Saw one of the more interesting articles about the past, present, and future aspects of competitive swimming on SwimInfo's website the other day from Wayne Goldsmith..
www.swiminfo.com/.../7720.asp
I think it provokes a great deal of thought in this arena and specifically within this group since many of us either participate, have friends/relatives who participate, or remember participating in competitive swim meets.
I particularly appreciate the parents perspective provided in the article. While I have little children (5 and almost 3 years old), the thought of going through what my parents did with me makes me hesitate to sign up for the first set of SwimAmerica lessons or summer club swim team to introduce them to swimming. While I swam through my school age years, I didn't really consider just what my parents had to go through right along with me.. I was always thinking about what i was going through. Wow!
Check out the article and see what you think...
Rob
I loved this article - actually sent it out to all the masters swimmers in Utah. There needs to be some kind of change in swimming to attract the new kids and their families. Two areas I think we can change are sport are:
1. Find a way to make it more team oriented. It is hard for the general masses to become a "fan" of swimming. Most people admire the individual accomplishments of one of our superstars (a.k Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz, etc.), but they are not fans. Fan's are people that walk away from a competition (live or watched on tv) say that "their" team won.... It is very difficult to have the same association with a single swimmer. (I'm not sure this is possible, since swimming is such an individual sport, but I'm working on ideas).
2. We need to change the majority of our competitions. Ninty percent of our meets need to be short and more often. Maybe mirror soccer schedules with age group teams. The other ten percent should be our championship meets, were they are longer and we swim all the events. I think more people can deal with championship meets once and while, than a bunch of long invitationals through out the year. The first 75 % of the season can be single stroke or distance style dual/tri meets which only last hour and are once a week, maybe twice. (I personally don't think we race enough as swimmers, that's the old coach in me). The last part of the season is all about taper and getting ready for the one big meet....
Every parent wants their children to learn how to swim. The only problem is that learning how to swim doesn't always mean being a part of a team. When you join baseball, football, soccer you learn skills and also participate on the competitive level. This rarely happens in swimming. Maybe we need to start at an even more beginning level......
I loved this article - actually sent it out to all the masters swimmers in Utah. There needs to be some kind of change in swimming to attract the new kids and their families. Two areas I think we can change are sport are:
1. Find a way to make it more team oriented. It is hard for the general masses to become a "fan" of swimming. Most people admire the individual accomplishments of one of our superstars (a.k Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz, etc.), but they are not fans. Fan's are people that walk away from a competition (live or watched on tv) say that "their" team won.... It is very difficult to have the same association with a single swimmer. (I'm not sure this is possible, since swimming is such an individual sport, but I'm working on ideas).
2. We need to change the majority of our competitions. Ninty percent of our meets need to be short and more often. Maybe mirror soccer schedules with age group teams. The other ten percent should be our championship meets, were they are longer and we swim all the events. I think more people can deal with championship meets once and while, than a bunch of long invitationals through out the year. The first 75 % of the season can be single stroke or distance style dual/tri meets which only last hour and are once a week, maybe twice. (I personally don't think we race enough as swimmers, that's the old coach in me). The last part of the season is all about taper and getting ready for the one big meet....
Every parent wants their children to learn how to swim. The only problem is that learning how to swim doesn't always mean being a part of a team. When you join baseball, football, soccer you learn skills and also participate on the competitive level. This rarely happens in swimming. Maybe we need to start at an even more beginning level......
