LAYTON -- High school swim coach Craig Bjorkland has to be a meticulous scheduler this year -- juggling meets and practices, working out transportation and coordinating his shirt colors.
Yes, shirt colors.
As the head coach of three high school swim teams, Davis, Layton and Northridge, Bjorkland trades three colors of shirt depending on which team he'll be cheering for and directing that day.
"We've actually got six coaches all together," said Bjorkland, "And we consider ourselves the high school coaches at Surf 'N Swim; Depending on who is swimming, depends on which shirt I wear."
Bjorkland said that the coaches at the schools decided to combine the teams for practice purposes in order to make the best use of the eight lanes that they were formerly splitting up for use at Layton Surf 'N Swim. The arrangement makes the best use of eight lanes of a pool that is crowded with the teams' combined 120 high school swimmers who have just a couple hours in the pool each day, since it also is open to the public.
"It makes it much easier because we've got full control of the pool instead of having to break off a couple lanes to give to someone else. We combine the teams for practice purposes, but still treat each one of them separately for social events and most meets."
Bjorkland said that not only does it make practice easier, it makes it better. The coaches are able to arrange lanes according to swimmer's ability level, putting the fastest swimmers from each school in a couple lanes, intermediate swimmers together and beginners together, so that they can work together.
Tason Armitstead, a senior swimmer and captain on the Northridge team said that he sees mostly benefits to the arrangement.
"With all three of these teams together, we compete against each other every day in the pool. It's a lot cooler to have competitions every day in the pool. Whereas if we weren't practicing together, we'd just be leading the lane for our team with nobody on our own individual team that would push us to race as hard as we do. It makes it a lot more fun to get through practice," said Armitstead.
Linda Wright, one of the assistant coaches of the triumvirate, said that putting kids together in ability-based groups helps them to swim better times.
"At first they were kind of worried about who went to what school, but they've all become really good friends and mixed well. We see a lot of interaction between them that we wouldn't see otherwise," said Wright.
That's not the only advantage, said Wright.
"It's been a lot of work as coaches to get to know that many kids and to treat them all as individuals, but we have many coaches, which you wouldn't have normally. In the long run it's better for the kids. They have more instruction because they have more variety."
Haley Bushman, a senior and captain of the Layton swim team, agrees.
"You have one coach that helps you focus on speed and another that helps you focus on technique and both of those go hand in hand to make you do the best you can in practice," said Bushman. "A lot of times you can have just a speed coach and maybe hit a low spot. Having a variety of coaches helps you find that personal motivation to do your best along with the rest of the team."
Wright said that the six coaches, including her daughter Beth Wright, MaLisa Lewis, Kyle Kofoed, Delsi Gorneman and Keith Wooten, change it up quite a bit to match their strengths with what the swimmers need.
Bjorkland said that most kids don't have a problem with the rotating coaches.
"So many of the faster swimmers we've had on the Layton Surfers, our city team, and they've known me since they've been six and seven years old, so they don't really pay a lot of attention to what you're wearing. They know that you're the coach," said Bjorkland.
"I would actually have to stop and think, 'What shirt am I wearing today?' But we pretty well know all the kids, and as long as we do switch around, the few kids that do become concerned, don't have to be. Swimming is probably the only sport where we'd be able to do that, because we all practice in same pool. And the nice thing about swimming is that it is all based on time."
Zach Santella, a Davis swim team captain said that it's a good way to get to know the competition and to stay motivated.
"You're always motivated to work hard," said Santella. "You don't want to slack off because they're going to get faster than you and pass you in practice. Another thing I like is that when we race together in an actual meet, it makes the overall experience more fun because you're racing against someone you actually know rather than someone you don't know a lot about."
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