Pearland Pirates New Parent Meeting

4/22/2026 at 5:30pm

Parent Board Introduction

Lauren Witte, President

Kori Spruce, VP

Ron Hatter and Taryn Melgoza, Treasurer

Candace McCormick, Secretary and awesome Team Manager

Dana Van Hrrick, At Large

Lizzy Garza, At Large

Deltra Muoki, At Large

Amanda Dietich, At Large

Sean McClish, Team Clerk

The Parent Board are all volunteers and work full time. We have kids that currently swim and are Jr coaches for the Pirates.

League info:

• Clear Creek Swim League (CCSL) which includes 18 teams from Texas City to Pearland to Clear Lake
• We are Division 1 with League City and PineBrookWood
• This year, we compete against League City, Deer Park, PineBrookWood, and Angleton in our 5 meets
• This is the Pearland Pirates 25th season!

Coaches:

• Head coach: Coach Michele Gatlin - this is Coach Michele’s 3rd year with the Pirates and we are excited to have her back! She has coached swim and water polo at Dawson HS for the last 5 years.
• Assistant Coaches: Abby Gatlin and Laura Rozelle are both back this year – both former varsity swimmers and Abby also played water polo at Dawson. Laura attends SFA and Abby attends Augustana College where she completes for their Div III water polo team.
• All of our coaches are former Pirate swimmers and Jr coaches!
• Junior coaches - high school volunteers who will be working with your kids at practices.

• Jr coaches are assigned, in general, specific lanes at practices so they will work with mostly the same kids throughout the season. They will get to know your kid’s strengths, areas of improvement needed, and personalities!

Suits: This is our 2nd year with the same suit.

• If your swimmer has a suit from last year (that still fits), please feel free to continue to wear that suit
• For those that need a new suit, we have our vendor here tonight to try-on and purchase.
• We strongly encourage our swimmers to wear the team suits at the meets to present our team as one. Please plan to save your meet suits for the meets, you are not required to wear the team suits to the practices. Girls, please wear a one piece suit for practices.

Team pictures

• June 10, 6:30AM, Silverlake pool – immediately before practice. More info to come.

Practices:

• If you have not signed up for an after school (May) and morning (June) practice please do so as soon as possible
• All practices are at Silverlake pool
• Please only attend the practice time your child is signed up for!

*First day of after school practices isTuesday, May 12th. After school practices run from May 12th through Friday, May 22nd .

*There are NO practices on Thursday, May 21st for HS grad, Monday, May 25th for Memorial Day holiday, and Tuesday, May 26th for Memorial Day holiday cleaning.

*Morning practices start Wednesday, May 27th and go through Friday, June 19th.

*StrokeClinic for 9 and up, Wed and Thursday, May 6th and 7th. Requires specific sign up on our website

* Silverlake pool is always closed on Mondays so practices will only be Tuesday-Friday

Practice guidelines:

• swimmers need a suit, goggles and a towel
• pool furniture is available to hang out and watch practices. We highly encourage a parent stay at practices for our younger 8 and under swimmers (for bathroom break, etc).
• encourage your kids to listen to their coaches, do their best, and be on time
• coaches are there to help your swimmer get better at all 4 strokes and to have fun! The coaches will determine which strokes the kids will work on at practices and when
• coaches plan to do Fun Fridays where they play games and have fun!
• If your child has any special needs or there is anything that you feel the coaches need to know about your child, please email the swim board and we will relay this information to the coaches.
• If you have any questions or concerns about practices please email the board and we will discuss with the coaches.

Sponsors

• Thank you to: Silverlake HOA, Dawson Aquatics, Houston Swim Club, Southside Honey Badgers, Elliott Spruce realtor with Stanfield Properties, and Colt Melrose Photography! We really appreciate your support!

Meet schedule:

• We have 5 swim meets this season (all on Saturdays) - 1 home meet and 4 away meets:

Sat, May 23rd, At League City Barracudas

Sat, May 30th, At PineBrook Wood Orcas

Sat, June 6th, At Angleton Aquadillos

Sat, June 13th, Home against Deer Park Seals (Pearland Natatorium)

Sat, June 20th, At League City Barracudas (again!)

CCSL Reserve/Champ Meet series, June 26th and June 27th at Texas City Natatorium

Meet Registration:

• we require all swimmers to register for each meet that they will attend on the Sunday before the meet by clicking on a link that will be emailed to you. If you do not register your kids for the meet, they will be unable to compete at the meet.
• The coaches will determine what events your swimmers will participate in. The coaches will put your kids in events that they feel they can successfully swim.
• Each meet has 80 events with the odd numbered events being girls events and even events being boys.
• If you want to request your swimmer is placed in a particular event, please email the board and we will forward to the coaches. Please do so right after registering for the meet so the coaches have this information before the meet entries are due.

Meet day:

• all swimmers check in at 630am. Warm ups begin at 7am. Meets start at 8am
• meets typically last until about 1pm
• If you need to leave early, please let the coaches know at the time of registering for the meet so the coaches do not put you in any relays or events later in the meet.
• Your child MUST be checked in by 7am or your child will be scratched from the meet! Please be on time for checkin!
• At check-in, the Jr coaches will write on your kids arm the event numbers that your kids are swimming.
• Please pay attention at the meets and ensure your swimmer is in the Ready Area when their events are being called to the Ready Area (where parent volunteers line the kids up). If they are not lined up on time they will likely miss their event!
• Families will be set up outside, so we suggest you bring chairs, sunscreen, a tarp/canopy for shade, games for kids, snacks, drinks (water for swimmers) and anything else to be comfortable/pass the time between events.

Results

• Swimmer times will be published as the meet goes on and emailed after the meet
• A time that has an R or C next to it means they have a Reserve or Champ time. These times are set by CCSL and if your child earns one of these times, that means they qualify for the Reserve and/or Champ meet at the end of the season. This meet is hosted by CCSL and all 18 teams compete at one meet.
• We have special gold caps for swimmers that make a Champ time and a silver cap for swimmers that make a Reserve time.
• Each swimmer will also get a ribbon for each event they swim. The ribbons will be available at the following meet at a designated spot.

Officials

• officials are parent volunteers that have taken a class on correct swim strokes
• If your child does not do the stroke correctly, they will be disqualified/DQ’d from that event, which means they will not get a time. While it can be disappointing for both the swimmer and the parent, this is a learning opportunity for your kids. The coaches want the swimmers to learn to swim the events legally and will work with the kids on why they were DQ’d in order to learn.
• We need more officials for this year! Please email the board if interested! The training will take place on Saturday, May 9th at 11am in Texas City. If you have previously been an official, there is online training you can complete.

Volunteer requirements

• For every meet your child attends, 1 parent or adult must volunteer for a shift. There are 2 shifts. One shift goes from event 1 to event 40, the other shift goes from event 41 to event 80.
• Volunteer options are:

Ready area- getting kids lined up in the ready area for their event and helping the kids walk over to the pool for their event.

Ribbons-hand out ribbons from the previous meet

Scoring-Help average the timer’s times to determine final time for swimmer

Bullhorn-announce upcoming events that need to be at the ready area in the parent setup area

Timers-Use a provided stopwatch to time the events. You will be in a designated lane behind the blocks with another timer.

Check-in/Set up- Help set up check-in area for our team and help with swimmer check-in

Spirit Shop- Help out in our spirit shop area where we will have shirts, caps, visors, goggles, etc. to sell to our team

Concessions (only home meet)- Help out in concession area. We plan to have Chick Fil A, drinks, and other snacks for purchase.

Do not worry about no knowing what to do for your volunteer shift. No one will leave you stranded and not knowing what to do

If you absolutely must leave early from the meet and your child still has events coming up, they must let the coach know!

End of the Year Party:

• Monday, June 22nd from 5-7pm at the Silverlake Pool. There will be coaches awards, pizza, dessert drinks and fun time in the pool with the team and coaches!

Contact info:

• The Pirates board is a volunteer role. We all work full time and have kids that are super busy just like all of you.
• The best way to communicate with us is through our board email at [email protected].
• Our team manager, Candace, will respond to your emails in a timely manner but we appreciate your patience as there can be a lot of requests during busy times of the season.

We welcome any questions as we know that there are a lot of questions for new swim parents!

We hope this meeting has answered a lot of your questions. Please continue to check your email, FB page and our website, https://pearlandpirates.swimtopia.com/ for all announcements. The website is up to date, including team events calendar, meet schedule, and practice schedule.

We will send these notes out by email so you can review at our convenience.

We are very excited for an awesome season!

Please download the SwimTopia App for text alerts!