Local club called an ‘aquatics powerhouse’ in Bay Area
Published in the Oct. 28 – Nov. 10, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Swimmers practice their kicks at the Morgan Hill Dennis Kennedy Aquatics Center.
Logan Smith, a 9-year-old 4th-grader at Oakwood School, had finished a few 25-yard pool laps on a kick-board with two of his swim team buddies at the Morgan Hill Dennis Kennedy Aquatics Center when he took a moment to explain why he enjoys being a member of the Morgan Hill Makos.
“I really like it because it’s fun and I like being part of the team,” he said. “The best part is you get to swim with your friends and it’s good exercise.”
Often pushing water for an hour to an hour and a half during afternoon practice sessions, Smith said at the end of the practice he feels “a good tired.”
The Morgan Hill Swim Club was founded in 1961 and now has about 120 swimmers on the team ranging in age from 6 to college age who come from the Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy area. The original head coach was Tim Thorton and he still participates in aquatics activities in the local community. The team was originally known as the Super Fish, but changed its name to the Makos and is now the second oldest swim club in Santa Clara County.
The team has been responsible for Morgan Hill being considered an “aquatics powerhouse” in the Bay Area region. The team earned the prestigious and difficult to obtain ”Bronze Medal Club” award under the United States Swimming’s Club Excellence Program. In October of 2011, the Morgan Hill Swim Club celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a party where five decades of former swimmers, parents and coaches attended. Many Makos (or Super Fish) alumni still reside (and some still swim) in the local community.
“We are serious about the sport, but I think we have a very good balance of coaches who push the kids to their maximum limit,’ said Ryan Gautschi, team coach for the age 11 and younger group.
Photo by Marty Cheek
A Makos swimmer practices at the Morgan Hill Aquatics Center.
Gautschi also coaches the swim team at Live Oak High School. He has seen swimmers in that school team who won’t train as hard and won’t push themselves to the Makos’s limit.
“So it’s awesome to see kids this age because you know when they get to high school, when they feel pain or things get tough they can push through this,” he said.
To get on the team, swimmers must demonstrate a basic mastery of various swimming strokes.
“What we do is take kids who have got their swim lessons down and we take them from there,” said Michael Greymont, meet director. “So they learn conditioning and proper stroke technique and how to breathe and then have fun in a competitive program. We’re not out here to play in the pool. We’re here to work and compete.”
Although in the past the organization has done a variety of activities in aquatics from swim lessons, to water polo to masters swimming, the team’s current focus is on competitive swimming, particularly training and instructing young athletes to compete to the best of one’s abilities. The team tries to take the swimmers to a meet at least once a month during the regular season which runs from September to May. During the summer, they’ll join smaller closed league meets.
“We have a number of exceptional swimmers, a number of swimmers who are flat-out fast,” Greymont said. “A couple of our older kids such as Jarod Hatch have times that are highly exceptional. My daughter, Alyssa, went to the U.S. Deaf World Championship in San Antonio and won two golds and two bronzes down there.”
The Makos have kids who want to compete at the highest levels. With the help of coaches, swimmers have gone on to earn a full-ride collegiate scholarship.
Gautschi swam for the Makos starting when he was 6. His mother, the Olympic silver and bronze medalist swimmer Lynn Gautschi, also coached for the Makos.
“I kind of grew up on the pool deck with them. I swam until I was 14 or 15 and then they moved me to the San Jose Aquatics because I was about to go to West Valley so I went up there,” he said.
In coaching the young swimmers, he follows a philosophy of making sure they have fun — but he also pays attention to individual needs. He understands the practice can get boring sometimes, so tries to keep the kids engaged.
“I know that every kid out here has a different strength,” he said. “Some don’t mind having their head down and not talking for a while, and some don’t like that aspect of swimming. It’s a matter of balancing the seriousness of competitive sports but also making sure that the kids have a blast while they’re doing it.”
Danean Smith, president of the Morgan Hill Aquatic Foundation, is a swim mom whose son Logan has been on the team for three years starting with the Splash group and moving to the Makos. The sport is one her son and other children get much benefit from, she said.
“For me it’s kind of safe with less injuries,” she said. “He loves it. He can do it when he wants because they have practice five days a week, so if he’s got piano on Wednesday, we can come other days a week. It works for our family.”
If a family is interested in seeing their children join the Makos, Greymont said they are welcome to visit the club’s website for information or come to the Aquatics Center deck after 3:30 p.m. during swim practice days and talk to the coaches. Children are required to do a test for swimming ability before they can join the club.
“The main thing is, can they get across a pool 25 yards in length,” he said. “If they can do that, then we can work with them…. The coach has to have some level of comfort so that he can have them do their thing and he’s not teaching some basic swim stroke.”
If the children are not at the level of basic experience, then the coaches recommend they go get the skills through practice or get additional swim lessons or join Splash to get basic instruction down.
“Our club is not doing swim lessons, we are competitive,” Greymont said “While we want to have every kid in the water that we can, we want to have some ability there first.”
