conduct our meet (parking, 8-lane pool, number of swimmers). 

Sorry this email was so long, but I hope it helps you with some necessary information & explanation for our upcoming Divisional meet.  It should be an exciting, competitive meet!  I look forward to all of our Cuda Swimmers & Parents representing us well at this meet, as you always do!

Thank you,

Gary Cooper

Cudas Team Representative

NWAL C1 Division Representative