College Swim Team Maybe???

Matt, First, please, enlighten us where you are going to school. There is a world of difference between, oh say ... the Univ of Michigan--Ann Arbor and Lake Forest College. The former trains people for the U.S. Olympic Trials; the later you can walk-on with few if any preconditions. It is very hard for us to give you advice if we do not in what realm your goals are. Second, there is a much better source of information about your college's team than a bunch of semi-informed posters on web site. Ask one of the coaches on the team: (1) can I swim for you my freshman year, and (2) if not what would you recommend so I can swim for you my sophmore year. The coaches knows a lot more about what they want in a swimmer for their program, and may be aware of local teams or resources that have eluded all of us. Go straight to the horse's mouth for this kind of stuff. Third, as someone who went through almost exactly what you have done, I urge you to swim with the team your freshman year if at all possible. I started competitive swimming at 15, my sophmore year, with the HS team. By my senior year, I made District finals in one indivdual event and on the relay I swam. I knew I wanted to keep swimming in college and that meant Div III for me. So I kept looking until I found a school that had a Div III team and met my academic needs--Lake Forest College--and I lettered all 4 years there. I was never one of the big guns, but I contributed and being on the team is one of my most cherished memories of college. Obviously, you have already picked your school, and I am sure you have a number of reasons more important than whether you can swim for them. However, I have to tell you that not swimming on the team your freshman year dramatically reduces the chances of your swimming for them your sophmore, junior or senior year. What I saw at LFC was lots of folks who started swimming on the team their freshman year, then dropped out later in their college careers. I cannot recall one teammate (except maybe a transfer student) who did not swim with us his/her freshman year, and then finished even so much as one complete season later on. Yes, you can work out on your own. Maybe you can find a club or a masters team that keeps you interested in swimming, and is demanding enough to permit you to improve your times, and conditions in 2003 are different than they were in 1979. But, I have to tell you, based on what I saw, it's pretty unlikely. Moreover, why would you even want to work out on your own if you had the option to join the college team? Call it camaraderie, team spirit, (shared suffering, perhaps?); there is an inexpressible difference between the friendships you will form in college and those from any other time in your life. This makes a college team unlike anything else you will experience in your swimming career. Try to think back to when you were 10 or 11 years old. Try to imagine your birthday party, and deciding that you were going to return 1/4 of the presents, unopened, for some unexpressed reason. Could you do that? Sure, but imagine the profound sense of disappointment a kid would feel about that. That is the only way I can describe my perplexity at the suggestion you want to skip your freshman year. WHY?!! Whatever path you take, good luck with your college career. It is your life. You get to decide what you want to pursue (in swimming, or anything else for that matter). Yes, match up your means to your ends and decide what is feasible, but follow the path that appeals to you, and not what anyone else thinks you should be doing. Matt

Matt, First, please, enlighten us where you are going to school. There is a world of difference between, oh say ... the Univ of Michigan--Ann Arbor and Lake Forest College. The former trains people for the U.S. Olympic Trials; the later you can walk-on with few if any preconditions. It is very hard for us to give you advice if we do not in what realm your goals are. Second, there is a much better source of information about your college's team than a bunch of semi-informed posters on web site. Ask one of the coaches on the team: (1) can I swim for you my freshman year, and (2) if not what would you recommend so I can swim for you my sophmore year. The coaches knows a lot more about what they want in a swimmer for their program, and may be aware of local teams or resources that have eluded all of us. Go straight to the horse's mouth for this kind of stuff. Third, as someone who went through almost exactly what you have done, I urge you to swim with the team your freshman year if at all possible. I started competitive swimming at 15, my sophmore year, with the HS team. By my senior year, I made District finals in one indivdual event and on the relay I swam. I knew I wanted to keep swimming in college and that meant Div III for me. So I kept looking until I found a school that had a Div III team and met my academic needs--Lake Forest College--and I lettered all 4 years there. I was never one of the big guns, but I contributed and being on the team is one of my most cherished memories of college. Obviously, you have already picked your school, and I am sure you have a number of reasons more important than whether you can swim for them. However, I have to tell you that not swimming on the team your freshman year dramatically reduces the chances of your swimming for them your sophmore, junior or senior year. What I saw at LFC was lots of folks who started swimming on the team their freshman year, then dropped out later in their college careers. I cannot recall one teammate (except maybe a transfer student) who did not swim with us his/her freshman year, and then finished even so much as one complete season later on. Yes, you can work out on your own. Maybe you can find a club or a masters team that keeps you interested in swimming, and is demanding enough to permit you to improve your times, and conditions in 2003 are different than they were in 1979. But, I have to tell you, based on what I saw, it's pretty unlikely. Moreover, why would you even want to work out on your own if you had the option to join the college team? Call it camaraderie, team spirit, (shared suffering, perhaps?); there is an inexpressible difference between the friendships you will form in college and those from any other time in your life. This makes a college team unlike anything else you will experience in your swimming career. Try to think back to when you were 10 or 11 years old. Try to imagine your birthday party, and deciding that you were going to return 1/4 of the presents, unopened, for some unexpressed reason. Could you do that? Sure, but imagine the profound sense of disappointment a kid would feel about that. That is the only way I can describe my perplexity at the suggestion you want to skip your freshman year. WHY?!! Whatever path you take, good luck with your college career. It is your life. You get to decide what you want to pursue (in swimming, or anything else for that matter). Yes, match up your means to your ends and decide what is feasible, but follow the path that appeals to you, and not what anyone else thinks you should be doing. Matt