My team, Rockwall Aquatic Masters is having a long course meet on 6th July and I am actively trying to convince team mates to sign up. On my blog I was describing my disappointment that more of my team mates had not signed up. One commenter posted the following, "Why do they have to participate? I have more fun going to practice than I do meets. I don't find meets fun anymore." I guess I had assumed that most people enjoy meets and I found it strange that my team mates did not want to sign up. This got me thinking and I wondered why people compete or don't compete? Any thoughts?
The main reason that most of our local workout group does not compete in meets is the extra commitment required to travel to meets. That is one reason I worked to get a meet locally, but sadly even holding it during our normal Saturday morning practice time the locals are not coming. Almost true to the 25% stat offered above.
I still coach towards the competition, but don't focus on it as much. Have some fun with the meet, offer a few prizes or a fun swim, and it will grow. Perhaps getting the swimmers not desiring to compete in as timers/counters/volunteers will at least show them that Masters Meets are great fun!
Our team is part of the Niagara LMSC. Our chair, Greg Danner, has done a lot of analysis and our LMSC's percentage of swimmers who compete compares favorably with USMS as a whole. Our local club's percentage is double the norm especially for our annual home meet. All the reasons given by other posters on this thread are true. There is no one or two simple reasons. It truly is a team psychology thing and the momentum helps carry others with it. As coach I try to concentrate on the new members and I've had good success especially with the many triathletes on our team who seem to find they "enjoy" doing something all out and fast. I rely on the team leaders to help encourage others to set a few meets a year as targets for our goals and we taper for those. In 2012 we won the Colonies Zone Large team division with "only" 29 swimmers going the 300+ miles to the meet vs some local clubs with 2-3 times that many. We make sure everyone swims lots of relays. We don't care if we score a point but we want all to try and they usually have a PR when doing so. We car pool, share rooms, and have a dinner/party the middle night. Needless to say the first time swimmers often turn into my best "missionaries" getting people to complete the next year. We came in 6th at Indy this year with 19 swimmers in the local club division. At our end of the season party we have announced our goals for next year which is to return to Zones in April and LCM Nationals in August.
As you see the time to get people to swim in meets really isn't two weeks before the meet. We are all adults and we all have lots of other things going on. We try to get people to think about key meets months away and structure the workouts accordingly to get swimmers to have the best chance of fast swims. I find that a swimmer who does have a great swim becomes much more likely to go to other meets.
All this can't fall just on the coach or club president. We have an assistant coach(one of the swimmers), we have a relay czar(one of the swimmers). We buy championship team shirts with the names of all the participants on the back and the swimmers name on the front. We have team warm ups with their name on the front. We have team shirts which we give free to each member when they compete in their first meet. In case you might wonder we swim four days a week in a six lane pool for a total of six hours a week if someone makes all the swims. So nothing that many other clubs can't do also.
The main reason that most of our local workout group does not compete in meets is the extra commitment required to travel to meets. That is one reason I worked to get a meet locally, but sadly even holding it during our normal Saturday morning practice time the locals are not coming. Almost true to the 25% stat offered above.
I still coach towards the competition, but don't focus on it as much. Have some fun with the meet, offer a few prizes or a fun swim, and it will grow. Perhaps getting the swimmers not desiring to compete in as timers/counters/volunteers will at least show them that Masters Meets are great fun!
Our team is part of the Niagara LMSC. Our chair, Greg Danner, has done a lot of analysis and our LMSC's percentage of swimmers who compete compares favorably with USMS as a whole. Our local club's percentage is double the norm especially for our annual home meet. All the reasons given by other posters on this thread are true. There is no one or two simple reasons. It truly is a team psychology thing and the momentum helps carry others with it. As coach I try to concentrate on the new members and I've had good success especially with the many triathletes on our team who seem to find they "enjoy" doing something all out and fast. I rely on the team leaders to help encourage others to set a few meets a year as targets for our goals and we taper for those. In 2012 we won the Colonies Zone Large team division with "only" 29 swimmers going the 300+ miles to the meet vs some local clubs with 2-3 times that many. We make sure everyone swims lots of relays. We don't care if we score a point but we want all to try and they usually have a PR when doing so. We car pool, share rooms, and have a dinner/party the middle night. Needless to say the first time swimmers often turn into my best "missionaries" getting people to complete the next year. We came in 6th at Indy this year with 19 swimmers in the local club division. At our end of the season party we have announced our goals for next year which is to return to Zones in April and LCM Nationals in August.
As you see the time to get people to swim in meets really isn't two weeks before the meet. We are all adults and we all have lots of other things going on. We try to get people to think about key meets months away and structure the workouts accordingly to get swimmers to have the best chance of fast swims. I find that a swimmer who does have a great swim becomes much more likely to go to other meets.
All this can't fall just on the coach or club president. We have an assistant coach(one of the swimmers), we have a relay czar(one of the swimmers). We buy championship team shirts with the names of all the participants on the back and the swimmers name on the front. We have team warm ups with their name on the front. We have team shirts which we give free to each member when they compete in their first meet. In case you might wonder we swim four days a week in a six lane pool for a total of six hours a week if someone makes all the swims. So nothing that many other clubs can't do also.
