High School Meet Results

I'm a high school coach. We almost always have the three boys and three girls to enter into the 500. Most of the time our 3rd swimmer is someone who is doing it as a first time. We have swum against that are such small teams that they can only put a person or two in. We have combined boys and girls before. I would not like to see them change the rules and allow swimmers to swim more events. Believe it or not there is quite a bit of strategy to setting up a meet sheet. Allowing schools to enter kids in extra events gives schools with a couple of really good studs a much bigger advantage than a team like mine with some solid depth. Also I wouldn't consider it "bending the rules" by not running an event. We will also not put a person in the 500 if that person could score us points somewhere else. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

I think it is so unfortunate that teams can't get 15 to 20 kids. I see it in some of the teams my son competes against. They have two teams that are struggling to get even 10 guys. My wife is a 4th grade teacher and she told me the other day, " you would not believe the lack of athletic ability and desire of the kids today". Many reasons combining to cause this, but the results are so sad. If you think it is bad now, expect it to keep getting tougher to field teams. If your a coach, AG club, jr HS, or HS you need to be promoting swimming and recruiting kids. Parents need to be vocal to friends and relatives and encourage more kids to swim. Swimming is not as glamorous as the ball sports. All will be suffering but the less glamorous sports will feel it more.

Totally agree. I teach in a highschool of almost 2000 students and we have 23 boys on our swim team, about 28 on our girls squad. With 23 we can pretty much just fill out a dual meet. We are also a somewhat urban school where most of our students have never been taught how to swim. The one thing we've got going for us is that we have our own pool, so I always go down to the pool during the gym classes to make sure there aren't any swimmers who slip through the cracks. Two of our top sprinters were kids we found this way as juniors, just wish we could have gotten them as freshman. The one kid went a 23.01 in the 50 free in his last meet a few days ago. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

I would not like to see them change the rules and allow swimmers to swim more events. Believe it or not there is quite a bit of strategy to setting up a meet sheet. Allowing schools to enter kids in extra events gives schools with a couple of really good studs a much bigger advantage than a team like mine with some solid depth. Also I wouldn't consider it "bending the rules" by not running an event. But are you saying that because you don't want to deal with the difficulty of convincing a swimmer to enter the 500, and rearranging the meet sheet? The rules change wouldn't be a general change to allow all swimmers to compete in an extra event. It would only allow one, maybe two per team...only when the team is undermanned...and only allow the extra event to be the 500 (since that's the event that always gets cancelled). In a meet where both teams have enough members to fill all starting positions in all events...the extra event would not be allowed. I know it's a different sport...but if the football team is undermanned and doesn't have a punter...they don't cut out the punts. The team has to find someone to punt the ball. IMO swimming should be the same way. Compete all the events. Dan

My son joined his HS team in 10th grade. He began in the slow lane with the kids just barely able to keep from drowning. He worked hard but with my genes he could never be a standout. He remained one of the slowest on the team and the coach, being short handed, always put him in the 500. He was the only one on the team doing the 500. He never won his event, but scored points every time since all the teams were short. Because of his enthusiasm, leadership and support for teammates, he was selected as team captain in the 12th grade. Don't diminish the 500 because that's where the "lesser" athletes go.

OK, I agree the analogy to football was a bit weak. I suppose that if at a track meet neither team had a pole vaulter that you couldn't just tell some kids to go do it. But as I've witnessed in HS swim meets, the decision to hold the 500, or not, is arbitrary. When my daughter was on the HS team I witnessed occasions wherein both head coaches would just agree to NOT conduct it. And that was when both teams had more than enough swimmers. Other times they would conduct the event but with only non-scoring exhibition swimmers from both teams swimming in lanes 1 and 6. That's just ridiculous. Put those kids in lanes 2 and 3 and let them score points. To at least prevent THAT from happening there should be a rule stating that if your team has enough swimmers and you don't put at least one in a given event...you get penalized. If the coaches can agree to not conduct an event, why can't they agree to allow one or two swimmers from each team to swim an extra event...ONLY the 500? Dan

Dan, I see where you are coming from but the analogy to football just doesn't work. I wasn't clear in my original post, but if I've got enough kids to fill out a meet, then we fill our the meet. If we don't, then I make decisions based on where the kids I've got can get me points. If that means only having one or two kids in the 500, then that's what it is. I don't like the idea of letting any kid swim a 5th event under "special" circumstances just so the event goes off. I don't see how that helps to measure one team against another. If a team has a very small team with a bunch of studs, they can hang in there and put up a fight with a larger team, but now changing the rules to allow the smaller team to operate on a different set of rules changes the competition. I get that you don't want to see the 500 cancelled, and maybe my view is clouded because in my years of HS coaching we've never cancelled a 500, but have combined girls and boys into a single heat, but I'd rather see the event cancelled than start making unique little rules that only apply to certain circumstances at certain times in certain races. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

How uniform are the rules for event numbers in the US? Club, HS, and College? How/when does it change for the Olympics and big international events like the Pam Am games or the FINA championships? Mi HS rules say 4 events max and at least 2 must be relays. So I assume you can do 2 Ind. and 2 relay. Or 1 Ind. and 3 Relay. That is how I read it. I have never asked a coach. lol.... FYI I am not a swimmer. I have always wondered why events seemed so limited as my son progressed from AG club to Jr High to HS. Not sure about the the AG rules via the split in MI but it was 4 events as I recall. This 5th event seems to be a big deal, depending on your view. Especially since it is also the longest race. Sorry for the dumb question.

I began my swimming career at Weequahic HS in Newark. When I showed a little bit of promise, my father decided to move to Westfield. Best thing that ever happened to me! We practiced at the Westfield Y for an hour a day, only 5 days a week. We did not have a pool at the school. We did not swim circles, but waves, so we had plenty of rest between swims. If we did 1500 yards a day, that was a lot. We swam from December to March for the HS, then March April for the Y. We did not do dry lands or year round swimming and some of the times we did then are still considered good. We swam against The Hill School, The Lawrenceville School, Pingry and Newark Academy, also the Yale freshman and Princeton freshman at a time when freshman and upperclassmen had separate teams. There was no recruiting at Westfield, but people knew of our reputation and moved to the town. Swimming was big in Westfield. Yes, every year at NJ HS State Swimming Championship held at Princeton University Dillon pool, we would always be in awe of Westfield HS Swim Team. I swam at Somerville HS and we were a small team that would place a few swimmers and relays in finals in our good years. Westfield had that great breaststroker, I believe it was something like Perkowski, who held the state record of 1:01 for many years. I'm glad you were able to have the experience of swimming at Westfield with such a great legacy that continues to this day!

Dave Perkowski was the breaststroker. He swam for Doc Counsilman and made the '68 team. He just missed making the 100 *** finals and ended up 9th I believe.