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
Parents
Former Member
I wonder... While having shorter meets seems desirable on one level, might there not be a problem with parents feeling like they have to constantly be going to meets. Although the meets are shorter, spreading them out means that you are going to have to plan more dates around swimming. The attendent overhead of getting the kids ready, to the meet, fed, home, cleanup, etc kills more total time surrounding the meets than a larger meet held less often. Having things spread out might also mean that if little Suzy is pretty good at all 4 strokes, she might not get to swim in, say, the backstroke sprint meet because of her sister's soccer game.
-LBJ
I wonder... While having shorter meets seems desirable on one level, might there not be a problem with parents feeling like they have to constantly be going to meets. Although the meets are shorter, spreading them out means that you are going to have to plan more dates around swimming. The attendent overhead of getting the kids ready, to the meet, fed, home, cleanup, etc kills more total time surrounding the meets than a larger meet held less often. Having things spread out might also mean that if little Suzy is pretty good at all 4 strokes, she might not get to swim in, say, the backstroke sprint meet because of her sister's soccer game.
-LBJ
