This is a bit of a rant, and I'm reluctant to post it here because I always get politely chastised when I suggest ideas like this. But there was another example of it in today's h.s. swim meet results in the newspaper. I was a track and CC runner in h.s. I began swimming for fitness decades ago after h.s., but have never been on an organized, competitive team. So, I never really gained an understanding of how meets are conducted, nor coaching philosophy. That changed when my now adult daughter joined the h.s. swim team. To better support her, I studied up and figured much of it out. Even to the point where the coach coerced into being a "meet day on-deck assistant" during daughter's h.s. years. So, to this day, I still peruse the sports pages for local h.s. swim meet results. But, one thing that I just can't understand is why coaches (seemingly) don't set their race assignments for maximum points. Specifically, I frequently see results wherein the winner of the 500 free will swim a faster pace than the winning times in the 100 free and 200 free (and now and then even the 50 free). I see this on almost a weekly basis. Instead of being spent winning the 500 free, and getting points in just one event, that one swimmer (presumably) could have gotten twice the points and won both the 100 and 200...and his/her team won the meet instead of losing by two points. I get it that there are team dynamics I may not be aware of; you can only compete in x# events per meet; that the coach may be building for the future; wanted swimmers to get experience in other events; a swimmer had a bad day; etc etc. And, maybe it's stubbornness on my part as a runner at my core, thinking that swim training, competing, and coaching ought to be done the way it is on the track. I know...it's a completely different sport. To many of you I know that sounds crazy. I guess I just can't grasp the swim team coaching and competing mentality. Maybe there are paradigms. I just wish I could witness a swim coach take that approach and see what the outcome would be.
Dan
I'm a Florida high school swimming official and work a couple of dual meets every week during the high school season.
In high school (and college for that matter), the emphasis these days seems more on preparing for end of the year conference and state championship meets, over regular season dual meet results. There's a lot of emphasis on posting seed times, particularly in relays.
Here in FL, high swimmers are limited to two individual events and two relays per meet. At the same time, they have to participate in a minimum number of regular season meets to qualify for the state district meets. The order of events is fixed also, so it's not like a coach can be overly creative with their line ups.
The year-round club swimmers normally dominate the results on their high school teams, but it's nice to see coaches slot the part-time "in-season" swimmers into meets and give them a chance to compete also.
I'm a Florida high school swimming official and work a couple of dual meets every week during the high school season.
In high school (and college for that matter), the emphasis these days seems more on preparing for end of the year conference and state championship meets, over regular season dual meet results. There's a lot of emphasis on posting seed times, particularly in relays.
Here in FL, high swimmers are limited to two individual events and two relays per meet. At the same time, they have to participate in a minimum number of regular season meets to qualify for the state district meets. The order of events is fixed also, so it's not like a coach can be overly creative with their line ups.
The year-round club swimmers normally dominate the results on their high school teams, but it's nice to see coaches slot the part-time "in-season" swimmers into meets and give them a chance to compete also.
