I remember P Mulins the author maybe I missed spelled his name talking about swimming being a white upper-middle class sport and the country club set. I guess he had not met Shirley Bashashoff that came from a blue collar background. Anyway, swimmers in elite circles tend to be more from upper-middle families than the non-elite. In high school programs, their are plenty of them from the barrio and the ghetto. Also, he seems to think swimming is divided between whites and blacks. In his state, both Latinos and Asians outnumber blacks. And Latinos are the group lowest on the income level in that state and Arizona mainly done to immirgation. I think the swimming world is seeing that in the states, its not a black and white world anymore,even in the south asians and latins have increase.
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American swimming is strong primarily because of our strong college program. We are steadily losing college teams for various reasons, but if swimming were more popular these reasons would not be good enough. Good college programs allow swimmers to swim in the prime of their life, when otherwise they would be studying somewhere with no swimming, or working. It is not clear that our club system can replace our college system.
American swimming was strong 40 years ago because few other countries had swimmers at all. Now many other countries have large swimming programs, and my impression is that things are more competitive than ever. I doubt that the U.S. is more dominant now than it was then. We certainly underperform relative to our population and wealth, when compared to countries like Australia, Netherlands, or Sweden.
If you want the best athletes swimming, you need to have large participation at all levels from all groups.
If you are comfortable with limited participation you will also have to be comfortable with reduced international performance.
If you comfortable with limited participation, you will also have to be comfortable with fewer adults taking advantage of one of the best exercises around.
Finally, pointing out that this sport is "white, white, white" is not race baiting, it is pointing out the obvious. Why do people ignore or deny what is in front of their face? I can't imagine what I could have said that was race baiting (silly is another matter . . ), but the subject was certainly swimming. Finally, aquageek reads far more into my posts than is there. I swim myself, as he well knows, and I don't consider myself, subtly or otherwise, a racist.
(and we are still pretty weak in the #1 world sport, men's soccer.)
American swimming is strong primarily because of our strong college program. We are steadily losing college teams for various reasons, but if swimming were more popular these reasons would not be good enough. Good college programs allow swimmers to swim in the prime of their life, when otherwise they would be studying somewhere with no swimming, or working. It is not clear that our club system can replace our college system.
American swimming was strong 40 years ago because few other countries had swimmers at all. Now many other countries have large swimming programs, and my impression is that things are more competitive than ever. I doubt that the U.S. is more dominant now than it was then. We certainly underperform relative to our population and wealth, when compared to countries like Australia, Netherlands, or Sweden.
If you want the best athletes swimming, you need to have large participation at all levels from all groups.
If you are comfortable with limited participation you will also have to be comfortable with reduced international performance.
If you comfortable with limited participation, you will also have to be comfortable with fewer adults taking advantage of one of the best exercises around.
Finally, pointing out that this sport is "white, white, white" is not race baiting, it is pointing out the obvious. Why do people ignore or deny what is in front of their face? I can't imagine what I could have said that was race baiting (silly is another matter . . ), but the subject was certainly swimming. Finally, aquageek reads far more into my posts than is there. I swim myself, as he well knows, and I don't consider myself, subtly or otherwise, a racist.
(and we are still pretty weak in the #1 world sport, men's soccer.)
