What Is Wrong With Swimming??

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 agree with many of these points but as a former "age group" swimmer and current parent of "age group" swimmer. I think many more USA swim clubs should consider dual/tri meets as an alternative to the current meet format. This is preferable to the unending heats described in the article. The team element keeps it exciting, reduces the number of participants so that the meets complete within two hours, etc. Many other good points. BTW, I've noticed a trend here in New England where the number of boys in the younger age groups is increasing from the lows of several years ago. In fact, boys now outnumber girls in a few 12 and under age groups at some of the larger clubs. Most cite the growing popularity of jammers as the primary reason.

Originally posted by Dennis Tesch 2. We need to change the majority of our competitions. Ninty percent of our meets need to be short and more often. I'm on the fence on this one. I agree the all weekend long meets are tough--especially on parents--but the downside to the short meets would be even less emphasis on the distance events, which I think would be a shame.

No, I don't think short meets would marginalize distance events; distance events actually lend themselves to short "theme" meets. Often the 1500 or 800 are held on the Friday night of a 3 day meet, which in itself is like a mini meet.

Most cite the growing popularity of jammers The first thing I tell the mothers of 10-12 year old boys is to get them some jammers. It makes all the difference between them wearing baggies and not swimming at all. Next thing is I tell them to get clear or amber goggles for our indoor pool.

Good point Dennis. I like your idea.

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

Good point Leonard, and if you are in an area that you have to travel at least 2 hours to get to a meet, you don't want to be doing that every weekend. As a parent to an 11 and 16 year old swimmer, this article sure has hit home. Our team's smallest group is the little kids. The teenagers have become a little apathetic because they are tired of giving all their time to swimming

I worry about the distance events being left out of the short meet formats. But why not start the season of with a 500 freestyle and 400 IM 2 hour meet. The only two events offered at the meet. Then the next meet is a backstroke meet, with the 200, 100, and 50 backstrokes. The next week would be breaststroke.... I would almost bet that this would help coaches promote the all around swimmer, by making their athlete compete in every stroke and every distance. You could hold pentathlon contest over the combined times of all the meets. Reward swimmers for competing in their best events, but also reward swimmers for becoming stong all around swimmers. There are endless ways to reward the swimmers in this type of system....

This has been an interesting tangent, but how about the core of the article's thesis? We are arranging things the way they have always been. That caters to the convenience of the swim coach. It reproduces similar conditions over and over again (to the crashing boredom of most potential fans) to ensure strictly fair competition. It maximizers the swims and opportunities for the very best swimmers, and everyone else gets to live with the consequences and the leftovers. Let me ask you, why are 99% of all swim teams run like every kid wants to make the Olympics? As "What is Wrong with Swimming" suggests, the key objective on most clubs is to throw lots of conditioning at new swimmers to get their bodies to the point where they can handle 2 per day workouts, 6-7 days per week, with ever increasing yardage as they mature. WHY? That makes sense if every kid is another Michael Phelps, but they are not, nor should they even want to be. How are intelligent t-ball and little league teams organized? Don't they focus on teaching fundamental skills and giving the kids a chance to play with the game and have fun? Couldn't a swim team offer a beginners program with practices (not "work-outs") 3 times per week, time trials within the team, and culminating with one actual meet? Another radical suggestion, our meets are crashing bores. Does the Catholic Church start out people who are new to the faith with a 4 hour mass in latin? Don't think so. Moreover, you can read the heat sheets and predict the order of finish with pretty fair accuracy at most invitational meets. A coronation march has more drama and variety. Most other sports tolerate a much higher level of randomness and bad breaks influencing the outcome of their games. For example, why are we so hung up on "fairness" that we toss fast times from "Top Ten" consideration (which is itself a barstooling concept that has as much, or as little, meaning as you put into it) because the bendy bulkhead made the course one centimeter short? I'm not suggesting we randomly toss spectators into the pool just to mess people up (but some of the crowd control in the Tour de France, bicycling's premier event, has a similar effect on the race). I am suggesting some of our hang-ups have got us thinking in a microscopic box. How about races that get away from the clock only? Suppose you have a distance per stroke race that adds the time in seconds to complete the race to the number of strokes used to complete it. Ever wonder why the IMs are often the most interesting races? Because people have different levels of skill with each stroke, and you are never really sure who is ahead when the trailing swimmer has his best stroke coming up. Please, look up from the teeny-weeny issues we are comfortable discussing in microscopic detail, and really start to imagine the possible. Matt