Neil Romney may be new to the Aberdeen Swim Club, but he is not new to the sport and he is ready to help make an impact in his new role as the team’s head coach.

Romney comes to Aberdeen from Wisconsin where he was an assistant coach at Wisconsin-White Water. He has been a head coach numerous times and brings a vision with him as he takes over the Stingrays.

Although this is his first-year with the program, he does have an appreciation of the squad’s history.

“I like the fact that they’ve had a strong team focus for the length of time the team’s been in existence, which is 50 years or more,” Romney said. “They’ve had a lot of success for a relatively small team.”

Romney said he likes the high team spirit and sense of unity surrounding the local squad.

Romney has a plan of what he would like for the Stingrays, but he also wants to take things gradually to get things up to speed.

“It’s always a challenge no matter what new job you’re going into, but I think in smaller, local swim teams it’s more of a challenge because they all have their idiosyncrasies and they’re not necessarily accustomed to a lot of change. Change as we know is hard for all of us,” Romney said. “I don’t come in with the notion of trying to create upheaval, but I do come in with a vision of what I think is involved in a successful program and try to implement that. I’m also trying to be gradual in doing so.”

What exactly does Romney have in mind?

He mentioned items like swimming with a purpose, understanding the concept behind various drills and having an all-in attitude.

“It means that you have an energetic group of swimmers who are eager to attend practice, who are coming every day, have a common language, a common conceptual basis of what constitutes effective swimming,” Romney said. “They have understanding of the drills and the technical features that we’re seeking in the strokes, of the way practice runs.”

In short, Romney said there is way more to swimming than just actual mileage and time spent in the pool.

“Nobody understands what swim practice could be, because most people think it’s just going up and down the pool,” he said. “That’s just the superficial aspect of it. I think that’s one of my challenges here.”

Instead of focusing on mileage, Romney is more interested in how well a swimmer accomplishes various tasks and drills in the pool which in the end will pay dividends in the final result.

“It’s about their changing their paradigm for self assessment from how well did I engage in that activity?” Romney said. “Am I bringing my best cognitive self as well as my best physical effort to every one of those activities and my best emotional effort? Am I manifesting that can-do attitude? Am I looking for more? Am I trying to exceed expectations?”

Romney believes if the swimmers can do those things it will show up in two noticeable areas: the numbers of swimmers on the team and the end of the season results.

While each individual has a different competitive makeup, Romney believes that there are ways to enhance that desire in each swimmer.

“I have to believe that you can draw it out, that you can encourage it, that you can facilitate it. You can even model it,” Romney said. “You can even catch kids doing it so they become the models as well.”

The Stingrays will host their only home meet of the summer next weekend with Annual High Point Meet at the Aberdeen Aquatic Center. Romney is excited to see how his troops will compete.

“I’m just looking forward to seeing what these kids can do when they race and seeing how they respond to that competitive stimulus,” Romney said, “and then come back and prepare with more focus and more engagement at practice and just keep building on that process.”