Riptide Ramblings October 2025

 

Welcome to another edition of the Riptide Ramblings! This is a regular newsletter for Riptide Swim Team to communicate our team’s successes and what is happening throughout the season. This edition includes a profile on Head Coach Brian Rose!

Team News

SAVE THE DATES

• Devilfish Classic: October 17-19, 2025

• Fall Festival of X-Cellence: October 18-19, 2025

• Spooky Sprints: October 25, 2025 

• FSPY First Frost: November 2, 2025

• HCY Autumn Challenge: November 14-16, 2025

• BB Snowflake: December 12-13, 2025

• Holiday Classic: December 19-21, 2025

• HCY Stingray Splash: January 16-18, 2025

• NJ YMCA State Championships: February 2026 TBD

• Sunkissed National Meet: March 26-29, 2026

  • SUNKISSED MANDATORY INFORMATIONAL MEETING LAST WEEK OF JANUARY BEFORE PRACTICE STARTS. DAY/TIME TBD. LOOK OUT FOR INFORMATIONAL EMAIL

• End-of-Season Banquet: April 19,2026

 

Fundraising

 

Delicious Orchard Pie Sales are Coming Soon. Sales will end on October 30th. Look out for a link to purchase soon. 

 

We use all of our Fundraising dollars to help our Riptide Swimmers. We use the dollars for items to help run our home meets and practices. Those items include stop watches, computers, lap counters, block wedges, and dry land workout equipment. 

 

We also used a portion of our funds for our coaches to attend a coaches' clinic to keep their coaching skills sharp. The training included updates on the best practices for technique and practice session ideas. 

 

Practice Calendar

          

Spooky Sprints

JOB SIGN-UPS AVAILABLE HERE! This is our team's hosted invitational, and is a great opportunity to earn Work Bond points! We have over 135 positions available! There are also jobs for older swimmers ages 13 & OVER. Per the Work Bond Contract: If your swimmer participated in SunKissed Nationals, they MUST sign up to volunteer at this meet.

Questions? Check out the Parent FAQ and Instructional Guides below. 

Still Seeking Answers specific to Spooky Sprints? Send an e-mail to [email protected]

 

Pre-Order Swag by October 12, 2025 

Candy Grams and Programs before October 22, 2025

Competitive Meet Season

The Riptide competitive season consists of Dual Meets, Invitational Meets (including mini meets), and Championship Meets. Dual Meets consist of scheduled meets against other YMCAs. Invitational Meets are meets that include many teams and typically require swimmers to provide entries by a required date. Championship Meets are our end-of-season meets. 

 

YMCA DUAL & CHAMPIONSHIP MEETS

 

The Riptide Swim Team is divided into four separate competing Dual Meet teams: two Girls’ Teams and two Boys’ Teams. Swimmers are assigned to a Dual Meet team based on the intrasquad scrimmage (Lollipop Meet) held in early October. Each Dual Meet team competes against other YMCAs within its own NJ YMCA Swim League division. 

 

The YMCA winter swim season consists of 4-6 Dual Meets beginning in October and ending in January. The regular season ends with the State Championship Meets in February. The State Championship meets consist of the Bronze Meet, the Silver 

 

Meet, and the State Championship meet. Swimmers compete in the meet(s) they qualify for, relative to meeting time standards in each event. For example, a swimmer may have Bronze-level times in Fly and Breast but may have Silver-level times in Free and Back. In that case, the swimmer would swim Fly and Breast in Bronze Championships and Free and Back in Silver Championships. Should that swimmer reach a Silver time in the Bronze Meet for Fly and/or Breast, they will then add those events to their Silver Meet line-up. The same would be true should swimmers reach State Championship times in the Bronze or Silver Meets. 

 

Dual meets provide an opportunity for Riptide swimmers to compete against another team of a similar ranking. Meets are normally held on Saturdays, and all home meets are at the YMCA at the Piscataway Community Center. Starting times for meets vary. A swimmer's age group is determined by his/her age as of December 1, 2024. Swimmers are assigned to swim in events that our coaches feel will contribute most to the team's success in winning the meet. 

 

Dual Meets focus on the TEAM concept. Team spirit, cheering for teammates, having a positive attitude, and showing good sportsmanship all contribute to the success of the meet, the team, and each of the swimmers. Parental support, too, is essential and required, as all efforts for set-up, running the meet, clean-up, and additional meet activities come from our parents. Historically, we have had a wonderful group of parents at RVY whose willingness to "pitch in" has made season after season productive and successful, as well as pleasant and social. 

 

INVITATIONAL SWIM MEETS (INCLUDING USA MEETS)

Aside from swimming in the NJ "Y" League, our team is a member of USA Swimming, a national organization that sets up and runs meets in New Jersey and throughout the country year-round. Swimmers who want to participate in USA Meets must join USA Swimming annually. This is a separate cost from the Riptide fees. New swimmers must fill out a registration form, while returning swimmers need only pay the renewal fee. 

 

Eligibility in the USA Meets is usually based on qualifying times, and a swimmer’s age is determined as of the first day of the meet. A swimmer usually must have swum an individual stroke with a certain "qualifying" time to be eligible for a meet (some meets may not have qualifying times). 

 

There are separate fees for each event entered, which are paid via each swimmer's account. Invitational Meets are excellent opportunities for swimmers to work toward personal goals, to try different strokes and distances, and/or to attempt to make qualifying times for other meets and Sunkissed Nationals. It is strongly recommended that swimmers enter events that they may not normally swim in a YMCA Dual Meet, especially longer-distance events (100s, 200s, 400 IM, 500 Free, etc). Please ask a coach for advice on which strokes to try.

 

We will post Invitational Meet information on the website as quickly as it becomes available to us. Generally there is a very quick turnaround to sign up for these meets, so it is recommended you check your email and the website regularly. 

 

 

Coach Spotlight

Riptide Head Coach, Brian Rose

Brian has been a coach for Riptide since 2006 and the Head Coach since April 2013. Coach Brian swam for Riptide as a student, so you could say our Head Coach has given his life to Riptide Swimming. That is evident in the way Brian coaches our kids. Coach Brian cares for each of our Riptide Swimmers, knowing exactly what they need to succeed. If you don’t know what your swimmer needs in order to accomplish a certain goal, Coach Brian likely does. He values each swim your swimmer makes and will go into detail on what they did well and what they need to do to improve. He is a great teacher. If you ever get a chance, try to sit close to where Coach Brian is teaching, and you will learn a lot about swimming.

If you’ve ever led a sports team, you know that your primary role isn’t your only role, nor is it where you spend most of your time. Coach Brian is a full-time employee of the Raritan Valley YMCA, and his title there is Aquatics Director. Coach Brian said, "I often WISH my role 

was mainly to coach swimming, but it isn’t. If I had to say it quickly, I guess I’m here to keep my eye on the whole puzzle and make sure all the pieces fit. Who will be the coaches, and what will their role be? What are the roles of our parent volunteers? What’s our practice schedule, and how do we make the best use of the facilities? What’s our competition schedule, and how do we use our relationships with other swim teams? If any of these parts aren’t working, how do we fix it? There are hundreds of people inside and outside our team working hard to make this whole thing happen, and I’m in the best position to see all the different connections, so I need to make sure they’re working properly."

Any special memories at Riptide?

Coach Brian said, "There are a lot, so on any given day, if you ask me this question, my answer might change. But it makes an impression on me when swimmers come back after leaving and tell me that Riptide affected their life positively outside of swimming." 

Coach Brian tells a story of a swimmer who quit swimming before he graduated but came back years later to thank him. Brian said, "But I saw him years later, and he thanked me for talking to him when he was having trouble getting along socially with other kids. He said I told him, ‘Sometimes kids are mean.’ I almost laughed because it’s such a simple thing to say. But I guess it really changed his perspective because he realized that everyone else is dealing with their own issues. When people are struggling with their own things, sometimes you have to realize it’s not about you, and you can’t take it personally. This was someone who didn’t even like swimming that much, but it was good to know the experience contributed to his life." 

This is the kind of passion you get from Coach Brian; he wants not to just teach your child about swimming but about life. Coach Brian sets the culture at Riptide as the Head Coach, and we have a culture of family because Coach Brian truly cares.

Your career as a swimmer? How did you get into swimming?

Brian shares his story of how he got into swimming: "As a kid, I belonged to Nob Valley, a summer club that doesn’t exist anymore. I liked the water, but I had zero desire to swim competitively. After a couple years, someone told my mom, "Oh, you have kids at this club? Gotta put them on the swim team." 

I was 10, and my first practices were miserable. I hated it and said after every practice that I wanted to quit. I was getting lapped and run over constantly by the other kids. My mom said I had to stick it out until the first swim meet, and if I didn’t like it after that, I could quit. In almost all sports up to that point, I lacked confidence and always felt I was a detriment to the team. There’s no reason for any kid to feel that way, but I have to admit 

it’s how I felt. At the first meet, I asked my coach how scoring worked, and she said, ‘In an individual race, you get 5 points for first, 3 points for second, and 1 point for third.’" My first race ever was a 50 Back, and there were only 4 kids in the race. I touched the wall, believing I came in last, then looked across the pool and realized another swimmer was still finishing. I thought, ‘No way! I came in third! I got a point! I’m not a detriment to the team anymore; I helped!’ I was addicted after that. I joined Riptide that fall and continued swimming through college. (I still swim now . . . kind of.)"

Coach Brian still enters one event at our Sunkissed Nationals Swim Meet in Charlotte, NC. It’s always a favorite of our team to watch their coach compete. This past year, he got to experience what every swimmer experiences: a DQ. If you ask Coach Brian about it, he will tell you how they were wrong on the call. Spoken like a true competitor. This is also part of how Coach Brian builds a culture at Riptide. No other coach on any team at this meet enters, but Brian and some of our other coaches do. This one moment builds great camaraderie among our athletes and coaches.

We asked Coach Brian some of his favorites:

Favorite Swim Memory:

My favorite memory as a swimmer came at the end of what I’d thought, up to that point, was maybe my worst season ever. My best event was the 200 Breaststroke, and all season, the fastest 200 Breast I’d swum was 8 seconds slower than my personal best. And that was the best one—most days, I was 10 to 15 seconds slower than my best time. At the final meet of the season, I swam no personal bests in all my other races, and the 200 Breast was the last day. I had shaved my head for this meet and remember sitting behind the block while the heats before me swam, thinking, "Well, I want to just give up, but I shaved my head for this. I don’t want to leave here thinking it wasn’t worth it to shave my head. So I can’t give up yet." I dropped 4 seconds from my best time. Do the math, and that means 12 seconds faster than any 200 Breast I had swum that season. Seeing that time on the scoreboard is the greatest rush I have ever felt in my life. And the experience reminds me that you should never completely lose faith in yourself.

Favorite Stroke:

Breaststroke. However, I always admired people who were great at the 400 IM and wished I was a great IMer. I tried, but I could never get my IMs to be anywhere near my Breaststroke. I was just a natural Breaststroker.

Favorite Set:

"Golf." It’s 18x100 or 9x100, and your times are scored versus a "par," which is where the set gets its name. You get several minutes of rest after each 100, and they are all at race pace. Because everything is race pace, it’s an incredibly intense set, even though it’s not a lot of yardage.

Favorite Thing About Riptide:

I think we’re always looking at the kids who come into our program and thinking: "Okay, who are you, and what do you need?" Your experience will be a little different based on who you are. I think a lot of teams in many sports work like: "Now we have you, and we’re going to turn you into one of us." On Riptide, we have some of that. We’re going to try and push you out of your comfort zone to a higher standard. But there’s also so much room for individual personalities here.

Favorite Food:

Hmmm . . . probably any kind of chicken that’s really spicy. Like Buffalo Wild Wings or the chicken you get at Indian restaurants that’s just floating in a ton of spicy sauce.

Favorite Band:

The Who. I’ve seen them live 3 times when the only original living members were Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry, and it was spectacular, but what I really admire about them is the dynamic the original band had when Keith Moon and John Entwistle were alive. They were like 4 totally equal parts. Each band member was such a star in his own right. It was like they were all playing "lead" at the same time, but they were all still such team players working together, and it meshed to make the whole more than the sum of its parts. My favorite song is "Baba O’Riley," and I love how the beginning slowly builds up until we get to all the self-affirming words in the first verse: "Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals," etc.

Secret Fact: Coach Brian was in a band. Bonus points if you find his band on YouTube. They are there.

Favorite Thing to Do for Fun:

Maybe sing karaoke? I used to be a musician, but since I don’t really practice anymore, karaoke is one way to do it without having to actually work hard.

Advice to Swimmers and Parents:

Maybe this is easy for me to say after having seen so many swimmers swim for so many years, but I’d tell all the swimmers and parents not to agonize over one bad race, one bad meet, or even a bad stretch of months. Everyone goes through ups and downs, and I see both swimmers and their parents agonizing over every little thing that goes wrong. Today you may think this bad meet was the worst thing that ever happened to you, but if you’re still swimming 3 years from now, I swear you’ll barely even remember that it happened. It’s not worth putting yourself through the mental anguish. Keep working hard and enjoy the ride. It will work out in the end.

 

Coach’s Corner

Coach Brian took some time to discuss his “Batman talk. He discusses a key aspect to a swimmers success and that is overcoming fear. Take a listen here.