Mon to Fri, 6:00 to 8:30 PM
Senior group: the longest session on the Dolphins' pool schedule
Two and a half hours, five evenings a week. Senior is where the Dolphins' philosophy of character, discipline and courage meets the heaviest training load on the team.
Chapter 01
What senior training asks of a swimmer
Senior trains Monday through Friday from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. Age Group 1 gets 6:00 to 7:30 PM, and Age Group 2 and the Baby Dolphins get 5:00 to 6:00 PM, so the Senior block is the longest the team runs each evening, by an hour or more.
The team puts its expectations in writing. Its philosophy places emphasis on "positive character development, self-discipline, consistent work ethic and courage," which it calls vital components for achieving success in swimming and in life. A two and a half hour evening is where a swimmer practices all four of those, five days in a row.
The team also posts a coaching article titled Why Practice? by Sabir Muhammad Senior, dated 1989, among the parent and swimmer reading on its information pages. It is a fair question for any swimmer who is deciding what the long evenings are for, and worth reading with a parent.
Deep-end swim lanes in an Atlanta natatorium
Meets the Dolphins have hosted and travelled to
According to the team's own parent guide, the Dolphins host four meets a year: two short course meets in 25 yards and two long course meets in 50 meters. Their meet pages name the Luqman R. El-Amin Invitational, which reached its 13th annual running in November 2019, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Classic, listed at its 26th annual in January 2020, the Black History Invitational, the End of Season Meet and the Bluefin Pentathlon.
Away meets on those same pages include the Georgia Tech Fall Invitational, the Cullen Jones Diversity Invitational, the Betty Pope Invitational, the Swim Macon Long Course Invitational and the Georgia Senior Short Course State Championships, listed for December 2014 and December 2015. A framed placard in the team's history reads 5th Annual Tommy L. Jackson Diversity Invitational, June 22 to 24, 2018.
That is the team's meet history as posted, and its meet archive runs to January 2020. Entry steps, fees and the first-meet guide are on the meet information page.
Chapter 03
The scholarship path out of the deep end
The Dolphins began in 1984 with nine swimmers, formed by Aquatic Program Manager Askia Bashir to give inner city youth in Atlanta an organized, year-round competitive program. Since then the team has widened its goals to include training and strategy for members to secure athletic or academic scholarships.
Its history page lists graduates who went on to the Air Force Academy, Emory University, Florida A&M University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T, Albany State University and Stanford University. Current members are attending Georgia Southern University, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Georgia Tech and Duke University, among others.
Head Coach Tommy Jackson swam and dove for Albany State himself and brings more than 36 years of coaching to the deck. A swimmer who is not in Senior yet starts the way every Dolphin does, with the stroke evaluation, and the coaching staff place them from there.
Founded in 1984 with nine swimmers, the City of Atlanta Dolphins list graduates at the Air Force Academy, Emory, Howard and Stanford on their team history page.