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
My daughter has been on the Y swim team for the past two summers. They have dual meets and invitationals. The dual meets are required and the invitationals are by choice. I think it is a good set up. The dual meets are only a few hours and the invitationals are only a day. Only the state and national meets go longer then a day and only those who qualify go to those. No one here is going to be the next Olympic gold medalest. At the end of the summer they have a meet that includes parent events. The kids love to see their parents and coaches finally get in the water and swim themselves. It is a great way to end the summer and let kids see the fun in swimming.
On the other hand my nephew is on a swimteam that swims for a total of five hours a day. His meets last several days. The meets are also far away and my sister has to pay to stay at a hotol during the meet. This is on top of spending much more on team fees then I do for my daughter.
I also know of local schools that have a 5:00 morning practice and an afterschool practice. Every swimmer must go to all the practices or they don't swim in a meet. What is this teaching our children? I know of an adult who was a member of a swim team like this and now hates swimming. I have been trying to get her to try masters and she just doesn't want to do it. Are these pracitce schedules really teaching children to be life long swimmers. If a swimmer chooses to want to swim like this for their chance at Olympic gold then it should be there for the swimmer to acheive thier gold. But to force all swimmers to swim like this and pretty much giving them no choice or they don't swim meets then I think the set up is going to far.
My daughter has been on the Y swim team for the past two summers. They have dual meets and invitationals. The dual meets are required and the invitationals are by choice. I think it is a good set up. The dual meets are only a few hours and the invitationals are only a day. Only the state and national meets go longer then a day and only those who qualify go to those. No one here is going to be the next Olympic gold medalest. At the end of the summer they have a meet that includes parent events. The kids love to see their parents and coaches finally get in the water and swim themselves. It is a great way to end the summer and let kids see the fun in swimming.
On the other hand my nephew is on a swimteam that swims for a total of five hours a day. His meets last several days. The meets are also far away and my sister has to pay to stay at a hotol during the meet. This is on top of spending much more on team fees then I do for my daughter.
I also know of local schools that have a 5:00 morning practice and an afterschool practice. Every swimmer must go to all the practices or they don't swim in a meet. What is this teaching our children? I know of an adult who was a member of a swim team like this and now hates swimming. I have been trying to get her to try masters and she just doesn't want to do it. Are these pracitce schedules really teaching children to be life long swimmers. If a swimmer chooses to want to swim like this for their chance at Olympic gold then it should be there for the swimmer to acheive thier gold. But to force all swimmers to swim like this and pretty much giving them no choice or they don't swim meets then I think the set up is going to far.
