A kid swam the 500 all fly in a high school dual meet yesterday. His coach was furious and benched him for the rest of the meet. One of my lane mates this morning, who was the Starter at this meet said that was showboating and demeaning to the other competitors. I disagree. Was that any more demeaning than swimming free and lapping people? Plus, I saw the flyer ask everyone in the heat if it would bother them. Even on the blocks he said "Are you sure you guys are OK with this?"
Sounds like the issue was that the kid did not do what the coach had told him to. It is either showboating or just being a smart-ass on the part of the kid to just haul off and do this without consulting his coach.
Last I checked "freestyle" meant just that. If someone wants to swim fly, they should swim fly. End of discussion.
I disagree. High school swimming is a team sport. You swim what your coach has told you to and you perform for the team - not calling your own individual shots during a dual meet.
I agree with the other comments, freestyle is freestyle. And a 5.12 for a 500 fly seems to me like an admirable tour de force. I think the coach needs to lighten up a bit.
And it seems like the coach could not have been upset that the team might lose points because the kid might have swum faster "freestyle" (i.e. crawl). If the coach cared about points, why would he bench the kid. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If the coach cared about points, why would he bench the kid.
Because he didn't care about points. He cared about his own reputation for sportsmanship, or about maintaining discipline among his swimmers.
Maybe the coach made a mistake. On the other hand, maybe the coach didn't know that the kid planned to swim fly. If he did not know, he probably was horrified when he saw the kid do so, because he didn't know that the kid had asked the other swimmers whether or not they would mind. Note that the starter, whose job includes watching the swimmers at the blocks, didn't even register that interaction among the swimmers. Also, the coach probably did know, based on his many years of coaching experience, that others in the audience or in the local coaching community would think, as the starter did, that the kid's choice reflected poorly on the coach (such as thinking that the coach put the kid up to it as a stunt).
Or maybe the kid had told the coach that he wanted to swim fly and the coach had said, for whatever reason, "no."
To follow on to gobears's observation, not only is the swimmer's role way different for a high school team at a high school dual meet than for a Masters team at a Masters invitational, so is the coach's role. An important part of a high school coach's job is to teach sportsmanship, teamwork, and communication. Also, a high school coach is already in an awkward position when s/he knows that the other team is much weaker, because pretty much no matter what the coach does somebody is going to make accusations of having run up the score in an unsportsmanlike manner.
Obviously there is something else going on here, something between the coach and the flyer. Or the other swimmers on the team made a dare. Or who knows what else? Maybe he didn't want to swim the 500 and was seeking a way to never be asked to do so again.
I was in the heats of the 100 free at the state meet as a senior in HS when an old teammate from the school I had transferred from was on the blocks next to me. He did NOT want to swim the 100 free and told me he was going to false start. He did, and was DQ'd. His coach wanted him to swim the 100, but he did not. Guess he figured out a way to get out of it.
