MICHIGAN STATE OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE

One week form this coming Monday, we will be traveling to the world trials in Indianapolis. I invite all of our supporters to come watch the meet. The USA swimming nationals are more than just a meet now-they are a real event. The meet goes July 7-11.

Tomorrow night I will see many old Spartans at Katie Sophiea's wedding. I plan to see just as many on July 11 at Ian Clutten's wedding.

I want to pass along the information for the annual Munley Masters meet held here at MSU on June 28. The meet begins at 8:00 AM. There is an informational flyer linked on our website. The meet has really become a summer alumni meet and it is a great time. Please make an effort to come. If you have any questions regarding the meet, feel free to ask.

I want to thank the Yocum family and Ajit Sandhu for coming out to the Coaches Road Show event in Novi. I had a great time being part of an awesome event.

I want to thank Adam Schmitt, who became the latest former swimmer/diver to become a member of the Spartan Fund. The end of the month marks the end of our fiscal year and I plan to list all of our donors for 2008-09 in early July.

Hope you all are enjoying the beginning of summer. We are in full summer mode right now. This morning we had more than 50 kids in the outdoor pool at Spartan swim club practice. The weather in the morning has been a little chilly, but it is nice to be outdoors.

Whether you were on Mike's team or not, please log on and give Mike and his family some support. This is going to be very hard on his family and it is times like these that the Spartan swimming and diving community can come together to help one of our own.

We had five team members with a straight 4.0 semester - Jordan Jackson, Alycia Mokedanz, Sarah Morey, Mark Rogers and Brian Rockwell.

The men's team semester GPA was a 3.10 and the team cum is 3.22 The 3.22 is the highest the men's team has been since I came to MSU in 1997.

By the way, and I am doing this strictly for Eric's benefit, the women divers finished the spring semester with a 3.49 cum GPA.

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to get a couple of phone calls from alumnae. The first call came from the girls of 2003. I was happy to hear from all of them from their reunion in Tampa, Fla. It was fun to speak to them all on speaker phone and they all promised me that they are sending checks to the Spartan Fund soon.

Almost immediately after receiving the call from Florida, I got another call from the girls of 2005-06 who were out in East Lansing for Andrea Yocum's bachelorette party. My best guess is that that phone call was initiated by Alicia Copestick.

This week marked the opening of the outdoor pool and we have had quite a bit of sun. Summer is right around the corner.

It was great to have one more "good time" with Marcus Poteete's Mom, Dad, uncle, aunt and grandmother. I got to know them last summer in Omaha. It was particularly cool to see his sister come out to support her brother. I also got to see Mark Roger's parents, Julie Kahn's parents and Alison Johnson's parents. I saw Danielle Williams with her entire family and Alycia Mokedanz was there also. They were all deservedly proud of their kids getting bachelor's degree's at Michigan State University.

Let me say for the last time how proud we all are of Mark Rogers. He had so much hardware hanging around his neck that it was hard to see his actual gown. An incredible student, who just happened to be an athlete, Mark is destined to be successful and we are privilege to contribute to that success.

Congratulations to Michael Van Beek who just accepted an offer to officer candidate school with the US Air Force. I spoke to him about it yesterday and he seems very excited about the opportunity.

Homecoming 2009 is the weekend of October 16-18. This year, we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary season of Women's Swimming and Diving at Michigan State. Now as a disclaimer, I know that there was women's swimming and diving at Michigan State long before 1970, however according to the athletic department record, 1970-71 was the first official season of women's varsity.

We are hoping that we can get a huge presence of women's swimmers and divers here. We have a home meet against Illinois the Friday of homecoming and then we'd like to have a reception after the meet. Then we'll have our annual alumni meet on the morning of the 17th.

I have had an e-mail conversation with Jane Hoag about homecoming weekend and she is coming. Of course I have floated the idea past JP already and she is excited too. My hope is that all of you can come and then get after your teammates to come with you.

Please note that we will continue with our regular homecoming festivities also. The alumni meet will proceed unchanged. We are just hoping that we can get a huge contingency of women's swimmers and divers to attend the entire weekend.

The most exciting news of this past week is that Dr. Milton Muelder is back swimming again in the IM west pool. Milt has been a lap swimmer for a long time and he has spent some time away from the pool. Now that he is close to his 101st birthday, he has been cleared to swim again. Great news and it is a pleasure for me to see him every day again.

We have a number of people going through commencement ceremonies this Friday: Alison Johnson, Julie Kahn, Mark Rogers and Marcus Poteete. I wish all the best to each of them and their families.

That is about it for this week. With exams wrapping up, we start focusing to the summer and long course season. A reminder that there will be a number of Spartans competing at the US National Championships in Indianapolis on July 7-11. If you live in the area, please come by and watch the swim meet (Michael Phelps will be there also).

I made an omission a while back when I reported results from the Master's state meet: I left out Dawn Polk. She graciously reminded me that she also swam well. So I wanted to pass that along.

Speaking of Master's swimming, Tom Munley reminded me that our annual Master's open long course swim meet is on Sunday, June 28 at the IM west outdoor pool. The meet will be gin at 8:00 AM. Please if you are interested or you have any questions, let me know and I will point you in the right direction.

The first I received today from Don Morey who told me that Howard Patterson was elected to the Saginaw County Sports Hall Of Fame. Howard was a 1945 Arthur Hill grad, state champ, MSC varsity, and 1948 Olympic team member. A November banquet in Saginaw will officially induct them. This Hall of Fame is one of the best run in the state.

The second I found out from Momma Munley, who stopped by the pool. In our hour long talk she told me that Tom Munley will be inducted this September in the Portage Central High School Hall of Fame.

It was very good to see Mrs. Munley on Tuesday of this week. She was in East Lansing for work but as usual she found time to stop by the pool to say hello.

I often use this space to describe great Spartans so this week I would like to talk about Tony Grace.

Tony came by to see me this past Saturday. He flew to Michigan for the weekend to see friends and family. He told me about his job in New Mexico and he told me that he didn't have a lot of money. In fact, he told me he spent the first month in New Mexico eating nothing but black beans and eggs because he couldn't afford anything more than that. At the end of the conversation, he pulled out his wallet and handed me a $100 bill saying, "here is something for the team, spend it where you need it the most."

I want to thank Tony-a four year walk-on here at MSU for making his first donation to our program. Tony is just one of many of our alumni who care deeply enough about our program to donate money. I want you all to know, as always, that I appreciate your support.

On Sunday we will present our annual awards. We now have 7 of the 14 awards named after great names in our program: Jack Seibold, Jennifer Parks, John Narcy, Kevin Zielinski, John Munley and Jason Vadney. Next week, I will provide the full list.of winners next week.

Recruiting is finishing up and it looks like we will have a very good class of Freshmen this September.

I want to remind everyone that our spring football game is this Staurday at 1:30 PM. It is always a fun event and it looks like we are going to have great weather. If you plan to attend, please let me know. I am going with my kids and I would love to meet up with you during the day.

We are now a little more than a week away from exam week. It is hard to believe how fast time goes by.

It is also hard to believe that on Sunday I am going to say goodbye to 10 incredible Spartans as they receive their golden spike.

I want to extend my congratulations to Coach Izzo and the entire men's basketball program. Coach Izzo has been the standard bearer for our department. He sets the bar so high for us all and his tireless work has transformed our department. Everyone knows Michigan State University and for that I, and many of my colleagues are grateful.

The Final Four run made me particularly happy for my old boss Richard Bader who has been a mainstay with the basketball program now for nine years.

Back to swimming news. Our banquet is going to be held a week from Sunday, April 26 at 12:00 p.m. It will be held on the fourth floor of the stadium tower and if anyone is interested in attending, please contact Kathleen Milloy and she will provide the details.

We have begun preparation for the Long Course season, our kids have committed very well through this spring and many of them are training very hard. Our goal is to take a big squad of kids to the World Championship Team Trials in Indianapolis in July.

We have a big summer of weddings coming up also. Katie Sophiea ties the knot in Late June. I am planning to attend Ian Clutten's wedding here in East Lansing in early July and Andrea Yocum's wedding is scheduled for late July in Novi.

I would also like to congratulate the Cal Bears, who won the NCAA championship last week. The meet came down to the last relay. I am wishing all of our fellow Big Ten men's teams the best of luck this week.

Exciting news this week is that Chris and Laura (Atkinson) Koerner had a baby girl this week. Samantha Hartley Koerner was born on March 24. We all wish them the best in their up-coming sleepless nights.

This week we have a five boys traveling to the USA swimming sectional championships in Indianapolis this weekend. They are all shooting for some early long course times.

As we move toward the long course season, I think many of you will be interested in knowing that Capital Area Swim Team will be changing its name to Spartan Swim Club. That means the MSU swimmers who stay in East Lansing this summer will be representing the Spartan Swim Club at the Nationals and Sectionals. This has been in the works for a while and it is something we endorse in order to try and promote swimming in the Mid-Michigan area.

Finally, we are in the process of putting together another Master's swimming clinic in April. So please look out for that soon.

Last week, almost as a footnote I mentioned our banquet date. Our team banquet will be on April 26th in the fourth floor club area of Spartan Stadium. The banquet will begin at 12:00 PM. If you have any questions concerning the banquet, please contact Kathleen at milloy@ath.msu.edu.

This week we have Sean Costello competing in the USA Swimming Junior National meet in Orlando, Fl. He will be competing unattached and his best event is the 200 butterfly.

That is all for the week. We had a beautiful St Patrick's Day this week with a 70 degree day in East Lansing. We are beginning to put together the plans for our spring and summer long course season. We have quite a few team members staying this summer and we are looking forward to it.

At this time of the year, swimming coaches get obsessed with times: What is going to make the NCAA's? How many records did we break? What percentage of drops did we have for the season? How did we perform relative to last year? I naturally was in the middle of this thinking last week when it was broken by Matt McNichols telling me about a job he had accepted with Kraft foods in Chicago. It was at that point; I decided that this week, I would provide an update on our seniors of the past 2 years and how amazing their job opportunities have been despite the recession.

Start with Matt McNichols, like I said, he has just accepted a position with Kraft foods in Chicago. Matt turned down 2 other job offers with Conagra and General Mills. Matt Torres is on the verge of accepting a position in packaging also. Jason Vadney has been employed by State Farm Insurance since his graduation last year. Adam Schmitt has a good job at the Founders brewery in Grand Rapids. Tony Grace has a great job in New Mexico at a tire refurbishing company. Danny Schemmel is in graduate school and doing a lot of coaching at the University of Arizona.

Michael Van Beek looks to be going in Officer Candidate School with the US Army. Mark Rogers will be working with the computer engineering firm he interned with last summer in Washington, DC. Kris Olszewski will be finishing his course work next year and Marcus Poteete is in the process of finding a job.

Alison Johnson accepted a position with Wells Fargo bank back in February. Heather Kiluk and Julie Kahn are finishing up course work. Marlys Fuqua is getting ready to apply to graduate schools Alycia Mokedanz is planning graduate school at the University of Florida. Danielle Williams is also preparing for graduate school, but she is going to take some time off first

A very impressive group and one of which we can all take pride. There are many times that I lose perspective on what our mission is here at MSU, these kids accomplishments are so incredible more so than any time or score.

I would like to offer my condolences to the family of Lewis Michaud. "Louie" passed away last month. He was a varsity letter winner in diving in 1952, 53, 54. At the 1954 Big Ten Championships, he placed 6th in diving. All of our best to his family.

Hope all is well-want to remind everyone that the spring football game this year is on April 25th. We may have something planned with our program in conjunction with the game. Also, our banquet is on April 26th at 12:00 noon.

I think you all know that we did not finish the way we wanted in the championship, but we did have a very good season. We broke a number of records and we have many top ten performances. The plan for 2008-09 was to give our team multiple opportunities to swim fast and dive well and we did just that. We have grown up very much this year and I am very hopeful that we can build on that success in 2010.

I want to thank Steve Bargwell for putting together the MSU swimming alumni group on facebook. It has been great to see many of you on there and I have been able to keep up with many of your activities. Of course it is always interesting to see the pictures of how well behaved our alumni were while they were students at MSU.

I have moved further into cyberspace this week by getting my own page on twitter. My username is msuswimcoach. I invite you to follow my page and I will up-date it as often as I can.

Finally this week I want to remind all of you that our program exists in large part because of the dedication and generosity of our alumni and boosters. Your donations are the bedrock upon which this program rests. This is a very difficult time economically and I am fully aware that people's budgets are tight. However, I am asking that you please renew your membership in the Spartan Fund. If you have never been a member of the Spartan Fund, please donate anything you can to our program.

Spring is around the corner and I am ready for it. In fact, I am really looking forward to the outdoor pool opening up.

I want to go a little further with Jeff Barnes. Jeff is our sports information intern. He has worked tirelessly for our program this year. He has been great in updating our website and keeping after me to stay on task. He has also taken a real interest in our program. Most of what you have seen/read this season is because of him. He is a very talented person and his future is very bright. My only hope is that he gets into public relations/communications and out of sports info so he can make a lot more money.

I would like to take the time this week to announce our 2009 Heusner Service award winners. It is hard to believe that this is the 7th year we will be awarding this honor at the alumni meet. For many of you who may not know, the award is named after Bill Heusner who was the meet referee at every MSU home swim meet for 40 consecutive years.

Margaret Smith
Shawn Elkins
Samuel and Lori Stark-Kasley
John Narcy
The Richard Mull Family

All five recipients are very deserving and I am honored to give them the award this year on homecoming.

Remember that homecoming this year is October 16-18. The alumni meet will be held at 9:00 AM at the Charles McCaffree pool.

I will be on hiatus for the next 2 weeks while I am away at the Big Ten Championships. We have had a very good year this year and we have swum and dove well. Our team is very excited about the Big Ten meet and we are planning on doing well.

Our meet at Oakland was close for both the women and the men. Results are posted on our website. The night before, the women competed against Michigan and those results are also on the website.

Last Friday, we had six senior women say goodbye to the Charles McCaffree pool on senior day. This week we have four men say their final goodbye in their last home meet against Michigan, on Sunday at 3 p.m.

The class of 2009 has come from different points, stayed together and improved themselves for four years. They are four great representatives of Michigan State University.

Kris Olszewski, from Torun, Poland. Kris is a Telecommunications major and he has been the distance stalwart for the Spartans over the last 4 years. He came to MSU in September of 2004 while he was visiting cousins in Northville. He became a Spartan and he never looked back. He has improved in all of his swims and he has been a consistent hard worker.

Marcus Poteete, from Santa Cruz, Calif. Marcus is a Telecommunications major. Marcus has been a Big Ten finalist in the 100 butterfly and he has been a very versatile swimmer for our team. In 2007, he qualified for the 2008 Olympic Trials. Marcus has gone from walk-on to one of the better swimmers in the history of Michigan State. I thank Iian Mull for being so persistent in urging me to give Marcus a chance. Listening to Iian was the best decision I have ever made as head coach at MSU.

Mark Rogers from Beverly Hills. Mark is a computer engineering major and he has been a solid sprinter for Michigan State. Mark has interned the past 2 summers honing his engineering skills. He already has a job working in Washington, D.C. I joke with him all the time that he will be the guy responsible for catching Osama Bin Laden.

Michael Van Beek from Grosse Pointe. Mike is a criminal justice major. Mike is Mr Spartan and I am convinced he could pose as Sparty. He walked-on the team in 2005 and he has worked, incredibly hard to become a Big Ten level swimmer. I often joke that I wish I could be with him when he takes down his first "perp" may God have mercy on that poor guy.

In all, the Class of 2009 consists of four good people who will go on to be come great men. I feel priviledged to have the opportunity to coach all of them.

Please remember about our meet on this Sunday at 3:00 against the No. 2 team in the country: Michigan. Please note that the diving will begin at 1:30 p.m. Seniors will be honored at 2:50 p.m. The swimming will begin at 3 p.m.

We did participate in the Shamrock Invitational last weekend and we had some mixed results. We improved off of the times from our meet against Purdue, but we still weren't as sharp as we'd like to be.

This week we do have our final women's home meet against Michigan on Friday night at 5:00 p.m. Our program says goodbye to six outstanding student-athletes. As is with every class, these six women have faced many highs and lows over the span of there careers here at MSU. Their contributions to the team and the program are many and they will all be missed.

Marlys Fuqua, from Fairport, NY. Marlys is a marketing major and she has been the distance stalwart for the Spartans over the last 4 years. She has tirelessly worked to improve her swimming and she has worked equally hard academically. Last season Marlys was a member of the varsity record setting 800 Free relay.

Alison Johnson, from Rochester Hills. Alison is an economics major and she has been a versatile swimmer for the Spartans. Alison has contributed in almost every event through four years (except the backstroke events).

Julie Kahn from Saline. Julie is a psychology major and she has been the anchor of the sprint group for MSU. She has spent every summer here at Michigan State, training hard to get better. She owns top ten times in the 50 and 100 freestyle.

Heather Kiluk from Libertyville, IL. Heather is an advertising major and she has been one of the most versatile swimmers in the history of Michigan State University. She is the varsity record holder in the 200 and 400 IM, as well as the 800 Free Relay. She has been a Big-10 finalist and she is one of the hardest workers in program history.

Alycia Mokedanz, from Pickering, Ontario. Alycia is a kinesiology major and sh has been very tough battling through numerous injuries while continually diving at a high level. She is a Big Ten finalist and she has scored many points in dual meets for Michigan State.

Danielle Williams, from Dorchester, Ontario. Danielle is the longest tenured senior on the team after taking an injury red-shirt year after shoulder surgery. She has been a multiple Big Ten finalist and she has won many meets in her 5 years in East Lansing. She has also finalled at numerous Canadian national championships. She has continued in the MSU tradition of highly decorated female divers.

One final note, we do have our last away meet on Saturday against Oakland in Rochester Hills at 1:00 p.m.

I had the chance to see many alumni who were in town for Ian Clutten's engagement party. I saw Dave Habel, Matt Wisniewski, Lindsey Rodin, and Erika Templeton. I also got to see Chad Wilson and his dad on their way to the MSU basketball game. I also saw Mike Darbee in the crowd. Of course after seeing all of the alumni make it to the meet, I was even more disappointed by our performance.

Our men's meet against Michigan has been moved again. We had rescheduled it to Saturday, February 7. However, due to a club water polo tournament, we had to move it again to Sunday, February 8 at 3:00 PM. That meet will be our senior day meet, so please try to make it out if you can.

Our women's season finale will be one week from this Friday also against Michigan.

This Friday we do have a three session meet with Denver and West Virginia at Notre Dame. If you live near South Bend, we would love to see you at the meet.

Our meet against Purdue is on Saturday at 12:00 PM. The Spartans play a basketball game against Illinois at 4:00. So if you plan to come to the game, please stop by the pool.

Next week we have a four team, three session meet at South Bend. The meet is on the 23 and 24th. You can check our website for the start times

Our senior women's meet is against Michigan on January 30 and the men are scheduled to have their senior meet against Michigan on February 7.

I want to congratulate our men's and women's team on their academic report for the fall semester. The men finished the semester at 3.17 and their cum gpa is 3.24. The women finished the fall at 3.18 and their cum is 3.17. Both teams did very well and in particular our freshman women finished the semester with the highest gpa of the four women's classes-not an easy feat.

We had 5 team members get a 4.0 semester: Brian Rockwell (who has a 4.0 cumulative gpa), Brian Akers, Jordan Jackson, Brooke Sauchak and Kerry Sodonis

Now, concerning our training trips. Eric took the divers out to Hawaii and they had a good training camp from December 14-December 23. They got very lucky with the weather on the mainland on their trip home and they got home safely in time for the holiday.

The swimmers went off to Florida on December 28 and we took 2 full days to get to Delray Beach. We stopped at the University of Tennessee and the University of Florida and I would like to thank their coaching and aquatic staff's for being so accommodating to our team.

When we were in Florida, we spent New Years Day in Orlando to watch the Capital One Bowl. Man did we have a great time. Before the game, Mr. and Mrs. Wertz hosted the team at a tailgate. They fed well over 50 people and we are very thankful for that.

We stayed in Delray Beach until January 7th and then we traveled home with stops at Georgia Tech and Louisville. Again both set's of coaching and aquatic staff's were very accommodating. I had the chance to see Roland McDonald, who coaches diving at George Mason, at Georgia Tech.

We got home on the afternoon of January 9th and the team was very thankful to get off the bus.

I want to thank Tom Nelson, who served as our driver on the entire trip. We travelled well more than 3700 miles and he was as professional as it gets.

We are now little more than a month-and-a half away from the Big Ten meets. Our team trained very hard through the month long break from classes and we have 3 straight weeks of meets to try and get ready for February. We hope to see many of you in the next month.

On Sunday, Eric and the divers will head to Honolulu for their diving training camp. They will be in Hawaii until December 23. The swimmers will stay in East Lansing until December 18 and then depart for Florida on December 28.

The swimmers will get to Delray Beach, Florida on December 30 in the afternoon. We will be staying at the Residence Inn, 1111 East Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33483. We will train at the Aqua Crest Pool, 2503 Seacrest Blvd., Delray Beach 33444. If you are in the area, please stop by and meet the team.

On January 1, we are going to travel to Orlando for a meet against Trinity Prep Aquatics and Limestone College (SC) at Trinity Prep High School. The meet will begin at 8:30 AM. Following the meet, the team will travel to the Citrus Bowl to watch the Spartans and the Bulldogs in the Capital One bowl. We are looking forward to this trip and we are hoping to use the trip to connect to our alumni and boosters. If you have plans to go to the bowl game, please let me know.

It has been a great semester for our program. We have a team that I am very proud of and I know that they are great representatives of Michigan State University. I am hoping that your holiday season has gotten off to a good start.

Next week is exam week and I am sure many of you remember the stress that goes along with taking finals and training. I am hoping that both our teams make their academic goals. It is this time of the year that I am so thankful for the Smith Center and Student-Athlete Support Services.

This week, I want to include a mid season status report. Through the first half of the season we have:

• Had 5 divers make their NCAA Regional cut.
• Bettered 7 varsity records
• Had 36 top ten swimming performances.
• Made 7 World Time Trial cuts
• Made 3 NCAA B cuts

Besides the above, most importantly is that we have swum and dove consistently well since the season began on October 11. In my 12 seasons at MSU, I have seen some very dedicated individuals. However this year, I have seen a group of dedicated individuals. A team that is very focused on trying to be great individually and as a team. This team understands what it takes to be successful in the Big Ten. Personally, I am looking forward to the next half of the season and well beyond that into next summer.

I want to remind everyone that we have a dual meet against Ball State next Saturday (December 13) at 2:00 PM. If you plan to attend the Spartan basketball game that night, come by early and watch the meet.

I want to especially thank Jim and Marcia McNichols, Matt McNichols, Tony Grace, Matt Torres, Mike Rigali and Danny Schemmel who came to the hotel after the Saturday night session and hung out with us for a couple hours. I also got the chance to see Matt Wisniewski and Lindsay Rodin at the meet on Sunday.

I want to thank the Northwestern staff for putting together a good meet and being very accommodating to our team. From day 1 this season, we focused sharply on that meet and the Northwestern staff was very helpful in helping our kids get to their goals. We swam and dove really well and the full results are on our website.

I want to particularly congratulate Marcus Poteete (100 Fly) and Kevin Puskaric (200 brst) who at the time of this writing have times ranked in the top 5 nationally.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to acknowledgewhat makes me thankful:

• A great team of Spartans who practice hard everyday and work in the classroom.
• Great parents who understand the meaning of support.
• Alumni and boosters who unconditionally support our program year in and year out.
• Administrators at Michigan State who do everything they can to provide an environment to allow us to succeed. Mark Hollis is an incredible Spartan and he is working hard to make Michigan State the national model of a successful athletic department.
• Nancy Wing, Richard Mull, Damon Robertson, Brian Fickies, Joel Eddy, Richard Bader, John Narcy, Tylor Fick, and many others who give their time and talents to our program.

Please look this week on our website for an update on the six Spartans in the Class of 2013.

I have had many questions regarding where we are going for our winter break. We will be arriving at Delray Beach Florida on December 30 and we will be staying there until January 7. We are planning to go to the Spartan bowl game on January 1 in either Tampa of Orlando. We most certainly hope to see many of you down there if you are close to the Ft Lauderdale area.

The meet schedule is as follows: Friday/Saturday 10 AM prelims, 5 PM finals; Sunday 9 AM prelims and 3 PM finals. I am hoping to see many of our Chicago land alumni at the meet/hotel. We plan a very informal get-together at the hotel on Saturday night. Please let me know if you'd like to attend.

This past Friday we had a dual meet with GVSU at Jenison High School. I would like to thank the people at Jenison for hosting a great meet. We had a huge crowd and many people came to watch the meet from the surrounding area. I saw many of our alumni there including Adam Schmitt, Stacey Ketchum and Andrea Stewart. Special thanks to Andrea for filming the meet.

We swam and dove very well against GVSU and the full results are on the website.

Busy week this week getting everyone read for the invitational. So I am going to keep this short. Next week, I will provide an update on our fall recruiting.

Congratulations to Joe Baum and the men's soccer program: Regular season Big Ten champs and Big Ten tournament champs. Well deserved championships for a great Spartan.

I joked with Rich Mull yesterday that Rick had to be "one of the good guys" because if he wasn't, his personality would have restricted him from having any friends at all. I met Rick more than 10 years ago and like most people I know, I could not stand him. In truth it took me more than three years to finally feel as though the 2 of us were friends. I remember when I relayed that to him a few years ago and he was shocked, telling me that he felt as though we were friends from the beginning.

We worked together in the summer coaching the Spartan swim club/CAST and it was relationship of coaching together in the summer on the outdoor pool deck. I was always in awe of Rick's commitment. I was in awe that he made no difference between the Olympic trial qualifier and the state meet qualifier. I will always remember the day he compared the NCAA championships to the Capital Area Swim League Championships with a complete straight face. For Rick, swimming was about achieving excellence no matter what level and the coach's responsibility was to do everything he/she could to make that happen.

Rick was never the life of the party. He was an expert in frustrating people with his stubbornness. He was a taskmaster and after speaking to some of his former students at Eastern High School who live in my neighborhood he can best be described as demanding. His ability to never waver was what truly made him special.

I learned very early on to never debate with Rick, because I was never going to win. I also learned that if you needed someone's help, he was the first person to call. I anticipate at his memorial service on Friday, the church will be packed with people of all ages. That I think would make him smile. To see the impact he had on so many different people, would have made him satisfied that he did a good job. And he did do a great job: all the time.

For me, I will always see the guy who came through the pool door in a funny looking hat, wearing a three stooges shirt, in a huff, running about 10 minutes late (straight from the golf course). Never starting the conversation with a good morning or hello, always a "what is plan for today?" while looking at the water.

I will always remember the ridiculously impossible history quizzes on the 4th of July that I scored less the 20% with a Masters degree in History. I will always remember the look of pride he had when he gave out Quality Dairy donuts to the kids after practice.

I will always remember how overdressed he came to our dual meets as a meet official. Rick wore a jacket, sweater and tie staring across the pool at his counterpart official who was wearing shorts and a white golf shirt.

I will always remember that no matter how angry he got with me, how disappointed his was with one of my decisions, he always gave to MSU swimming because he believed in the value of our program.

We definitely lost one of the good guys last Friday and the world is a much lesser place. For me, the outdoor pool deck will never be the same and summer won't be as fun.

Speaking of Houston-we won our first meet of the year and by no means did it come easy. Houston is a great, albeit not very deep, team. We had 3 pool records broken including a 200 fly time that was the 5th fastest in the country. They made it even more difficult by going 1-2 in both boards. But we were resilient and we had great meets by Heather, Stephanie, Erinn, Julie and our sprinters. I give a lot of credit to Houston who could have easily won that meet.

We are off until Nov 14 when we compete against GVSU at Jenison High School. The meet begins at 6:00. I may be published as different times in other places. But the meet does begin at 6:00.

It is looking pretty good that the Spartans will be playing in Florida for the bowl game on January 1. Since we will be down there at the same time, we are making arrangements to go to the game. I know we have quite a few swimming alumni in Florida, so when we have our plans all set, I will pass along where we'll be and we can have a swimming and diving get together. That is not to say that I do not hope, as we all do, that the Spartans make it to Pasadena by winning the rest of their games.

Please do not forget that we are planning on having a get together for our alumni and boosters at Northwestern in little more than 2 weeks. I will have full details of the what, where, and when of the reception in the next couple weeks.

I said last week and I want to remind everyone that the swimmers and divers are selling 50/50 tickets at the Purdue game this weekend. The game starts at noon and our practice ends at 10:00 AM. SO our kids will be out maybe a little late. I am asking you to hold off until you see a swimmer or diver coming. Thanks.

On Saturday we had our annual meet with Iowa. Their men came to town fresh off a win against Wisconsin and their women had already beaten Nebraska. The women's meet came down to the last relay and unfortunately we lost. The men's meet was a little more lopsided. Despite the losing both meets, we did have good performances in the meet. Full results are up on our website.

This Friday we have a women's meet with Houston and the start time on that is 3:00 PM. If you have time before trick-or-treating, please stop by the pool.

As I said last week, Saturday is the final day of the outdoor pool for 2008. I want to invite all of you to watch our seniors take one final plunge off the 10 meter tower at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning. Many of you I am sure remember your last outdoor work-out as a Spartan. I am quite sure that as you move further away from that day, the temperature has become colder and colder. By the way, the forecast temperature for 10 AM on Saturday is about 31 degrees.

I want to remind everyone that the Spartan Swimmers and divers will be selling 50/50 raffle tickets before the Purdue game on November 8. Please if you are planning to buy tickets that game, get them from a team member.

In two weeks we have the early signing date and we are looking forward to adding a few Spartans to the Class of 2013. Recruiting has gone really well so far this year and we feel good about how things will go early next month.

I want to also remind all of our Chicago area alumni and boosters that we are planning a get together on Saturday, November 22. We plan to start it following the Saturday night session of the Northwestern Invitational. I am really hoping to see many of you there.

That is about it for everything this week. I want to remind all of you that if you are on campus the next two weeks for football games, please stop by and say hello.

By the way, this past Saturday Jeremy's wife just gave birth to an 8 lbs 5 oz, 22 inch baby boy: Levi Thomas William Flynn. A big congrats to Jeremy and his expanded family. I know many of you know Jeremy and I am sure he would enjoy a note letting him know how you are doing.

I want to say thanks to all the parents who traveled to Champaign for our 2 day dual meet against the Illini. It took our team a little while to get started coming off the bus. We were pretty sluggish on Thursday night. However we re-grouped and performed much better on Friday. I was very proud of our women showing such competitive maturity.

Special congratulations to both Kayla Kalmbach and Sarah Clay for making their regional cuts on the 3 meter board. Kayla was particularly impressive because she spent Friday morning taking a very difficult test and then warmed-up and performed her best ever on the 3-meter-A true Spartan if there is one!

This week we have a big meet against Iowa that starts on Saturday at 12:00. That is good news because the U of M football game starts at 3:30. We are hoping that we can get some support from our fans and boosters to hopefully start off a great day for Michigan State.

I want to remind all of you that if you plan on being on campus for the Wisconsin game, we will be "enjoying" our last day in the outdoor pool for 2008. The pool closes officially at 11:00 AM on November 1.

Like many of you, I am hoping for a big week for Coach Dantonio and the Spartans down in Ann Arbor. Let's go State!

Finally, I want to give a nod to my hometown's favorite pastime: The 5-1 Buffalo Bills! I am hoping for another Super Bowl.

On Saturday we began our women's season with the unenviable task of facing the Minnesota Golden Gophers. They are a very good and very deep team. The meet was a very good meet and we had some great performances by a lot of Spartans. The results are also posted on our website.

One of the stand-out performances this past weekend was by Becca Ebner who has really improved in her butterfly events here at MSU. For many of our recent alumni: yes that is the same Becca who prowled the MSU outdoor pool as a 10 and under while her older brother Alex was on the MSU swim team. She is now close to really making an impact in the Big Ten Conference.

This week we travel the women to Illinois for a 2 day meet with the Illini. This is the first time in 4 years that Illinois has been able to hold a home schedule because of pool renovations. We are looking forward to making the trip and hopefully doing well down there. Meet starting times are 5:00 PM on Thursday and 3:00 PM on Friday.

I am hoping to see many of you at our Iowa meet on October 25. The meet is on the same day as the MSU/U of M football game. However the game starts at 3:30 and our meet starts at noon. So you can get your Spartan pride warmed up at the meet for the football game. We hope to see you there.

Good luck to the Spartans this weekend against the Buckeyes. If you are going to be on campus, please stop by during our practice from 8-11 on Saturday morning.

It was great to see Clarke Scholes at the alumni meet. Clarke is the only individual Olympic gold medalist in Michigan State history. I had the opportunity to sit with him and his old teammate Bob Barker during the football game.

I had the chance also to see many of our past Olympians last weekend. It was great to hear the old stories about training at MSU and the appreciation everyone has of being a Spartan.

Speaking of alumni, on Monday we officially hired Dianne Johnson to assist with the team for this year. She is really excited to help with the team and we need her help in a number of areas. It is very important to note that without the financial support of our many alumni and boosters, we would not be able to make this hire. Dianne's position is funded exclusively through our fundraising efforts-in much the same way the Rich Mull's position was for seven years.

This week we turn it on for real. We have the Alumni meet beginning at 6:00 PM on Friday night and we have the women opening up the season on Saturday at 2:00 PM against 2008 Big Ten Champion Minnesota. Please, if you have the time, stop by and support the Spartans.

We have a picture gallery up on the web site of the many pictures taken during the alumni meet.

One final note: Our start time for our home meet against Houston on Halloween has been changed to 3:00 PM. Please make a note because that is a change from the beginning of the season.

Now a few reminders: We will have the pool open at 8:30 AM. The meets starts at 9:00 AM. We will try a different program this year based on the request by many alumni for more serious events (the plunge however remains). My Early favorite for the Men's 50 Freestyle is Alec Mull and for the Women's Katrina Kniff. We will introduce both squads and award the 2008 Heusner Awards at 9:30 AM. We will try to be done with the meet at 10:00 AM at the latest so you can all return to your tailgates. This year we expect a pretty good amount of Olympians and hopefully many of them will swim and/or dive.

The Heusner Service Award began in 2002 at the untimely passing of Bill Heusner. Bill was a dual meet referee at Michigan State University for 40 straight years. He was a dedicated servant to Michigan State, Big-10 and NCAA Swimming and Diving. Having the opportunity to meet and learn from him was a real privilege for me. This award brings an honor on those who win it while also paying real tribute to the man for which it is named.

Jennifer Parks- JP is a swimming enthusiast and more specifically she is a Spartan swimming enthusiast. She has been a long time supporter of our program and, as she was when she coached, she is a bulldog in her pursuit of a new facility here at MSU. JP has always been there for the MSU program. JP will be here on Saturday to receive an award she most certainly deserves.

George Kruggel-George swam at Michigan State in the late 70's and early 80's. He is the swimming authority on the west side of the state. Many times he has brought to my attention names of future great Spartans. It is no accident that we have had Grand Haven Buccaneer on the MSU team for 6 straight years. George has also shown his commitment to the program by being a long time, generous financial contributor. George will be here on Saturday to get his award.

Rick Edwards- Rick has been synonymous with Mid Michigan Swimming for 30 years. He is a member of the Lansing Eastern Hall of Fame as well as the greater Lansing Sports Hall of Fame. Rick has contributed to the program in so many ways. His biggest contribution has come from the coaching he did in the summertime with the Spartans. Rick will be here on Saturday to receive his long deserved award

Bob Jones- Bob Jones has been a long time contributor to Michigan State swimming and diving. Before relocating to Corvallis, OR, he also helped the program as a meet official. He swam at MSU in the 1970's for Coach Fetters. Bob will not be able to attend the alumni meet this weekend. We also pass along our condolences to him and his family at the passing of his father recently in Florida.

Don Patterson- Don was a member of the only MSU Big-10 Championship team in 1957. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year and he immediately asked me what more can I do to help. He made a large donation last year to help with our equipment budget. He is a true Spartan as are all of his 1950's teammates. Don will not be in East Lansing to receive his award this weekend.

Finally this week, we had our Masters/Tri-athlete clinic this past Sunday. It was an initial success and we coached 10 participants. The feedback was positive enough that we will run a few more of these clinics in April and May of 2009. When we decide on the dates in the spring, I will post them.

This week we have our first ever Master's clinic on Sunday at 8:00. We hope to have about 15-20 people there and we plan to run the full four hour clinic. The focus will be on stroke technique and training methods. If you have any questions regarding the clinic at all, please let me know.

Next weekend is Homecoming and we will be holding our annual Alumni meet at 9:00 AM. This year marks the 53rd Meet and it is the longest continual running event on homecoming (except football).. Just a reminder that we have added a few more "legit" events in the meet for those of you who really want to go head to head with the Varsity athletes. I am really looking forward to the meet and I hope many of you can get back.

Homecoming this year also will see many of our Olympians come back to MSU. They are being honored by the Varsity Alumni Club and will be recognized at the football game. The Varsity club is having a breakfast to honor members at the same time as the Alumni meet.

Next week I will include a short Bio on the five recipients of the Heusner Service Award. I will also get a few more details on the Alumni swim meet.

Hope all is well with you and make your homecoming plans now. We hope to see you all next weekend.

I am determined to make it out to all your tailgates this week. Last week I genuinely tried to make it out to see many of you. But the deluge that was last Saturday made me duck for cover in my office between practice and the football game. (For the record, I did go to the game and I made it to halftime).I want to invite anyone who is on campus this weekend to come over and visit us during practice. We will be on deck from 8-10:30 AM.

We are now about three weeks into the season and so far we have had some pretty good training sessions.

This Friday we are celebrating the tenth year anniversary of the Clara Bell Smith Academic Center. I am sure that for many of you hearing that makes you feel a little old. God only knows that it makes me feel old. I remember walking through the construction zone in September of 1997 with Mary Ellen Wydan on my job interview.

It is amazing to think about the number of tutors, study halls, seminars and programs that facility has provided our swimmers and divers in 10 years (let alone the entire athletic department). The Smith Center is truly the jewel of our department and what the facility has been able to produce is also amazing. The generosity of Steve Smith made Michigan State the national leader in student-athlete academic support and student-athlete development.

I want to remind everyone that our alumni meet will begin at 9:00 on Saturday October 4. I hope to see many of you here.

Also, remember that next Sunday we will be hosting our first ever Masters/Tri swimming clinic from 8AM-12 PM. If you have any questions about the clinic, let me know.

Of course the beginning of the season means a number of new faces and the introduction of 20 plus new freshmen to Michigan State Swimming and Diving.

I wanted to let everyone know that Coach Fetters is doing well. I saw him this past Saturday at the football game and he looks great. He shared some wisdom with me and I told him I have no idea how he coached for so long. He was up with many of the Fetters clan. It was great to have them back on campus.

I also got to see Deb O'Neil on Saturday. Her brother is the defensive backs coach at Eastern Michigan. She introduced me to her boyfriend. I will say I would have rather she been at the game with her dad. Deb is doing really well, living in St Louis and working for the NHL Blues.

To date we have had 8 official practice days, so the season is starting slow. This year we have really broken down into groups and we'll see if that brings us a little more success this year. Our program has the goal of getting to the NCAA meet again this year and trying our best to move up the standings in the Big Ten Conference.

I want to remind any of you that if you are interested in our Tri/Masters swimming clinic on September 28, please contact me anytime.

Also a reminder that the alumni meet will begin on homecoming at 9:00 AM. We hope to have as many of our Olympians back as we can. The meet actually conflicts with the Varsity Alumni brunch, so we may have to make do without some of the best swimmers and divers in our history.

We are going to change the format of the Alumni meet a little bit this year. We do have a number of people involved in Masters swimming now, so we may have more competitive events involved in the meet.

I have spent the last week answering a lot of questions about swimming. I have never seen so much interest in the sport. My hope is that the popularity lasts a little bit and that the curiosity helps our home meet attendance this year.

I want to thank Johan Sunryd for stopping by on Sunday to say hello. He was in town for a wedding and he gave me an update. He is doing very well. He told me a few great stories as his life as a teacher at UMass.

I also got an e-mail this week from Matt Wallace. He got married and he is living in Chicago. I am hoping to see him at our reception during the Northwestern Invitational.

We have the official start time for our alumni meet. The football game on homecoming will begin at 12 p.m. Therefore our meet will begin at 9 a.m. Warm-ups start at 8:30 a.m. Please make a note of that.

Please make note also that the Grand Valley meet on November 14 will take place at Jenison High School.

We are now five days away from beginning school. In fact, today is move-in day in the dorms. The campus is coming alive and the sound of drums permeates the outdoor pool. I want to remind everyone that if you are on campus at all this fall, please stop by.

The 400 Freestyle Relay on Sunday night is the greatest race I have ever seen. That was truly swimming at its best and what a split for the former UCSB Gaucho Jason Lezak. There is nothing that I like better than watching someone talk before a race and then proceed to choke his way to second place.

I want to thank Catrin Lenfers for sending me a picture she took while she was in East Lansing last month. She is doing very well, living in Germany. Her trip to East Lansing was part of a bigger trip to see her old teammates.

We are merely 11 days from beginning a new school year. It is hard to believe that the summer is almost over. Like I said last week, with the advent of a new school year, comes the opportunity for all our alumni and boosters to drop by and visit. Our practices are open and everyone is welcome.

I want to wish a very happy 100th birthday to our good friend Dr Milton Muelder.

Speaking of the Olympics I want to wish Dave Burgering the best as a member of the US diving staff in Beijing. Dave's diver is competing on springboard and in the synchro events. Here is an article from the Sun-Sentinal.

I wanted to congratulate all the Spartans who took part in the Harbor springs coastal crawl on August 2. As usual J.P. was there along with the overall winner Martha (Jahn) Martin.

On September 28 we are planning to run a masters/triathlete swimming clinic at the IM west pool from 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. Manny, Kathleen and I will be running the clinic and we will focus on the stroke technique and some training advice also. The fee for the clinic will be $50 per participant.

I want to thank all of the people who attended last Friday's Spartan Blast and made the walk over to the pool for the aquatics demonstration.

Football season is only three weeks away and the home opener for the Spartans is four weeks away. Please remember that if you are tailgating, make that walk over to the IM west outdoor pool and say hello. We'll be outside practicing for every home game and we love to have visitors.

Personally, the summer has been busy. I had a great time out in Omaha at the Olympic trials. I was there for nine days with Kevin Puskaric and Marcus Poteete. Both boys swam well. The week before the US swimming trials, Danielle Williams competed at the Canadian Olympic Trials in British Columbia. Eric accompanied her out there and she had her highest finish ever at a national level meet.

We also had 14 people go to the sectionals at Indiana University last week. All of them swam well, and in the process we broke more than 20 of the Capital Area Swim Team Long Course records.

Really the only downside of the summer so far was watching my son Costa's little league team get "mercey'd" in almost every game. I know that many of you parents out there know all about those "learning experience" games (seasons).

For the first time ever, the Varsity S club weekend has been moved to Homecoming. (Homecoming is on October 4). This year, the Varsity club will be honoring all the former Olympians from Michigan State. I am sure many of you have read Bob Bao's article in the MSU Alumni magazine. I know that our program will be well represented. In fact, I was fortunate to meet Ken Walsh while I was out in Omaha. Ken told me that he and his wife are going to be back in East Lansing for homecoming and the varsity club tribute.

I am proud to announce that Rick Edwards will be joining Bob Jones, Don Patterson, George Kruggel and Jennifer Parks as a 2008 Heusner Service Award winner. Rick has been a long time supporter of the program and he has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is a well deserved honor.

We have finalized our schedule for the upcoming season and it should be posted on our website soon. It is a very challenging schedule but it also has a few more home meets than last year. Please if you are near any of the locations we have meets, come out and cheer on the green and white.

I have so many updates on so many of our alumni in the past couple months. We have had weddings and births. I got to spend a lot of time with Aaron Mahaney when he visited in May. I got a chance to see the long lost Catrin Lenfers when she came to East Lansing in June. I also had the chance to e-mail Chris Bremmer and he told me he will be coming to MSU for homecoming. I also got to meet Mary (McClellan) Lamb who works for Motorola and lives in Hong Kong.

The Munley meet took place on June 29 this summer and it set records for attendance and money raised. Tom Munley once again spearheaded the meet organization. He was helped considerably by Mark Lisenby. The meet has really become a Long Course alumni meet and I know that Tom is looking to move the meet to Saturday next year. The tentative date is June 27, 2009. Hopefully we can do even better next year.

Please be sure to mark October 4 on your calendars. That is our short course alumni meet and we are hoping to get a huge number of people there again this year. Again we will set a time for the meet, when we know the time of the football game.

I want to wish all the Spartans good luck next month in the Master's Nationals in Mt Hood, Ore. I know that Alec Mull is competing out there and I am sure there are many others who will be there. Please let me know of your results.

I hope that you all are having a great summer. I am looking forward to August and some down time.

I want to pass along my best to the Arizona State men's swimming team. Their program was cut on Tuesday due to financial reasons.

I wanted to pass along an update: Mike Rigali finished up his course work for his Master's degree in education. He has his student teaching left to do and then he will be certified to teach K-8 in Illinois.

We have finalized our schedule and it looks to be another tough one. The good news is that we have a few more home meets.

One highlight in next year's schedule is that we will be in Evanston for the Northwestern Invitational. I am hoping to do a reception in our hotel for all our Chicagoland alumni and supporters. The reception would be on night of Saturday, November 22 after the Saturday swimming and diving session.

Please note also that the alumni meet will be on Homecoming again this year. We will not set the time until we know the time of the football game.

I hope all is well. We are slowly transitioning from spring to summer. The kids who have stayed for the summer are training hard getting prepared for the summer.

Continuing with the Masters theme, I want to congratulate Kirk Nelson for his national championship in the 1,650 (17:16.07) at the U.S. Masters Nationals. Also congrats to Ron Orris for his national championship in the 100 fly (50.79) at the same meet. Alec Mull and Mike Orris also competed at the meet. I am quite sure many more of you have also, but I only got the update on those four.

On Saturday, I was at the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources commencement ceremony. At the ceremony, John Munley was awarded his degree posthumously. I got to spend time with the entire Munley family. It was a very emotional moment. I wanted to thank Associate AD Jim Pignataro as well as the people in the College of ANR for making this possible. I had the chance to have dinner with John's parents before the commencement and I know how much this meant to the family. This was one of the finest examples of a Spartan family and how we take care of each other.

I got an e-mail this week from Steve Ploussard. Plans for the 2nd Golden Spike reunion are set. It is going to happen on September 4-5. I know there is an expectation that it will be bigger than `06. Of course we hope that many of you can make it back.

Well we are into spring at Michigan State. The outdoor pool is filled and we are getting ready for summer. I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day.

I would like to thank the Mid-Michigan MSU Alumni Club for its $300 contribution to the swimming and diving Ralph Young Fund. The Mid Michigan MSU alumni club donated $3,450 to the athletic department for Olympic sports in 2008. Their contribution is greatly appreciated.

Forgot to mention last week that the MSU women's club water polo team won the Big Ten club conference championship. Erinn Wertz, a sophomore on our women's team, plays on the team and they are on their way to the national championships. Congrats to them.

I wanted to pass along our condolences to spartan Jon Cohen. His father passed away last week. The whole Spartan family has you in our thoughts.

Not a lot of information this week. Spring Finals begin on Monday. Adam Schmitt, Danny Schemmel and Jason Vadney will be walking next Saturday at commencement.

Let's begin this week with a big announcement from one of my favorite Spartan swimmers: Katie Sophiea. Katie and her long time boyfriend, Scott, are officially engaged. They are planning a wedding for next summer. Congratulations to both of them.

At Homecoming 2008, the Varsity alumni club plans to honor all the past Olympians in Michigan State history. As you can imagine, swimming and diving will have quite a few representatives in that group. I am very excited that Ken Walsh plans to return to East Lansing for this event. It has been a while since Ken has come back. It should make for a great alumni meet.

Many of you who stayed in East Lansing to train over the summer had the priviledge of training under coach Rick Edwards. Lately, coach Edwards has had some serious health issues and he is currently in the hospital. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. If anyone is interested in the details, please contact me and I will let you know.

I want to spend a little time thanking our sports information intern, Josh Rattray. Josh has done a very good job this year keeping the information updated on our web site. He has been fantastic in covering the meets all year long. He has been great and I wanted to publicly thank him.

In the coming weeks, I will be sure to update everyone on the Class of 2012. We have made a few additions since the November signing date.

The weather in East Lansing has been great and we are looking forward to the Long Course pool opening up. We have 17 swimmers staying to train this summer with the Capital Area Swim Team. So we will look to have a productive summer.

Over the past couple weeks we have had some more commitments and we are in the process of wrapping up 2008 recruiting...just in time to get started on 2009 recruiting.

This past Sunday (April 13) we had our annual awards banquet. As usual, the high point of the program came at the initiation of the Golden Spikes to our graduating seniors. The most engaging thing about our program is the golden spike. I described it at our banquet as the Cal Ripken award. All you have to do to get it is to show up for work every day you are in the program. It is a real thrill to watch varsity record holders stand shoulder to shoulder with four-year walk-ons and be honored equally. It is a testament to our tradition here at MSU.

Jack Seibold Award for Leadership -- Matt McNichols
Jennifer Parks Award for Leadership -- Alycia Mokedanz
Men's John Narcy Most Improved -- David Garry
Women's John Narcy Most Improved -- Erinn Wertz
Women's Spartan of the Year Award -- Marlys Fuqua
Men's Jason Vadney Spartan of the Year Award -- Marcus Poteete
Women's Swimmer of the Year -- Heather Kiluk
Men's Swimmer of the Year -- Adam Schmitt
Women's Diver of the Year -- Danielle Williams
Men's Diver of the Year -- Ivan Zalessov
Women's Freshman-of-the-Year -- Stephanie Fisher
Men's Freshman-of-the-Year -- Kevin Puskaric
Kevin Zielinski Heart Award -- Jason Vadney
John Munley Memorial Scholarship -- Matt Massman

As you may notice we did make a change this year in the naming of the Men's Spartan of the Year award. Henceforth, it will be named for one of the great Spartans, Jason Vadney.

This year's Munley scholarship award winner is Matt Massman. Matt is the sixth recipient of the award. He joins Nick DeFauw (2002), Chad Wilson (2003,04), Matt Wisniewski (2005), Matt Torres (2006) and Mike Van Beek (2007). I want to thank all of you who have donated to the scholarship fund these past seven years.

I got a call last Friday from Dr. Dave Seibold, who told me that his brother was planning to retire from officiating swim meets. He asked me if we could something to honor Jack. We decided to give Jack an honorary golden spike and we gave him a version of his poem, "Hang it up". Below is the version we gave to Jack:

The thrills of victory the tears of defeat,
The sights and sounds of a swimming meet.
This is the heritage of a contest you love,
Struggling swimmers in the water, twisting divers above.
Yet, for all of us the time must be,
When memoirs are woven from many meets he's seen.

The meets are longer, they're not as fun,
The event list seems endless so long to be done.
Tired of assessing stroking and kicking,
Tired of coaches constant nitpicking.
You've had your fill of distance and dashes,
Younger than your grandchildren are these new teenage flashes.

O'er many a season one thing is can be assured,
Your volunteer labor sadly goes undisturbed.
Your limbs are fatigued, your senses rebel
As you mentally prepare for that Final farewell
Ah those glorious moments are melting away,
As more you recall golden yesterday.

So with tumult ringing in your ears,
In retrospect we look back on all your years
Your love of Spartan Swimming and Diving so great,
Could the program have been without you at "State"
No...no the answer echoes back so bold
Of what our program owes to Jack Seibold.

This past week, Ian Clutten (who has been very busy working for Granger Construction on the new Duffy Daugherty project) stopped by my office and told me that I made a serious omission in my last update. I forgot to mention that he and his girlfriend, former MSU swimming trainer, Stephanie are engaged. The wedding is scheduled for July 11, 2009.

I would also like to let you all know that Alicia Copestick is close to getting married. I was reminded of that when her invitation came in the mail earlier this week.

I also got an e-mail from JP reminding me of some alumni happenings in the world of Master's swimming. According to her e-mail "former MSU captain, Marilyn Early, '79, who made 14 World Masters rankings in the 50-54 age group, her highest was second in the 200 free, SCM, 2:22. Also, she had several third and fourth place finishes in both LCM and SCM.

Melinda Whitcomb Mann, captain and Big Ten champion in the 50 in '78, was second in several events in that same age group, breaststroke, fly and IM. She is a World Masters record holder and won an event at Stanford World Championships in '06.

A week from Sunday is our annual awards banquet. This year the banquet will be in the LaSalle Bank club. In step with tradition, we will be giving out the Golden Spikes for our graduating seniors. We will also give out the season awards. I will be sure to include all the award winners in one of my future updates.

I want to congratulate all of our swimmers and divers who have already begun training and competing for the summer season. I want to especially congratulate Danielle Williams for qualifying for Olympic Trials.

As I write this, Marcus Poteete and Kevin Puskaric are competing at the Toyota Grand Prix in Columbus, Ohio.

I would like to let everyone know that at the Spring 2008 commencement for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources John Munley will be awarded his degree posthumously. According to his older brother Tom, the award was "made possible through the relentless efforts of Richard Bader, Jim Pignataro, and Prof. Bruce Harte, as well as a couple of carefully worded letters by my father to President Simon." I am fortunate enough to be invited to John's graduation party on May 3.

On a very sad note, Coach Richard Bader's mother passed away this past Sunday (March 31) after a prolonged illness. Our thoughts and prayers are with Coach Bader and his family.

It is almost spring weather on campus and the last of the ice is off the Red Cedar. I hope all of you had a good winter. I know that many of our alumni spent the winter training for their master's meets, or they spent the winter following around their own children in their swimming endeavors. As you all know, please if you are near campus, drop by and say hello.

I have not been able to update much this past month with both Big Ten meets going on. I apologize for being behind. A lot has happened since the last time.

I would hope that all of you followed along with the results for the Big Ten meet on our website and the host websites. Both meets had their ups and downs and full results are available on our website. We improved off of last year with both the men and the women. The degree of improvement was not as much as we had hoped for, but we are moving in the right direction.

I wanted to pass along a couple of items. First, I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from Jim Thurston letting me know that he and his girlfriend, Mandy, got engaged. According to his e-mail, the wedding should be some time this year.

I also got an e-mail from Kirk Nelson with the latest Fina Masters rankings were released. Three former Spartans were represented:

Alec Mull (1994)
SCM 50 fly 26.63 (10th)
LCM 50 free 24.91 (10th)
LCM 50 fly 26.27 (6th)
LCM 100 fly 58.68 (8th)

Our annual awards banquet will be on Sunday, April 13 at 12:00 noon. If you are interested in attending, please contact Kathleen Milloy at milloy@ath.msu.edu

Unfortunately, no Spartans will be at the NCAA championships for 2008. We made it much closer than last year, but we still fell short. We have now shifted our focus toward the summer and the long course season. We will once again be aligning with the Capital Area Swim Team and we will be competing this summer under that name.

I want to thank all of you who came to our meets this past year and gave us your support. We appreciate it.

A lot of alumni news this week. First off, let's congratulate Kate Duncombe after she won the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. The episode ran last week on Jan 31. Her total winnings were in the neighborhood of $32,000; she won a new car and a trip to Acapulco. Kate is now in Nursing school and living in the Washington, D.C., area.

I got a chance to see both Adam Pawlick and Mike Mulshine last week. Both were in town for the school of packaging career fair. Both Adam and Mike are doing well. They both have babies on the way, Mike's first and Adam's second. They have both put their packaging degrees to good use and they are both doing well. I want to thank them both for their support of the program. They have provided guidance to our packaging majors and they were particularly helpful to both Matt McNichols and Matt Torres.

I want to congratulate senior captain Matt McNichols for getting a paid internship with Kraft Foods in Chicago, Ill. It is a great internship and it is surely a step to bigger things. Matt Torres is sorting through his five options and he will be interning this upcoming year also.

I also want to congratulate Eve Brusie for her recent admission into medical school. I would think that for a 3.9 student, who volunteered at Sparrow hospital, is a varsity record holder and four-year letter winner it wouldn't be that hard to gain admission-but med school admission is hard and we are really proud of Eve and her pursuit of her life long dream of being a doctor.

I got a chance to see Sarah Salenski; I know that isn't her last name but old habits die hard. She stopped by the office with her kids last Saturday. She got me caught up on some of the people in her class. Most of the talk was around Ilaria Sciorelli. Ilaria, if you are out there, it would be nice to hear from you.

George Kruggel: George swam for coach Fetters in the early 1980's. He is a true Spartan and he gives unconditional financial and moral support to the program. He is a real asset and he is a real beacon on the west side of the state.

Bob Jones: Bob has been a constant supporter of the MSU swimming and diving team since he swam here in the 1970's. Even after he re-located to Corvallis, Ore., he has consistently supported the program.

Don Patterson: Don gave the largest financial gift in the history of our program this past year. He and his teammates from the 1950's era have consistently honored the memory of their coach, the great Charles McCaffree, by being supporters of our program.

Jennifer Parks: JP, who was the rock upon which the women's program at MSU was built, has been a loyal and steady supporter ever since. She is one of our best supporters

We are only one week away until the Women's Big 10's and two weeks out for the men. The rest has officially begun so I ask that you all wish us good health for the next few weeks.

Before I write about anything else I want to alert all of our supporters that Kate Duncombe '03 will be on the television game show, "The Price is Right" on Jan 31. Apparently she was the big winner on the show so check your local listings.

Our meet against Oakland went well and we performed very well. It was exciting for the Men's team because they finally got to swim at home in front of parents and friends. It was also exciting for the women because it had seemed so long since they could do the same. We won both meets and the results are on our website. A few highlights were the pool records set by Kevin Puskaric and Adam Schmitt. Adam broke Cam Mull's old record in the 200 free by going 1:38.34 and Kevin broke Giordan Pigioli's record in the 200 breast by going 1:59.14. We also had the 400 free relay record go down by Adam, Joe Schmitt, Matt Massman and Jason Vadney. It was a good meet for us and we're hoping to carry it through to the Big Ten meets next month.

I want to thank all our supporters who came out on Friday night. We had a great crowd and the place was really exciting. I have gotten estimates of about 400-1200 people. I don't know for sure how many, but there were a lot and it made for a great atmosphere. I also wanted to thank Pete Hovland and Oakland University. Oakland is one of the few schools left that are willing to come to MSU and have a meet. I would hope that will continue into the future.

I got a chance to see many of our alumni there. I apologize for not saying hello, but I was preoccupied. I know that Al Mull was there to see his little brother's record get taken down. I also saw Tom Munley, Eve Brusie, Pat Saucedo, Carly Zenk, Luke Lehner and JH Berg. Thank you for the support.

Being the end of the dual meet season, I wanted to publicly thank all of our parents and supporters who traveled so well to all our meets. We had some real troopers this year who got to see the four corners of the Big Ten. Of course they got to see other crazy sights as well. Next year we will hopefully have a few more home meets, so travel will not be an every weekend affair.

While we're on travel, I want to let everyone know that once again this year we had John Ricci drive our coach to every meet. He is the most trustworthy driver in the world. I consider him to be part of our program and he never fails us. I am thankful to him and Dean Trailways for such great service.

Well we're on the edge of taper time, so things will start to get a little jumpy around here soon enough. To date between the men's and women's teams, we have 15 top 10 swims and we are very close to possibly breaking a number of team records. We appreciate all your support.

Next week, I am going to officially announce the Bill Heusner Service Award winners for 2008.

Happy New Year,
This Friday we compete against Oakland. For the women it is the second home meet of the season. We have had 97 days between our meet against Illinois and our meet with Oakland. For the men it is our home debut and our home finale. It has been 377 days between home meets for the men's team. Friday is also senior night and we have the opportunity to honor six outstanding individuals who have given their hearts and souls to Michigan State:

Tony Grace, Matt McNichols, Adam Schmitt, Matt Torres, Jason Vadney will all be 4-year letterwinners at Michigan State. Joining them will be student-assistant Danny Schemmel, a 2-year letter-winner.

Each class is unique as is their experience at Michigan State. This class, which became one greater when Jason redshirted in 2006, have put their stamp on our program by creating a culture of hard work and excellence. They have all stayed in East Lansing during the summer and trained and competed hard. They are all going to graduate and most of them have good leads on jobs already. They have had injuries, surgeries, great wins and bitter losses. They have had incredible ups and devastating downs. They have persevered through it all showing great leadership. They have never wavered in the love of Michigan State swimming and diving. They are all Spartans and they would be the first to let you know that. I want to personally congratulate and thank them for giving us four (and in Jason's case, five) great years.

Last weekend we had a great crowd at the Michigan meet and many of our supporters then went to Columbus the next day to support us there also. The meets were solid performances for us. Obviously we were a little disappointed with the scores of the meets, but we felt as though we performed well. The results are posted on our website.

I got the opportunity to connect with a few alumni at both meets. Tom Munley, Katie Sophiea and Sean Hickman were at the meet in Ann Arbor. Former Olympian Dave Burgering was at Ohio State and he got a chance to address the team before the meet. Dave was in Columbus as part of the USA Diving coaching staff running a select camp. It is amazing to see what they can do at Ohio State now with the new facility.

I omitted something last week I wanted to share. On our way to Valpo, one of the bay doors under the bus popped open as we were getting on Rte 496. Some bags fell out of the bus onto Kalamazoo and we didn't realize any of this until we were on 496. When the incident happened, Mark and Sandy Siegel of Hanover, Mich., were driving behind the bus. They stopped and picked up our bags and followed the bus. They flagged our driver and we pulled over and they returned the bags to us. I consider both Mark and Sandy official MSU swim and dive backers and I thank them for their kindness. Mark wanted to have no credit for what he and his wife did; he really wanted to remain anonymous. I would not let that happen and I wanted to publicly thank him.

Our meet on Friday is at 6 p.m. If you are around on Friday afternoon, please stop by. We can use the support.

2008 is only a few weeks old and already so much has happened. For the first time in a while we stayed in East Lansing to train. The experience of staying here was quite an experience. In addition to the training, we had a few lessons for our program on a variety of different topics - not the least of which is media relations.

As many of you may know, the IM west pool had issues over the break and when it was officially closed the swimmers were forced for much of the break to train in the Jenison and IM circle pools. My personal highlight was the thick fog in the circle pool when we opened the doors for fresh air.

By the way, when I got word the pool was closed, it was fairly easy to move swimming practices. Diving was a different story. After the IM pool was closed, Eric scrambled to find boards for our divers. After the new year, they were fortunate enough to move some of their training to Ann Arbor for a couple days. I would like to personally thank Chris Burgere, diving coach at Michigan, for helping our program out in a pinch.

Our training must have been pretty solid though because last weekend we had great performances on both Friday and Saturday. Friday night's meet was against Valpo and Saturday was against Purdue.

The Valpo meet was put together partially because MSU grad Brian Morrison was the coach. He resigned a week before the meet so there was not the Spartan reunion we had planned. For losing their coach only a week prior, the Valpo team showed a lot of heart and spirit. I give them a lot of credit. Many of our kids were able to swim off-events and many of our kids who do not normally grab headlines got that opportunity also. Alex Crigler, Matt Massman, Mark Rogers, Jordan Jackson and Mike Vanbeek all won their first ever collegiate race. The meet again showed how adaptive and classy the kids in our program are.

At Purdue, we faced the No. 12 men's team in the country and a women's team who had already beaten our team in November. That being said, our team fared very well. Adam Schmitt had one of his best meets ever, winning three events and doing it with impressive times. Heather Kiluk also had a great meet winning the 200 IM. The other standout was Becca Ebner, who swam her personal best time in the 200 Fly by more than 2 seconds. All of the results from the past weekend are on our website.

This weekend, we are at Michigan on Friday night (Jan.18) at 5 p.m. and then we go to Columbus to compete with Ohio State and Eastern Michigan on Saturday (Jan. 19) at 5 p.m.. If you are near, please come on out and support the Spartans.

Both of our teams finished the fall semester with team GPA's above 3.0. The women and men both finished around 3.1. We had three people with a straight 4.0: freshman Brian Rockwell, junior Mark Rogers and freshman Jordan Jackson. I was very proud of our athletes for their academic achievements.

I want to congratulate Clarke Scholes for induction into the Michigan Sports hall of Fame. Clarke is a former Olympic Champion who swam for MSU in the early 1950's for Coach McCaffree. The following link describes what an incredible honor it is for him. http://www.michigansportshof.org./inductees/current.html

Hope you are all doing well. Our program is really doing well. Our long time motor coach operator, John Ricci, commented on the way home from Purdue that he had never seen the swimming and diving team's morale higher. He has been driving us for eight seasons. My request is that if any of you ever see or read anything in any media about our program, you please e-mail me and I will do my best to clear up any confusion.

Dec. 13, 2007

I write this on the heels of our return from Ball State. I am happy to report that we won both meets and we had a few impressive swims to boot. Not an easy place to compete and it really amazes me that there was once a time that the Indiana High School State Meet was held there.

The Ball State trip pushed our motor coach miles up to about 3,000 for the semester. We have toured seven different states, watched nearly a dozen movies, stayed in four different hotels and we still have managed to swim fast and dive well.

This Friday, our team will volunteer at the Salvation Army toy distribution center in Lansing. This is the third consecutive year we have done this community service project as a team.

This being holiday time, I want to thank all of the people who make our program so special:

Kathleen, Manny and Eric - A coach could ask for no better coaching staff in the world. Diverse by any definition. Perfect by no means. Incredibly dedicated and hardworking, not a coaching staff in the country cares more about kids than ours does. Danny Schemmel - Danny is a two-year swimmer who has moved into student assistant his senior year. He has done his best to fill the void left by the departure of Rich Mull. A true swimming nerd, Danny has been an immense help from last spring to today.

Rob Aburto - While being a full-time law student, Rob has volunteered his time to help our program as a volunteer assistant coach. He has also done everything in his power to fill the void left by Rich Mull leaving.

Eric Bean - Eric has assisted the divers in their mental approach this season and it has paid huge dividends.

Nancy Wing - Our secretary for 11 seasons, Nancy is another dedicated tireless worker. She is responsible for us, wrestling and tennis. She is the best secretary in the athletic department and she really keeps our ship afloat.

Jeremy Flynn - Jeremy is responsible for overseeing our academic progress. He has been our academic advisor for five seasons and in that time, we have been honored a number of time both individually and collectively as a team.

I want to also thank all of you who unconditionally support our program. Our supporters are the best and we would not exist without you.

This has been a great semester for us. We are looking forward to the New Year and we hope you all have a great 2008.

Matt Gianiodis

Dec. 6, 2007

It has been a while once again but we have just returned from the Ohio State Invitational and I have had a little more time this week to update you all on the doings of the program.

The Ohio State invitational went fairly well for us. The complete results are on our website. Our philosophy for the meet was to rest for a week and have the team swim multiple events and some very tough doubles. We had numerous best times and we had multiple finalists. Through the three days, we had 11 top 10 all-time performances. In all, we did well and I thank the many of you who followed along and have e-mailed supportive things to our program.

I wanted to announce that in the past two weeks, we received a gift of $14,000 from Don Patterson. Don was the team captain in 1959. He was here with his teammates in September during our 1957 championship reunion. His donation is the largest gift in our program amd more than anything is a testament of the passion and the love MSU swimmers had for Coach McCaffree. Our program has already updated some of our equipment including power racks which hopefully will help our sprinters.

Amy Schmidt, who is scheduled to graduate this month, has just been named Outstanding Senior for the fall of 2007. She earned the distinction by "exemplifying leadership in areas of academic excellence, community service, campus involvement, work experience, contributions to MSU, and its uniqueness." To be considered you have to be nominated by a faculty member and then you have to be voted by your fellow students. This is an incredible accomplishment when you consider the size of Michigan State. We wish her congratulations.

On Monday begins the exam week for the fall term. It is always a stressful time for student athletes.

Our meet against Purdue in West Lafayette on Jan. 13 has been moved from 2 p.m. to 1 p.m. so please make note of that.

Congrats to our football team making the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla. My hope is that our many swimming alumni in Florida get a chance to go to the game and support the Spartans.

Hope you have the time to enjoy the holiday season with your family.

Until next week,

Matt Gianiodis

Nov 15, 2007

I apologize for missing last week-spent some time preparing for our fall color tour of New York and Pennsylvania. In the span of three days, we swam 4 dual meets for the women and 3 for the men. It was a marathon, but we felt pretty good about ourselves when it was all over. The highlight of the trip was the two-day meet at Penn State. Our men got to compete against the No. 12 and No. 25 teams in the country. Meanwhile, our women got to mix it up with the No. 17 and No. 20 team in the country.

The results of the meet are available on our web page. In all, we competed very hard and we made it known that our program is no easy out. On Friday night (Nov. 9) we won four of the nine men's events. I was incredibly proud of our kids, who spent better than 14 hours on a bus, coming out and competing like true Spartans.

We left for the trip on Thursday morning in order to make our meet at St Bonaventure by 6:00 p.m. that night. The trip was long, though we did get a good look at Jacobs field in Cleveland and about five inches of snow in Erie. Again it was another proud moment for me when our kids stepped right off the bus and took care of business at my alma mater.

I do want to note that the people at St Bonaventure University were very accommodating to our program. Of course, that kind of graciousness is to be expected from North America's only Franciscan University.

I also want to note that for the second consecutive road meet, we ran into an incredible environment for a swimming and diving meet. The McCoy Natatorium at Penn State held more than 1,000 raucous fans. It was a very fun experience for me and the team. Hopefully we'll be able to show them some Spartan excitement when they come out to East Lansing next year.

For those of you keeping track, the Spartans have now traveled a little less than 1,900 miles in our first two road trips.

Next week is Thanksgiving and it is my wish that you and your family have a great time eating turkey and watching football.

Congrats to our football program for becoming bowl eligible.

Wednesday, Nov. 14 is the official start of the early signing period. Next week, I will give you an update on our recruiting for the class of 2012.

The next competition for the Spartans is in Columbus at the Ohio State invitational. The meet is on Nov 30-Dec. 2. Please come out if you live locally. You can also follow along on our web site.

Until next week,

Matt Gianiodis

Nov 1, 2007

I wanted to start this week by thanking Jim and Marcia McNichols once again for hosting our team last week. On our way out to Iowa, we stopped in Naperville, Ill., and had lunch at the McNichols house. They also received help from Mrs. Lilja, Mrs. Puskaric and Mr. Torres. In all it was a great time and it was a great experience for our team. Thank you.

In 2009, Iowa is going to have their new $15 million aquatic center up and running. For me, that date can't come soon enough because I do not have many good memories in their current pool. This past week just added to the bevy of dismay as I watched our men's team get ties in two of the last three events and lose the meet by one point (150.5-149.5). On the women's side, we suffered a bit of a let-down from the previous week and we lost by a bigger margin. Despite the losses, we had quite a few people perform very well. Danielle Williams remained undefeated on the boards for the season. Marlys Fuqua pumped out two best times in the 1,000 and 500. Adam Schmitt won four events. Ricky Forrest made his collegiate debut by winning two events. Yet despite that, it was a relatively frustrating seven-hour ride home on Friday night/Saturday morning.

One note from the meet: I want to thank the Iowa coaching staff and administration for having such an incredible energetic crowd at the meet. It was an amazing environment in which to compete. I also wanted to thank all of our parents and supporters who hiked out to Iowa City. I also wanted to thank the MSU field hockey team, in Iowa for a game on Saturday, for coming out and giving us their support-quite a rendition of the fight song!

I have just one more note on the Iowa meet. The official results had a number of errors. Adam Schmitt won the 200 freestyle-not Joe Schmitt. As noted, Danielle Williams won the 3-meter board, not Alycia Mokedanz. Erinn Wertz and Mara Loniewski swam in the 100 freestyle. Jon Larocque swam the 100 backstroke, not Joe Schmitt.

This week marks the end of the outdoor pool season for 2007. Mother Nature was definitely on our side this year with all the beautiful weather East Lansing had from May through November. If this is a by-product of global warming, then I am all for it! Our final outdoor practice will be on Saturday, Nov. 3 from 9-11 a.m. The practice is followed by watching our seniors go off the 10-meter platform for the final time as varsity athletes at MSU. If you are around tailgating, please stop by.

Next week we are in New York and Pennsylvania. We will be at my Alma Mater, St Bonaventure, on Thursday-that meet begins at 6 p.m. We then travel to State College for a two day meet on Friday and Saturday. If you live near any of the meets, please come out and support the Spartans. If not, then look for results on our website from all three days.

Like all of you-let's hope for good luck on Saturday...Go Green!

Until next week,

Oct. 25, 2007

As you read this we are on our way out to Iowa for a swim meet. I want to thank in advance the McNichols family, who is hosting our entire team for lunch on Thursday. The meet against Iowa is at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26.

I want to thank Jennifer Parks (JP) for taking some time out of her schedule to come and inspire our team last Friday. JP, as she always does, shared her wisdom with the team and went some 40 minutes over her allotted 10 minutes. No complaints here, because her talk inspired the women to go out the next day and win their season opener against Illinois.

We had some great performances in the Illinois meet. Topping the list is Danielle Williams, who was recently named Big Ten Diver of the Week. Danielle had her first collegiate meet since shoulder surgery last year and she won both springboard events. Besides Danielle, we had freshman Stephanie Fisher win two events in her collegiate debut. Julie Kahn pitched in a victory in the 100 free and we won both relays. In all, it was a good way to lead off our season.

It has been a busy week this week getting both squads prepared to go out to Iowa. Please follow along the entire season on our website. If any of you live near Iowa City, come on out and cheer for your Spartans.

Next week is the Michigan football weekend. If you are going to be on campus for the game, please stop by our practice. Next weekend marks the end of the outdoor pool season for 2007.

Until next week,

Matt G

Oct. 5, 2007

As many of you know well, nothing brings a bigger smile to the faces of Spartan swimmers and divers like an extended summer! Having high temperatures in the mid 70's in October makes Michigan State the best place to swim and dive. We have had outdoor practices the entire way and we have been able to train Long Course as though it was the middle of July. Just keep your fingers crossed this global warming continues.

I want to apologize for missing last week, I was a little busy with things and I spent the end of the week traveling back to my hometown in New York. While in New York, I was fortunate to be inducted into my high school's athletic hall of fame. It was a real thrill for my family and me to be given such a nice honor.

OK, back to the important stuff.

We are now 9 days away from the alumni meet. If you have any questions at all regarding the meet, please call me. It is going to be confusing and I want to make sure that everyone has a chance to get to campus and the meet on time.

Also, here is a reminder that our three Heusner Award winners are: Kent Johnson, Dan Batchelor and the Munley family.

Please make note that we are having a Green and White meet on Friday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. We are going to have our team draft early next week and the meet promises to be very competitive. If you are in town, please stop by and say hello.

This Friday, we are going to have Tom Munley address our team for a few minutes. Tom is the fourth alumnus to pep up the team. It is a nice experience for the team to take in some of the wisdom of people who have been through it.

For those of you who are interested, the team of sophomores and juniors destroyed the seniors and freshmen in our annual scavenger hunt. It was a particularly weak effort by senior captain Matthew McNichols. To his defense, Matt may have been distracted in that he has been named the head of the MSU SAAC committee. He has also been appointed to the MSU Athletic Council and the Big Ten Athletic Council. So his poor effort at the scavenger hunt gets a pass.

I really hope all is well for you and I look forward to seeing many of you next week. As you all know, I love Homecoming and I love the alumni meet.

Until next time,
Matt G.

Sept. 20, 2007

Right off the bat I want to let everyone know that we had a great time this past weekend honoring the guys from the 1957 Big Ten Championship team.

Jim Clemens and Wally Dobler did a great job of organizing the event and Eldon Van Spybrook, the president of the Varsity S Alumni group, also helped with the arrangements. In all, we had 18 former swimmers and divers from the mid to late 1950's. They had a full weekend of events including: a visit to Jenison, a picture at Sparty, a breakfast and awards ceremony at the Kellogg Center, a seat in the LaSalle Bank club for the Spartan victory over Pittsburgh and an informal reception at the hotel on Saturday.

The reunion was a great event and it reminded me of the Golden Spike reunion last year. If you have a reunion planned or you want to plan one with your former teammates, please contact me and we'll help you with the plans.

Clemens, the 1957 captain, addressed our team this past Friday. His talk was inspirational and he reminded all the current team members of the importance of contributing to the Ralph Young Club. It is a message that should also resonate with our alumni.

This Friday marks our annual team scavenger hunt. This will be the fifth consecutive year we have the scavenger hunt, and of course, my favorite memory in those five years was when Ian Clutten rode his bike all the way out to the Beef and Cattle Research complex to get an item for the hunt.

Our practices have been very good so far and we have had relatively good weather (knock on wood) for our outdoor practices. The indoor pool is now officially open and it looks really nice. It is still the same pool, but it is so much brighter and cleaner. The new bulkhead is fantastic and the diving end is a real upgrade. Now all we need is a cover for the long course pool and we'd be all set.

Also, I'd like to congratulate David Diget on his induction into the Battle Creek Hall of Fame. Dave was an All-American swimmer here in the late 1950's. He was the head coach at Western Michigan University and he now coaches at Battle Creek Lakeview High School.

I saw Karen Fetters at the Bowling Green football game on Sept. 8. Shawn Elkins stopped by that same week. I also saw Tommy Parker this past weekend and I heard from Lindsay Fetters also. I am glad to see all of you and I hope that you always feel free to stop by or call anytime.

Beat the Irish!
Matt Gianiodis

May 17, 2007

The team grade reports for the spring 2007 semester are officially out. Our men's team finished with the highest term GPA in program history. The 23-member team finished with a 3.22 semester GPA, which was again the highest amongst men's teams in the department. It will almost certainly be one of the highest for swim teams in the country. Our women also did very well, with 20 team members over a 3.0 GPA. Carly Zenk was the only Spartan who finished the spring with a 4.0.

This past month, our program received its largest-ever cash gift in the Ralph Young Fund. George Kruggel donated a gift in excess of $11,000. We are very grateful for his generosity and his commitment to our program. His donation has pushed our fund-raised to over $50,000 for 2006-07. That is another record for our program.

As we move to the end of the fiscal year, I want to thank all of you who donated money to the Ralph Young Fund. Below is a list of names of those who have contributed money since July 1, 2006:

Nadine Crane
Eleanor Heusner
Glenn Disoway
Tom Kwasny
Coach Fetters
Coach Parks
Tom & Susan Kirkpatrick
Jane Hoag Demarchi
Dr. David Seibold
Mr. & Mrs. Kevin Kalmbach
Geraldine James
Mr. & Mrs. David Polk
Don Morey
Dean Taylor
Susan Eareckson
Mr. & Mrs. Michael Habel
Tosh Imai
Bob Rex
Forest & Mary Owen
Jack Seibold
Larry Walker
Rich & Leslie Mull
Ruth & Philip Mayercak
David Coward
Lewis Michaud
Dan Batchelor
Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Tyrrell
Paul Fetters
Elyse Whitcher
Larry & Ann Edwrads
Kevin Smiley & Kristen Nelson
Margeret Smith
David & Elaine Yocum
Lt. Gen. Gordon Fornell
Allan Livingston
Tom Munley
Frank Reynolds
Bruce Richards
Jim Bradford
Mike Darbee
James & Pat Lanker
David Schemmel
Amy Straith-Drexel
Jack Zatirka
Eric Best
Manny Noguchi
Laurie Haring
Doug & Annie MacAskill
Alec Mull
Bob Jones
Dr. David McCaffree
Douglas Rowe
Kevin Schaefer
James & Mary Yoemans
Art & Linda Lessard
Maureen Eberly
Kathleen Wackerle
Kent Johnson
Bob & Kellie Hamilton
Robert & Natalie Van Beek
Michael & Catherine Biasello
Chris & Laura Koerner
Michael & Rose Deford
Jeff & Diane Grace
Dan & Beverly Reponen
Lawrence & JoAnn Rogers
ROI Consulting
Tom & Marilyn Smith
Bruce Wright
Chris & Pamela Lincoln
Bruce & Christine Dejonge
Brian Fitzgerald
Ron & Ann Hendrix
John & MaryAnne Massman
Mary Ruhland
Pat Saucedo
Dani Sawyer
Bryan & Ellen Augustine
Melva Bibbins
Mike & Emely Vadney
Robert & Debra Larocque
Mike & Sandra Fuqua
Larry Golen
Phil Johnson
Dennis & Janet Korn
Joseph & Ana Gordon
Fred Carter
Don Mason
Dan & Mary Meyers
Mary Poteete
Samuel & Lori Kasley
Terry Eudy
Jim Clemens
Don Korten
Deb O'Neil
Karen Carboni Kimple

Of course, I want to thank all the donors. Many of you have been consistent givers and it means very much to all of us involved in the program and the athletic department.

Another reminder of the John Munley Memorial Masters meet on June 24. The information is linked on our web site home page.

Until next time,
Matt G.

May 10, 2007

I have included our schedule for next year. We begin the year by bringing back our traditional Green & White Meet. This year, we are looking for guest coaches in the Green & White Meet, and we may have a guest-coach race during the meet for points.

The one thing that stands out is the lack of home meets. We owe quite a few schools return trips, so we are going to be on the road quite a bit this year. It is a difficult schedule with many Top 25 teams, but one that we hope will challenge us and better prepare us for the Big Ten Championships. The women open on Oct. 20 at home against Illinois. The men begin at Iowa the following Friday. Below is the full schedule:

Fri, Oct 12- Green & White (m&w)- East Lansing, Mich.- 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 13- Alumni meet (m&w)- East Lansing, Mich.- 9 a.m.
Sat, Oct 20- Illinois (w) -East Lansing, Mich. -12 p.m.
Fri, Oct 26- Iowa (m&w)- Iowa City, Iowa- 5 p.m.
Thu, Nov 8 - St. Bonaventure- (m&w) Olean, N.Y. -5 p.m.
Fri, Nov 9- Penn St/Virginia (m&w)- State College, Pa. -5 p.m.
Sat, Nov 10- Penn St/ Virgina (m&w)- State College, Pa.- 11 a.m.
Fri-Sun Nov 30-Dec 1- Ohio State Invt- Columbus, Ohio- All day
Sat, December 8- Ball State (m/w)- Muncie, Ind.- 2 p.m.
Fri, January 11- Valparaiso (m&w)- Valparaiso, Ind.- 5 p.m. (cst)
Sat, January 12- Purdue(m& w)- West Lafayette, Ind.- 12 p.m.
Fri, Jan 18- Michigan (m&w)- Ann Arbor, Mich.- 5 p.m.
Sat, Jan 19 -Ohio State/EMU (m&w)- Columbus, Ohio- 4 p.m.
Fri, Jan 25- Oakland (m&w)- East Lansing, Mich.- 6 p.m.
Thu-Sun. Feb. 14-16- Big Ten Championships (w)- Columbus, Ohio- 11 a.m., 7 p.m.
Fri-Sun. Feb 21-23- Big Ten Championships (m)- Ann Arbor, Mich.- 12, 7 p.m.
Th-Sat Mar 2-4- NCAA Diving Zones- TBA- ALL DAY
Thu-Sat Mar 14-16- Women's NCAA Champ.- Columbus, Ohio- 11 a.m., 7 p.m.
Thu-Sat Mar 21-23- Men's NCAA Champ.- Federal Way, Wash.- 11 a.m., 7 p.m.

I want to congratulate 2006 Heusner Award Winner Jack Beattie for being honored by the Southern Association of Orthodontists as the 2007 recipient of the Oren Oliver Distinguished Service Award, the highest recognition bestowed by that organization.

On June 24, we are going to host the annual Masters Swim Meet. The proceeds go to the John Munley Scholarship fund. This is quickly becoming a summer alumni meet, and we'd love to get all of our supporters to the outdoor pool.

I want to congratulate all of our graduates for 2007. We have some very impressive work that is going to be done by these great kids. I also want to congratulate Basak Oguz, who retired from swimming last year but stayed at MSU. She recently graduated in mechanical engineering. She won the most prestigious award in the department and is going to be working as a TA in the engineering graduate school here at MSU. This is a great accomplishment.

As we move into the summer, the hope is that our team will put in the necessary work to help us improve next year.

Until next time,
Matt G.

April 26, 2007

I want to begin this week by announcing some exciting news. For the first time in a long while, the Spartans will not kick the Homecoming football game at noon. In fact, the football game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. That will afford us a greater opportunity to showcase our alumni swim meet since we won't have to rush through it early in the morning. The meet time is now at 12 p.m., and we will be able to take our time, and who knows maybe even run some races and dives outside.

Last Friday, the coaching staff, as well as Danny Schemmel, Tony Grace and Michael Van Beek helped out with the Special Olympics swim meet at Holt High School.

On Saturday, our team once again helped out with the Adopt-A-River program. Our assigned area was the section of the Red Cedar River, behind Kirchner Park. Our team worked a solid two hours from 8-10 a.m., and they cleared more than 25, 10 gallon bags of trash. Of course, the number one cleaner was Coach Mull, who also managed to make spare change collecting beer and pop cans along the way. He has a real knack for that.

On Sunday, we celebrated our season with our annual banquet. For the second year in a row, we held the banquet in the LaSalle Bank Club at Spartan Stadium. Thanks to Kathleen's organization, the presentation was very nice. Season award winners were:

Jack Seibold Award for Leadership: Matt McNichols
Jennifer Parks Award for Leadership: Amber Schroeder
Men's John Narcy Most Improved: Marcus Poteete, Joe Schmitt
Women's John Narcy Most Improved: Laura DeFord
Women's Spartan of the Year Award: Marlys Fuqua
Men's Spartan of the Year Award: Daniel Schemmel
Women's Swimmer of the Year: Sasha Lewerenz
Men's Swimmer of the Year: Adam Schmitt
Women's Diver of the Year: Katie Edwards
Men's Diver of the Year: Ivan Zalessov
Freshman of the Year: David Garry
Kevin Zielinski Heart Award: Amy Schmidt
John Munley Memorial Scholarship : Michael Van Beek

We welcomed 11 new members into the order of the golden spike. We also said an official good bye to Coach Mull, although I have a sneaking suspicion that he'll be around next year.

I want to thank both Tom Munley and Jack Seibold for attending the banquet. Their presence connects present to past so well.

By the way, I did get the update from J.P. about how the Spartans did this past weekend at the Master's State meet. Congrats to Alec Mull, Dr. Steve Bargwell, Marilyn Early, Kurt Kristenson, Don Korten and Joe Buys.

We have only a few days left in the semester and then exams. This time of the year, we always have to say good bye--sometimes for a long time--to our departing graduates. One graduate who I am particularly proud of is Johan Sunryd. "Jojo" has earned a full scholarship to the University of Massachusetts to study biochemistry. He is getting his undergraduate degree next Friday, and he is on his way to doing great things.

Next week, I promise a summary of our recruiting as well as our schedule for 2007-08.

Until next time,
Matt G.

April 19, 2007

I apologize for not putting together an update last week. Last week was the signing date, so we were busy trying to get a few more Spartans.

One highlight of this past week was our entry in the world cup intramural soccer tournament. Manny put together a squad of 13 and they were unceremoniously eliminated after three hard-fought games. I have included a picture of the team.

This is a big week for our program. We wrap up our official spring training, we have two separate community service events and the week culminates with our annual banquet.

On Friday, we will have many team members and the entire staff assisting in the special Olympic swimming event at Holt High School.

On Saturday, we will have the entire team taking part in the Adopt-A-River project, cleaning up the Grand and Red Cedar rivers.

On Sunday, we will have our awards banquet in the LaSalle Bank Club in Spartan Stadium. We will have 11 new members in the Order of the Golden Spike.

If anyone is planning to attend the spring football game, please try and stop by the pool. We will be working in the morning at the Adopt-A-River project, however, I will be in my office right before the spring game.

Many of you have e-mailed requesting photos of the new locker room. I have been a little delinquent in getting those out but I have included a couple.

Next week, I will have an update of our banquet (with pictures). I know most of you who read this are familiar with the Golden Spike, so a treat for this week:

Hang it up, Hang it up -Jack Seibold

The thrills of victory, the tears of defeat, The sights and sounds of a swimming meet. This is the heritage of a contest we love, Struggling swimmers in water, twisting divers above. Yet for each competitor the time must come, When memoirs are woven from ribbons he's won.

`tis time Old Veteran, Hang it up, hang it up.

The workouts are tedious, it's no longer fun, Once easy victories have become hard won. Tired you are of stroking and kicking, Tired you are of taking a licking. You've had your fill of distance and dashes, And most of all hearing about teenage flashes.

Tis time Old Veteran, Hang it up, hang it up.

Or' a year long season boredom is assured, As monotonous daily workouts go undisturbed. Your limbs are fatigued, your senses rebel, As you mentally prepare for that final farewell. Ah...those glorious moments are melting away, As more you recall yesterday.

Tis time Old Veteran, Hang it up, hang it up.

So with tumult still ringing in your ears, In retrospect you look back in years. A question prevails that one must submit, Was dedication to swimming really all worth it? Yes ...yesthe answer echoes back as if in a plan, Suddenly you realize swimming's made you a man.

Good luck, Old Veteran, Hang it up, hang it up.

God bless the campus at Virginia Tech,

Matt Gianiodis

April 5, 2007

Last week, I waxed eloquently of the many signs of spring on campus and today I write as it is snowing outside. How great it is to be in Michigan!

The Big Ten released its Academic All-Big Ten awards last week and Michigan State had 42 recipients. Of the 42 Spartan students honored, 22 of them are swimmers and divers. That is pretty good for us considering more than half our team are freshmen. Freshmen are ineligible from being named Academic All-Big Ten.

On Monday April 9, our department will be hosting the 10th Academic gala. This year's speaker is none other than Steve Smith. I know many of you have attended this banquet in the past decade. Each year it gets more and more grand. In fact, this year I am required to attend in a tuxedo. It is a highlight every year for our program because of the large number of team members who are honored for their work in the classroom.

Speaking of honors, a very special congratulations to Matt McNichols. Matt has been selected to represent Michigan State at the NCAA leadership conference in Orlando, Fla. Only one person represents each member institution, so this is quite an honor for our program and especially for Matt. I am very confident that he will represent Michigan State very well.

Next week is the signing date and we are looking forward to adding s few more Spartans for 2007-08.

We are also getting ready for the banquet on April 22. If you have any interest in attending, please contact us as soon as possible.

Until next time,
Matt G

March 29, 2007

"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something." -Plato

This past week, we have really been able to experience spring in East Lansing. The weather has been spectacular and all the signs of spring are here. Unfortunately, one annual sign of spring here at Michigan State is the rumor that the swimming and diving programs are in danger of being discontinued. As juicy as this rumor is, especially amongst the spectators at age groups meets, it is entirely untrue. In the past year, our program has been the recipient of new locker rooms and a new team room. We have also done a great job of fundraising, thanks exclusively to our alumni and supporters.

There are a lot of people who care deeply for this program and everyone in it and that includes administrators here at MSU. I would ask that if you hear of the rumor, please tell the person you heard it from to contact me and I will do my best to set them straight.

The Spartan swimmers and divers will be taking part in their spring community service projects in the next month. On Friday, April 20, we will participate in the Special Olympics. Then on Saturday, April 21, we will assist in the adopt-a-river project.

April 11 is the spring signing date, and we are hoping to announce a few more Spartan swimmers and divers to the class of 2011.

Finally, best of luck to the Spartan hockey program next week in the Frozen Four.

Until next time,
Matt G

March 22, 2007

At the end of every season, no matter how successful or unsuccessful, every program does an evaluation of the previous year. In our evaluation, one of the areas of need we identified was leadership. Of course, this is not to say we didn't have good leaders last year. In fact, our lack of leadership was a result of me not putting those leaders into a position to lead.

To rectify the problem, I have decided that our program needed captains for the 2007-08 year. For the first time in my head coaching career I will be working with captains. This past Saturday we announced the captains for the 2007-08 season. They are:

Matt McNichols
Adam Schmitt
Jason Vadney
Marlys Fuqua
Heather Kiluk
Alycia Mokedanz

All six understand the responsibility associated with being a captain. They all are ready for the season and have begun to do things in the way of organizing next year.

If you have the time, please say a little prayer for Coach Dewey Newsome of Grand Valley State. Coach Newsome suffered a stroke this past Sunday and he is in the hospital in Grand Rapids. Dewey is a good coach and a good person, your thoughts are appreciated.

Once again, I want to thank all of you who have been very supportive this past month.

Until next time,
Matt G

March 15, 2007

I want to thank the Zielinski family for their input and their support of the newest team award. It will pay tribute to one of the greatest swimmers in the history of our program, Kevin Zielinski (1988-93). His first time at Summer Nationals in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., he was named Rookie of the Meet for an outstanding performance. He went to the Olympic Trials (Indianapolis-Barcelona Trials) for the breaststroke. Kevin died last year and his former teammates suggested we honor him with an annual award at our team banquet.

This year we will give the Kevin Zielinski Heart Award. The award will go to a senior who has demonstrated excellence both academically and athletically. We are honored to do this and it is our hope that this becomes another strong tradition in our program.

Swimming and Diving awards:
Jack Seibold Leadership Award
Jennifer Parks Leadership Award
Men's and Women's Swimmer of the Year
Men's and Women's Diver of the Year
John Narcy Most Improved Award
Spartan of the Year Award
Kevin Zielinski Heart Award
John Munley Memorial Scholarship Award

Our banquet is on Sunday, April 22 at 12 p.m. All our alumni and supporters are invited to attend. Questions regarding the banquet can go directly to Kathleen Milloy at milloy@ath.msu.edu

I want to congratulate Ricky Forest, future Spartan, who won a championship in the 500 freestyle this past weekend at the 2007 MHSAA state meet. Ricky is going to help our program quite a bit.

We started spring/summer training this week, with an eye on getting better. Coming off the disappointing short-course season, our team's focus this summer is on the long-course season.

I wanted to also thank you all for your support of our program following two very disappointing Big Ten Meets. Our young people will get much better and we will continue to work hard to improve.

Until next time,
Matt G

March 2, 2007

We have seven divers competing this weekend at the NCAA regional at U of M in Ann Arbor. Katie Edwards, Amy Schmidt, Allie Sayers and Matt Akerly are competing in their final regional meet. We are keeping our fingers crossed that our divers do their best.

As we roll into spring, I want to pay tribute to Richard Mull. Coach Mull has occupied the fourth assistant position for the last seven years. He has made me sane and insane--sometimes in the same minute. He is the greatest coach I have ever worked with. He holds the love of every swimmer/athlete he comes in contact with.

In October 2003, I asked Rich to come to the Indiana football game. I had just been named interim head coach of the team, and I was doing my best sales job to get him to come back. In many ways, Rich saved me that year, and I am always indebted for that.

I want to highlight some of his tenure here since 2000.

First and foremost, he acquired a family member when his son Cameron married Ildiko Szekely.

He also became a grandpa three times over while working for the Spartans.

Richard coached multiple NCAA qualifiers, and he got the chance to see his son Cameron be coached by his other son Iian at the 2004 Olympic Trials.

He has seen many of his swimmers move on to become great people, and he has been a big part of their maturation.

Coach Richard Mull is a true Spartan in everything he does.

He will be missed.

Until next time,
Matt G

Feb. 22, 2007

Back in 1990, my coach at St. Bonaventure had a quote from the epic poem "The Aenied" he liked to share with our team: "To live is to suffer." That quote is perhaps applicable to our program's Big Ten experience in 2007. There is no experience for a swimmer in the country that is more intimidating than the Big Ten Championships. To make a scoring swim at night, you have to have an NCAA B standard. Athletes that are used to coasting into the finals in high school are forced to deal with having to compete full out in order to just get a swim at night. This year forced many of our younger swimmers to learn a hard lesson. As a program, we "suffered" greatly. But through the suffering, we emerged stronger and aware of what it is going to take to compete at this level. The kids never quit, and though frustrated; they represented themselves very well.

We had another very steady year in diving. On the women's side, we had Amy Schmidt and Katie Edwards score. On the men's side, we scored more points than we had in a decade. Between freshmen David Garry and Ivan Zalessov, we scored in all three diving events.

In swimming, we had no other choice than to use our young people. We had freshmen lead off all four medley relays. At the women's meet, we had at least two freshmen on every relay. One bright spot came when we had the second-fastest 800 free relay in program history for the men. It was also the only relay that scored in the top eight in the conference.

In all, the Big Ten Championships were a disappointment. However, we are returning a solid core of team members, and they seem to understand that to battle in this conference, you are going to have to work. We will improve, and we will do it together as a program and as a team.

I want to congratulate junior Matt McNichols, who was named a State Farm Champion in the Classroom. Look for his message at our football games in the fall.

Until next time,
Matt G

Feb. 1, 2007

Nothing quite brings smiles to the face of swimmers like taper time. We are in the midst of our rest period for both the men and women and the energy level is rising. We have all worked very hard this year and we are hoping that we do well. Both Big Ten meets are in very good facilities, so we hope to get very good performances from everyone. Of course, it is our intention to score as many points as we can and hopefully get people through to the NCAA's.

This Thursday at the women's basketball game, the MSU Athletics Department will be celebrating Girls and Women in Sports Day. Our team, along with the other women's teams at Michigan State, will be honored at halftime. If you get the chance, please come on out to the basketball game and support our women's team.

Our team banquet this year is going to be Sunday, April 22 at 12 p.m. This is a change to our traditional Saturday night banquet. We originally wanted to do it on April 21, however, that conflicts with the Spring football game.

Also, Homecoming 2007 will be on October 13. That puts our alumni swim meet on the 13th at 9 a.m. Please mark your calendars for that date also.

I got a chance to see Mike Mulshine ('99) last week. He was on campus recruiting packaging interns. Mike is a Senior Packaging Engineer for Campbell's Soup. He lives near Princeton, N.J., and he was recently married. He is doing well and looking great, and as expected I reminded him during our conversation of the importance of the Ralph Young Fund.

I want to congratulate Alec Mull, who set state records for his age group this past weekend. Al has taken up swimming again, and from the report I get from his dad, he is a state-record breaking machine.

Thanks to all of you who responded to the news that MSU is upgrading the IM west facility. I have gotten many e-mails. Hopefully this is the first step to getting a real aquatic center done at MSU.

At the end of February, we do have quite a few big basketball games. If anyone plans to be in East Lansing for the games, please let me know.

Due to the Big Ten meets, I will not have an update until Feb. 22. I will make sure to catch you all up on our progress then. Please be sure to check our website for results from both meets.

Until next time,
Matt G

Jan. 25, 2007

Our dual meet season came to close last Friday night. Neither our men's nor our women's records ended up where we had hoped. The men in particular never got any breaks and finished at 1-6. The women finished a little better at 3-5-1.

At Oakland, we had many great performances by a lot of people. For the men, Adam Schmitt continued his great season, winning three individual events. Sho Koba won the 200 freestyle. Jason Vadney swam hard in both the 100 breaststroke and 100 butterfly. Chris Olszewski had a great meet. Perhaps, the swimmer of the meet was Mike Van Beek; he swam his heart out in the 1000 and 500 freestyle.

For the women we had great performances by Sasha Lewerenz in the backstrokes, Julie Kahn won the 100 freestyle, Mara Loniewski won the 200 freestyle, and Sarah Biasello got her first win in the 200 breaststroke. It was also nice to see Megan Reponen, a swimmer who embodies what it is to be a Spartan, win both the 200 and 100 butterfly.

Throughout the dual-meet season, we've trying to figure out what direction we'd like to go in when we get to the Big Ten Meet. With that in mind, I made so many mistakes this year in dual meet lineups that it cost our men at least two victories; however, we have seen real progress from October to today. The question of course is how much progress we'll see in February? Of course, we're hoping a lot.

There is a little mix-up on our schedule on the dates for the Men's Big Ten Championships in Columbus. The dates are Thursday, Feb. 15- Saturday, Feb. 17.

The event schedule goes as follows:

Thursday: 200 freestyle relay, 500 freestyle, 200 IM , 500 freestyle, one-meter diving, 400 freestyle relay
Friday: 200 medley relay, 400 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, three-meter, 800 free relay
Saturday 1650 freestyle, 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, platform diving, 400 freestyle relay

That is also the same event schedule for the women's meet in Minneapolis Feb. 8-10.

Congrats to Johan Sunryd, who this past week was accepted into graduate school in molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts.

So, it is getting close to the end of the season. We are in taper time at the pool, and the Spartans are getting ready.

Until next time,
Matt G

Jan. 18, 2007

We hosted the Boilermakers this past weekend and although we performed well, we dropped both the men's and women's meets. Purdue is always a tough team, and over the past six years they have been able to move their programs into an elite status. The Spartans did have great performances by quite a few members of our team including:

Adam Schmitt-20.79-50 free, 45.02-100 free, 1:39.62-200 free
Sho Koba-1:39.74-200 free, 4:36-500 free
Marlys Fuqua-10:26.12-1000 free
Megan Reponen-58.69 100 fly

As stated last week, it was also senior day for the class of 2007. Lindsay Bockstiegel swam in her final meet for the Spartans. She competed in the 200 and 100 freestyle.

I want to thank our parents who have done so much this home dual-meet season. They have made food, created a hospitality room, sold t-shirts and most importantly cheered loudly at every home meet. In particular, I want to thank Dan and Bonnie Schmitt, Jim and Marcia McNichols, Joni Kiluk, and Larry Schroeder-who has the best "Go Green, Go White" cheer of anyone.

This week, we travel to Oakland on Friday for a 5 p.m. dual meet with the Golden Grizzlies. The meet will be a 16-event format. It is our last competition before the Big Ten meet. Traditionally, when we have a meet at OU we get many of our alumni out to see the meet. If you think you can make it please try to come out and support the Spartans. We anticipate a very tough meet from Oakland. They have a great team and a great coaching staff, so we could use all the support we can get.

This week, I would like to recognize another member of our staff who gets very little attention. Jeremy Flynn is our academic coordinator and he is the main reason as to why our teams have really excelled in the classroom the past four years. He is a tireless worker with no ego. His genuine concern is that the kids on our team set themselves up to be successful in school and afterward. Jeremy is a real asset and I am very thankful he is part of our program.

If you are going to be on campus for any of the upcoming basketball games, please feel free to drop by. If you know you are going to be in town, let me know ahead of time.

As always, remember to renew/join the Ralph Young Fund.

Until next time,
Matt G

Jan. 18, 2007

Happy 2007. I write to you, tanned and healthy back from our trip to the tropics. The swimmers spent eight days in the Bahamas and the divers spent the same time in Puerto Rico. For the swimmers, we trained hard but we also had a little bit of fun. On Jan. 1, we had a whole team single-elimination volleyball tournament.

Of course, we have the ability to take these trips because of the hard work we do in our year-round fundraising effort. The teams trained hard which is always easier to do when you are guaranteed good weather, and we have that in those locations.

And now it is on to conclude the season.

The spring semester is abbreviated by one week, so we only have two meets left. The first is this Saturday when the men and women host Purdue at 2 p.m. It will be Senior Day for Matt Akerley, Lindsay Bockstiegel, Eve Brusie, Katie Edwards, David Lessard, Megan Reponen, Dani Sawyer, Allie Sayers, Amy Schmidt, and Carly Zenk.

The class of 2007 was freshmen when I took the program over in 2003. They have been very supportive of me as we have tried to move this thing forward. The class is full of some fantastic performers and more importantly, great people.

Lindsay is one of the few women who majors in engineering and does it on the dean's list.
Dani is on her way to Vet School.
As is Megan, who also played first chair violin in the MSU Orchestra last year.
Carly, a consistent 4.0 student, went from freshman walk-on to Big Ten scorer.
Matt Akerley may run for president someday with his background at James Madison College.
Allie is one of the toughest kids I have ever met competing last year at the Big Ten with a broken hand.
Dave many times has helped to organize our team to take part in diabetes fund raisers.
Amy and Katie have been Eric's shining stars, and they have set a tone for excellence in the program.
Eve is a fantastic student, varsity record holder and she is going to do something incredible in medicine someday.
Amber has become a real shining star and great representative of our program.

All 11 are great Spartans.

Last time, I mistakenly omitted that in April at our Academic Gala, the men's program will capture the Athletic Director's Cup for having the highest GPA in the athletic department.

I want to thank all of you who sent along your year-end contributions to the Ralph Young Fund. Never too early to start thinking about those tax concerns for 2007.

Four weeks to the Women's Big Ten meet. Five weeks to the Men's Big Ten meet.

Until next time,
Matt G

Swimmers in the Bahamas.

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