Swim Team Friends,

We look forward to hosting over 200 guests this evening at the Mountaire Park pool for our end-of-season awards banquet. The evening will include free swim, therefore, please bring your bathing suit (adults welcome too!), towel, and change of clothes. As a friendly reminder, this event is closed to outside friends and extended family members.

Dinner will be catered BBQ (pulled pork, pulled chicken, potato salad, coleslaw mac & cheese, chips and watermelon). Water (BYOB for any other drinks you wish to have) and a sundae bar will also be provided. The schedule of events is as follows:

• 5:00 PM doors open, free swim, pool games, dinner (please, no early-birds - the event starts at 5:00 PM)
• 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM awards presentation (swimming and sidewalk games will not be permitted during awards out of respect for our award recipients and presenters)
• 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM dessert, free swim, pool games

We have a really thoughtful presentation for you this evening along with some special guests. The following awards will be given:

ASA Championship

Ribbons and medals will be awarded this evening to the 35 swimmers that competed yesterday at the ASA Championship hosted at Georgia Tech’s Aquatic Center. These athletes deserve an extra round of applause for the courage and commitment it took to swim in an Olympic pool with some of the top swimmers across the state!

Most Valuable Swimmers

These are the swimmers (1 male and 1 female per age group) who scored the most points and therefore are the most valuable in their age group for individual events at dual meets.

Rookies of the Season

We look forward to honoring an exclusive group of NEW swimmers deemed the most accomplished in their first season of swimming.

Coach’s Award
This is a new award this year and will go to one individual whom our coaches feel embodied the ability to inspire confidence, motivation, and a sense of purpose. Athletes considered for this award have demonstrated a commitment to the team and to the sport.

Susan Wells Stone Award

Susan Wells Stone was a mother, wife, friend and committed Mountaire Park member who lost her battle to lung cancer in 1986. Susan and her family lived off of Riverside Trace and she served on the Mountaire Pool Board for many years, driving pivotal change for the pool – much of which we are all still benefitting from today. Susan’s daughter, Molly Stone, swam for the Barracudas (or Gators back in the day) and Susan threw herself into swim team. In fact, everything that Susan committed to, she gave 100%. The Susan Wells Stone award is given to the swimmer who is a fighter and who has demonstrated one or more of the ideals of sportsmanship, including fairness, civility, honesty, respect and responsibility. This is the individual who is cheering for their teammates at the end of the lane in meets or practices, who shakes the hand of the competitor in the lane next to them after the race, who encourages and compliments younger and older athletes not necessarily for what they achieved but for what they accomplished along the way. This is the person who relentlessly thinks of others and maintains a spirit of integrity and respect for the sport, their coaches and the spirit for which the season represents. This swimmer demonstrates what everyone would want in a teammate and what the best that a human can strive for.

Andee Poulos Award

For those of that do not know Andee, we hope you will…her story will move you. Andee is a Mountaire Barracuda having swum for the team for 14 years. In 2011 (at the age of 14), Andee had a stroke and for 20 months she bravely pushed through having endured hours of surgery and months of rehabilitation. She even returned to swim for the Barracudas following her injury, an event and story which prompted the creation of the Andee Poulos Award – for courage and determination. Today, at the age of 24 Andee is attending college and with her family’s help, oversees Andee's Army, an Atlanta-based non-profit dedicated to funding the recovery and rehabilitation of children who have sustained brain and spinal cord injuries. Andee is an incredible inspiration and an Atlanta Hero as described and honored by our Atlanta Braves baseball team.

We are pleased to announce that Andee and her family will attend our event and she will share her story with all of you and will present the 2021 Andee Poulos award for courage and determination to a most deserving athlete on our team. Please take a moment to watch her story poignantly captured by 11Alive news.

Volunteer of the Season

The heartbeat of our swim team are our volunteers. These are parents, caregivers, friends and family who relentlessly show up and support our team through action. They roll up their sleeves, take on “unpaid” responsibility, and do it with a smile. Some of these folks are behind the scenes and you don’t even realize the “good” that they do to keep this program running. We are humbled by them and forever grateful for them. It is only fitting that we choose a recipient for “volunteer of the season”…an individual that has gone over and beyond not because they had to but because they sincerely wanted to.

Our team has worked so hard over these past 8 weeks. Let's join together one last time to celebrate the collective spirit that we represent while recognizing the individual contributions of our swim team family. 

It has been an honor to swim with you.

Amber Cooley & Brooke Brown