Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now for our community connection. Right here on K one,
the one you trust in is being brought to by get Real Ministries, Tall
Grass Motors and Arnold More in Knee Camp Funeral Home. We got the Splash
Club in here. How are we doing their kids more? Oh my goodness,
it's great to see you. A year. We have Chad Engelhart and
we have Jen Williams in here with us. Splash Club a very familiar entity
in our community. How long you guys been around? Not you guys pretty
in particular, we're are seventy fourth year of existence. Seventy four years.
Nineteen fifty they built the Adams Building and they wanted to improve employee family lives,
so they put in a fitness center and they build a pool, and
then the gentlemen in charge of fitness service is at that time Ken Treadway,
believe it or not, a Cherokee Indian, decided he was going to start
swimming, and he built a team there called the Splash Club, and then
traveled around the world, introducing swimming to Russia and to Norway and all over
the place. Oh my goodness, takes pretty darn cool, isn't it.
Yeah, he's actually in the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Now can you
imagine that from a little town of Borrowsville. Well, I love that.
Now we got all kinds of activities, it's just not boys and girls and
young people doing laps, you know, until they can't, until they can't
swim anymore. Till they are we give out no. Actually we start them
around three, so as they become potty trained, we'll start doing life saving
lessons for them. Interesting fact, a child is eighty eight percent less likely
to drown if they've been introduced to formal soil lessons. We feel very strongly
about introducing those lessons to the community and helping our young youngsters be a little
bit safer around all the water we have in Oklahoma. Well, I've seen
these videos where they take these little lady biddies and they just seem to know
what to do. But to get them at three, it's before they forget
right. We can't quite work with the youngest ones at that age. Water
water is a little chilly for that good. But once they hit three,
we're able to work with them and get them in and it seems to be
working out really well. So most of our lessons are in that three,
four, five, six, seven zone. We try and get them young
and teach them, teach them all those skills they need to be safe.
Now, what age are they when they're ready to get all the blocks and
look like the big kids go get get competitive. I think most of them
think right around three. Yeah, we take them on the competitive team at
six. So once they get to be that six year old that they they've
gone through a lessons, they progress right through the lessons into the team,
and then we've got a number of different training groups, so they just progress
up slowly. The neathing is that we share the pool. So my high
cool seniors, the Griffin Craigs who are off to Missouri to swimming Division one
SEC program, he's actually on the same pool deck as some of my brand
new six year olds and they get to watch him and see him and interact
with him. So it's a pretty neat experience. You know what it is
when you're a youngster and you see someone you've been hearing while you know this
this this guy does all this stuff and he's kind of famous and everything.
They really look up to that person and they really want to emulate the good
things they do. And it's funny to watch some of those secrecies, the
little things that the older kids do. Coming out with a little six and
seven year olds, they get behind the blocks and they kind of stretch the
same way just their God, they just they just mimic the older kids,
and it's fun to watch. It's got to be. But I also know
that it costs a little bit of money to keep this thing going, doesn't
it. It does. It's not a cheap endeavor. We do offer some
scholarships, but we do travel. We try to limit some of the travel
we do just to help out with families. Genuinely mentioned some of our sponsorship
available. Yeah, oh, yes, yes, because as a club,
you know, we are a nonprofit, so we need sponsorships to help us
maintain the pool, the equipment, assist with the scholarships for their kids.
We have opportunities right now. We're right in the middle of our big sponsorship
from I think January one to February twenty ninth. It's kind of our drive
to get sponsorships for the year, and it runs from March to March,
and there's different level sponsorships, so we can go from our gold sponsorship,
which I believe is five thousand all the way down to you can be a
friends and family level from one to five hundred, and then there's several in
between benefits for a company. On each level. We have an amazing scoreboard
that will you put the logo or company name, our family name there.
We go for for meets, so they get a lot of they're seen,
little bank for the yes and so that's going on right now. So swimmers
should be out in aging with the companies. But if anybody's interested, we
will give them some contact information. We'd be happy to hear from them.
Well, I think, how do we get a hold of you? Good
question, Yeah, you call me nine one eight eight seven six to zero,
five to two, or just go to splash club dot or dashoka dot
com. That's our website and that's a great way to get ahold of us.
Splash Club, dashokay dot com is a great way to get ahold of
us. And I think we come out to the community and we'd love to
get sponsorship dollars, but we'd also like to be a partner and when we
host several events. You and I were talking about that earlier in the lobby.
According to Maria at visit Morsville in twenty twenty one twenty two, that
winter, we did three point seven million dollars in community impact financially coming into
town, come come to our big events. We actually host the Senior State
Championships for Oklahoma swimming, which is a major event. Right now, we're
on pace to do almost four million dollars in community impact this winter alone with
our events, so I do feel like we're a partnership. We brought in
four hundred and fifty kids in December and they spent two nights in hotels.
When we get to that senior championship, we're going to be here Thursday night,
Friday night, Saturday night. You've got all those restaurants, all those
hotel rooms for three hundred plus families. We think we're a pretty good partner
for the community and pre restaurant tours out there. They might not need a
whole bunch before they get in the pool, but by golly, after they
get done, they work up an appetite. Yes, sir, they're ready
to go, so you know, load up. But this is great,
great community impact and to actually get some sort of association as to how much
is a great tool. It's a great thing. So folks, if you're
thinking about being a sponsor, I just think a little bit about that right
there, and that'll tell you everything you need to know about the Splash Club
and getting involved with it. It's a very unique situation and that the club
has control over the pool. The company has given us a contract. So
the high school team, which I mean they're on their way to state in
a couple of weeks and doing quite well. They've won forty one state titles.
Martlsville High School has they train under our contract, so the club actually
gives them water space and allows them to survive and grow and I get to
coach them. The Wesleyan has a high school team and they train under our
contracts. So it's it's a unique situation where all of the swimming in the
community revolves around Splash Club and it has for seventy four years. The high
school team was developed after Splash Club was developed and as part of the club
extension. And that's just a very unique situation in our community. That shows
how important and how unique we are in this community. This is amazing.
You know, these swimmers are such elite athletes, and you know, I
dare you to find anybody who's in better shape than Sweaver, because you won't.
You just won't. But the divers, I got a question about.
That's a different bread. We used to have some wonderful, wonderful divers.
Unfortunately Oklahoma has discontinued diving as a sport. And if you've ever been to
the Phillips A Quiet Center, those beautiful diving boards we used to have,
they have been removed, which is a very sad thing. You never like
to see a sports or lost. But so right now we just go back
and forth, not up and down. All right, Well, maybe that's
chafer in the long run. Yeah, because I had my concerns. I
knew if you divers in high school, I'm not going you know, you're
just about that far from and evil buddy. Uh Now, when we talk
about some of the things that we have going on here with the Splash Club,
we have a vision that's a pretty good one too. Well, we
have a couple of different What we really want to do is live up to
the legacy of Splash Club, the founders in the International Hall of Fame.
We've spent hundreds of athletes onto college programs. Like you said, the high
school team has won forty one state titles, So are our vision? Nobody
does that. I'm sorry it was just off the scale, but congratulallys thank
you. Yes I didn't win them all, but I've been there for a
couple. But I think our vision is challenging tomorrow's leaders and building lifelong champions.
And those six words meet a lot to us. They're on our team
shirts, they're up on our scoreboard, and we really try it and promote
that. I think in today's society, we see too many kids not understanding
how to live a true life, go ups and downs of failures and struggles
and challenges, and we want to challenge them on a nightly basis and give
them opportunities to fail and pick themselves back up. That push sverance, that
grit that this country was founded on. We try our best to really give
the kids a practical experiment of how to do that, how to challenge themselves,
how to grow through adversity, how to grow through challenges, how to
work as a team. I really feel that most of our kids, when
they come through, they don't understand how to work as a team. They
understand how to be punctual. We practice before school, we practice after school,
We teach lessons after we practice, so they have a full day.
For most of my high school athletes, we obviously don't ask that of our
six year olds. A six year olds start a lett lower, but they
watch these older ones. They watch these older ones get up it. Yeah,
they really get into it. And I think that that's kind of what
we're trying to do. We're trying to be that calling to a better day
and helping our kids grow and be able to persefere in ten years when their
child cries at two in the morning and want them to get up strong and
take a deep breath and handle that and then go off to work later on
that day. I just I feel like our athletes are given the opportunity to
learn those life skills. Indeed, and now I'm thinking, I know where
that term in life came from. It came from the Splash Club. Well,
and I'll say, Chad's here. You know, he's our head coach,
he's our executive director. He's running this program and doing a fantastic job.
I support from a a as a board member and as a parent,
and as someone who has two kids on the Splash Club. I'm convinced my
kids are more prepared for life because they've been on the Splash Club. Everything
we've said, critical banking, time management, just a responsibility. My kids
get up earlier than I do most days. Some days are waking me up
to let me know they're leaving. I mean, it's been amazing the transformation.
And I can speak for my kids, but I think I could say
most swimmers are the same. Well, ye, just to see how they
transition from and at a young age to just being so responsible. And one
thing about swimming is you can do that for a good portion of your life,
if not most of it. I know, guys of when you know
other places where I've lived, they're in there. They're well into their seventies
and they'll go out and do forty laps and they're not even tired. Now,
I'm like, she many we joke it's the only sport you can do
from diapers back to diapers. I like that, but yeah, you know,
you watch that and these guys they don't look like they're putting a whole
lot of effort, but they have figured out how to make everything work,
and boy, they just they just smoke right down the lane. It's like,
how can you do that? Practice? You got to try it.
Okay, I'm with you. But it's amazing, it really is. And
we've got such a great thing going. And I'd like to encourage folks if
you have a business or if you just have a personal desire, to get
a hold of JET and become a sponsor and just see how well that not
only works for you, but how well it works for the kids in our
community and our community as a whole. I mean, it's got a whole
lot of different prongs that they go out to help. I think it's a
great thing. My goodness. Thanks. Now you're talking a little bit about
the state tournament coming up here. We just touched on that a little bit.
Ready, coach, ready to go. We've got a couple high school
regionals our next weekend, and then two weeks later we'll have the high school
state championships. Barlswill actually has three individuals that are defending state champions. Sam
Conrad is a young man out of Wesleyan. He's a defending state champion in
the hunter breaststroke warn I am and then Griffin Craig is a two time defending
champion in the hunter backstroke for Bartlesville, and Cody Lay is the defending state
champion in the five hundred free style. Our girls fell a half a point
short last year, but we've got a pretty good squad this year and we
hope to make some noise there. Oh, they'll make up for that half
point, coach, I kind of know how this goes. They don't want
that left on the table. No. I think they're pretty focused and pretty
anxious to get back to competition. So that wraps up the high school season
rap. So that third weekend in February, and then if anybody in the
community is interested in watching, that first weekend in March, we host the
Senior State Championships. So the best swimmers, no matter what age, in
all of Oklahoma come to Barlowsville to swim in that Senior State Championship meet.
And that's it. Starts Friday morning early runs Friday all day Saturday, all
day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, the finals. No
admission costs. Oh, you just gotta asks come on in and cheer,
and so we do light shows. It's an amazing experience. And here's a
plog for it. Splash Club's older kids have won the last four consecutive senior
state championships. So from our little small community here in Barlowsville, we're competing
against mega teams from Jenks and Edmund and all over the state and we are
the four time defending state champion as a club. Well, I dog,
I love it here you go, all right, something really worth taking a
look at. When you're looking to invest in your community, folks, Please
just give Jan a call. Jan, how do we get a hold of
you? Well, I think we're gonna we'll get a hold of the Yeah,
yes, Chad can take but we'll be involved. And definitely, if
you do happen to know me and want to get a hold of me,
I can do the sponsorship just as much as Shad or any board member or
any swimmer. Gotcha, swimmers do get incentive for finding sponsorship. So if
you do know a swimmer in your life, they're probably looking to get some
sponsorship, So reach out to them, let them know you're interested, and
they can also get you the forum and the information. Alrighty, And if
you're looking to get a young child involved in a great program, same address,
same phone number, look us up. We'll be having some lessons.
We take a little break in Frabuk because life gets busy on all my instructors,
Uh, most of my instructors are top flight athletes. Several instructors are
headed off to swim in college next year, and you've got a great experience.
And when you come into lessons, it's not just some random person.
You actually get to have your child with a member of the community that is
doing the same things they're teaching your child, and they're doing it at an
extremely high level, which gives the child a mentor, gives the child someone
a role model look up to, and it just becomes a lot of fun.
It's neat to see some of these kids that are now eight, nine,
ten years old looking at some of the people that were their instructors going
off to swim in college and going out. We've got two girls that are
headed off to Purdue Engineering this year, and to see our younger ones look
at them like, wow, look what they've accomplished. And they've taught me
how to do this sport. That's a gold mine right there. Produce a
darn good school, Yes it is, it is, alrighty well, thank
you very much. For being with us today. Appreciate it. Tom.
Alrighty folks, you've been watching and listening to our community connection. I'll never
forget this call.