HIgh schools not allowing girls on outside teams

It's been a while... What you have here is a dilemma facing the entire sport. The non-competition clause in the state high school code is just one aspect of the main problem. College and high school teams (college esp.) are trying to dictate the direction of the sport. You can see this everywhere. High school coaches directing their swimmers not to participate in club meets during season, rules forbidding the swimmers to practice with the club teams (usually with a coach that is more qualified and more familiar with the swimmer), colleges AND high schools turning well-rounded swimmers into specialty swimmers. This is not right. A high school level swimmer should learn to swim every event. That is what is good for swimming as a whole. The high school and college coaches do what is good for their team during their season, regardless of what is good for the swimmers' athletic careers. If it weren't for club swimming, there wouldn't be high school and college programs. Do people think that in 9th grade enough kids are just going to say "Hey, let's try to swim" to start a team? They should remember this before biting the hand that feeds them. It isn't fair for the swimmers to make them choose between representing their school on a fun organized team environment and becoming the best swimmer they can be. The best high school teams usually have a community USA club that feeds their program, and qualified coaches that run each (or both) programs. Those swimmers are the lucky few. Hiring practices for the high school coaches need to change as well. USA Swimming should be in control of the direction of the sport in America. High schools don't send swimmers to Zones, Nationals, or the Olympics. Club teams do. Colleges don't send them either, unless it is a program that the swimmer came up through the ranks with because it was a dual college/club program. There are a ton of fantastic college coaches, but face it, D-I coaches are great recruiters first. They get fast swimmers, they don't make those swimmers fast, they were fast already. They then help those swimmers improve (try to improve) during their 4 years at school, but who is to say the swimmers wouldn't have progressed farther under the direction of their club coaches during their college career? Here's a scenario... high schools don't have to hold practice 6x a week. Club coaches at local teams should try to turn the tide, dictate to the high schools who will swim for them. Tell them that they'll discourage participation on H.S. teams unless it is run their way. Practice with the club, swim meets with the H.S. It would be better for the high school to have the swimmers at meets only than not have them at all. -RM

I've gotta say I disagree with many of you. I think a swimmer who decides to represent his or her HS team should devote all their time to that program, and not practice with their club and just go to the HS meets. High school swimming is often the first chance a swimmer has to be part of a true team experience, where you rely on your teammates as well as yourself to win meets. If you are a half-hearted member of your HS team, you're cheating yourself out of a great experience. I'm sure this is the spirit of the rule in many of the states that have this rule: they don't want "virtual teams" where the team members only get together for the competitions. If your high school team doesn't afford the level of competition or training that you require, then by all means opt for the club team, but I don't think it's best to sit on both sides of the fence. Choose one or the other. Remember that the high school season is pretty short. I remember when I was in HS in the '80s it was from November to early March, so it's not like you're sacrificing your entire swimming career to swim HS.

So, its kids that are not from upper-middle class anglo schools that get hurt by limiting them to practice on the high school team only. That's a blanket statement that I just don't buy.

Reading this is interesting to me. I grew up in Va. swimming summer league and USS (with the same coach for both). The HS team was definitely a lesser quality program than the USS team I was on. Additionally, I didn't like the coach, and they also practiced way too early in the AM for my taste. I was sort of interested in swimming for the HS but the negatives outweighed the positives from my perspective. The only way I would have done it would have been to go to the HS meets only, and workout with the USS group but that was not allowed so I just decided not to swim HS. However, I certainly agree with the position that one should not be a half-hearted member of the HS team, because we had the reverse problem on our USS team. Because our HS team had a practice attendance requirement and our USS team did not, several kids would do just the HS practices and still come to the USS meets. (Guess what -- they did really poorly!) It forced our USS coach to institute an attendance policy for kids who chose to swim HS because we were having empty practices. Obviously different locales have different situations. Some HS teams are strong programs, etc. In my case, I don't feel I missed out on anything by not "doing it all" and swimming for both teams. Yes, it might have been nice socially speaking, but I stuck with swimming a lot longer than any of those kids who left our USS group so they could swim HS, and I am the only one of them swimming masters today.

This is one of the best agruments for kids either girls or boys to be able to swim in a non-high school program during the school year. I graduated from Los Amigos high school in the Garden Grove school district which according to current stats has only 20 percent of its populaton that is anglo. My old high school is only 7 percent anglo now. In swimming the Garden Grove district is near the bottom since many kids come from immirgant backgrounds. Anyway, two boys were able to placed at CIF division 4, the slowest division in the LA/OC/Riverside area because they were on year-round teams. One of them did a 22. something in the 50 yard freestyle and the other a 55.0 something in the 100 yard backstroke. So, its kids that are not from upper-middle class anglo schools that get hurt by limiting them to practice on the high school team only.

Splash! Magazine has had a couple of recent issues on just these two topics - High School and USS teams, and minorities in swimming. The articles are quite good, and make it clear that there are issues in both. I will say that at a recent high school championship (not the fastest division) I saw teams with many minorities, many with knee-length surfing shorts. These boys would not be on a USS team, but were having lots of fun. Perhaps allowing role models from USS teams on the HS team could encourage these swimmers, and others, to swim or swim more or swim more seriously.

Here's personal account in regards to why I believe you should be able to swim both. In college one of my water polo team mates started off in High School as a basketball player, quite good ball handling skills, tall and lean his sophomore year he ended up getting injured - no more basketball. He wanted to do some sports thought about swimming, had taken lessons when he was in grade school-but didn't want to wear a speedo. They finally convinced him to swim and seemed like a natural. He took up swimming for a club, played polo and swam High School but also swam club. His senior year he won CIF (I believe 100 free and 100 back) he also qualified for senior nationals and ended up getting a full ride in college. The fact that High School and club swimming are both interlinked - had the High School swimmers never gotten him involved he would have never become a swimmer and have the college opportunities- if he only swam High School and not club he would probably would not have develop his swim skills to the point where he would have colleges looking at him. Add to this the fact that PE and physical activity for children continues to decline any restrictions would help this downward trend.

Matt, Point taken, and I will admitt that I was a little conflicted and not totally sure of having a total solution. For my justification I looked at things in a simplistic american dream - if you are willing to do the work then you should have the oppurtunity to reap the rewards. Someone who wants to workout extra hard to be better then they should have that oppurtunity. I coached High School swimming and water polo in So Cal - the fact is some High Schools recruited swimmers (which of course is against the rules), one neighboring High School even had a Canadian swimmer relocate (not an exchange student) just to train and swim at this public High School and local swim club. It is unfortunate that just like colleges, sometimes the win record is the only justification for a program. I was fortunate enough that our program had enough support that we openly accepted any swimmers (those that could barely swim 25 yards to save themselves to CIF qualifiers). Not everyone swam varsity, this was designated by merit (not just the fastest swimmers, sometimes we kept swimmers out because of discipline issues which allowed slower but harder working individuals swim). If you changed the scenario with your daughter, say she played and trained volleyball since early grade school and now she was told she couldn't play for her High School because she was too good or she would have to choose between playing with her club team or the High School team (knowing that playing with her High School team will only get her exposure to college scouts but playing club will get her exposure to state,regional or national team scouts....okay its a bit simplistic but hopefully my point is taken) wouldn't you rather have her limits based upon her merits and abilities.

Jeff, I've been biding my time to make this point, and you have provided the perfect set-up. Thanks for the assist. I'm of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I see the point of those folks (including my old college coach, John Leonard) who want their children to be able to compete for their high school while working out with their club. It is pretty assinine, and smacks of Avery Brundage "shamateurism," to exclude the very best swimmers from high school athletics because high school workouts are not enough for them. On the other hand, there are areas of the country where the club swimming is so strong that anyone who is not already a good club swimmer will have no shot at all making the high school team. Of all people, a pundit on one of those local sports talk shows made this point when he discussed his days playing baseball. He was good enough to be above average on his junior high teams, but when he moved up to high school, all these kids who had made a major commitment to "select team" baseball scarfed-up all the roster spots, and he had no chance. I have seen this myself in GRADE SCHOOL athletics, where my daughter had no chance whatsoever at making the volleyball team. Geez, where is the entry point to the sport when at such young ages you are already cutting half the people interested in participating? To take Jeff's friend, it is great that he had a high school program to provide an entree, but what if his friend grew-up in Mission Viejo? In that area, letting club swimmers in may slam the door shut for everyone else. Now, you can argue that people who want to swim high school in these areas ought to join the clubs at a younger age, and do the work just like everyone else. Is that a feasible approach for every family? What about people who get hurt, or otherwise don't get interested in the sport until a later age? Is it reasonable to expect children to get serious about a sport long before the reach high school to be able to play in high school? What's the answer to that? I do not know. Clearly, the Missouri approach (our practices, and only our practices for the duration of the season) is a crude approach, that if it has this positive effect for some areas, imposes too high a price on a lot of talented swimmers. To those who want to bring in all the ringers wherever they can find them, I would say fast swimming is great, and forming a strong team is an impressive achievement. However, what else is happening in your area that allows beginners to get into the sport? Does your high school have a JV program where everyone swims? Is there a summer league team, where everyone swims? If you have only club swimming, is this a feasible option for everyone who might be interested (or does it simply reinforce the socio-economic/geographic/ethnic patterns in your community)? In some areas of the country, a coach can say just give me the olympic hopefulls and other big guns, and the devil take the rest. (And many coaches would like to be able to say that... You can tell by which swimmers get the majority of their attention.) That is a short-sighted attitude. Where do your "big guns" come from? Would Rowdy Gaines (who started at 15) have a chance in your system? Matt

Jeff,I know what you mean by recruiting. Irvine High school won the mythical title in the girls because they had at least two girls from National Teams like Sinepore or Hong Kong. Granted, I understand why some top swimmers from Asia and Latin America want to swim in the US. But Canada and Europe, that have more the facilities should not be encouraged at the high school level. Matt, in my state the worst swim teams our in heavy hispanic neighborhoods and the best in more Anglo schools. California is also that way except asians are also apart of swimming. Phillip Whittten wrote about the LA CIF being the slowest, these are schools that are mainly hispanic with some of them having large black populations. On the whole, hispanics and blacks in California are not in as demanding teams as white or asians.