Hawk Swimming: Coaches Corner with Lee Willing

Canyon Lake Swimming team’s season is getting wet as this year’s version of athletes gear up for another improving campaign.

“We did well,” Head Coach Lee Willing said. “We had 88% of our students improve on their times at the Round Rock Meet two weeks ago.”

Here is this year’s Schedule:

Day      Date         Meet                    Where                Time Meet Starts
Fri/Sat  Nov 8-9      Burnet 4A & Under       Burnet                  All Day
Sat      Nov 23       San Marcos Invitaional  Texas State Univ.       All Day
Fri/Sat  Dec 6-7      S.Zone TISCA Champ      NEISD Josh Davis Pool   All Day
Fri/Sat  Dec 13-14    3A State Invitational   Burnet                  All Day
Fri/Sat  Jan 31/Feb 1 District 28-4A Meet     Palo Alto College       All Day
Fri/Sat  Feb 7-8      Region 7-4A Meet        Palo Alto College       All Day
Fri/Sat  Feb 21-22    State Meet              Texas Aquatic Center    All Day

The ReSporter: Hey Coach where are you now compared to this time last year?

Head Swimming Coach Lee Willing

Coach Willy: “We are definitely ahead…we have 11 freshman with some sort of experience coming in when we were teaching that same grade how to swim last year.”

The ReSporter: Tell us what you mean when you state, ‘Teaching them how to swim..”, they know how to swim.

Coach Willy: “We have 12 events in our meets and just getting in the lake and beating your uncle from the boat to the dock does not mean you can swim the right way and so many of these students will have a learning curve.”

The ReSporter: In other sports, Canyon Lake plays the same district teams, how does your district work?

Coach Willy: “We are in a 4A and under class right now and so we will have Wimberley, SA Cole and some larger schools like Clements and Dripping Springs.”

“There is a proposal to the UIL and they are wanting to have a 3A meet, but those things don’t happen fast, it might be 12 years before they would act on that.”

“We are trying this year to show the UIL that we can make the smaller division work and we have two meets set up for this classification this year in Burnet. We went to Burnet last year with those smaller schools and won the meet.”

The ReSporter: Give the fans an idea of how the point system works in a Swim Meet.

Coach Wiily: “It is a lot like a track meet but in swimming you have more swimmers that can get you points….last year in the Burnet Swim Meet we did not have anyone that finished first, but by having more swimmers we were able to place swimmers in many of the events which added up to a win. The top eight finishers score points, 9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

The ReSporter: Do we have any students Diving?

Coach Willy: No, there is not any place close enough to go and practice and that puts us at a disadvantage when we get in Meets with the big schools, because the diving is added to the swimming events for the total points.”

The ReSporter: What are your goals with this Swimming program?

Coach Willy: “Our goal is to get a club program so we can have kids that have experience and it all starts in the middle school. We had six middle school kids that come to practice after we finish. But it is different because we are so far from everywhere, but we did have 12 kids that swam in a Summer league.”

The ReSporter: How many events do the athletes compete in?

Coach Willy: “You can have two individual and two relay events as a maximum. We have 23 guys and 11 gals swimming right now.”

The ReSporter: With so many sports going on how do you work with the kids that are that active with sports?

Coach Willy: “We have AM and PM practices and they need to make 4 practices out of the 8 practices we have a week. We have to be more flexible for the band since they had been so busy these past couple of weeks. The whole team does not know who is on the team yet.”

The ReSporter: Thanks Coach, we look forward to hearing about your year and good luck.