What Is Wrong With Swimming??

Hi all, In New England swimming, some of theses ideas have been running for YEARS! I remember distance meets, freestyle meets, 10 and under meets, run as part of the yearly meet schedule. I think we called them "specialty meets". Sometimes meets were run the races that age groupers in the younger brackets could swim some of the bigger races, 8-13 year olds get to swim 400 IM's, distance free, the 200's etc. It was a really good experience and the meets didn't run as long as a full meet. For the what it's worth department I suppose, Ali

Summer rec teams in Phoenix are very popular. Just the type of format, time commitment, and recreation that many of you have addressed. It amazes me to watch kids at those meets having the time of their life and creating lifelong memories and comparing to age group meets with kids the same age not having fun at all. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this dynamic, just thought I'd throw it out. One example of "Fun" is the parent's relay at the end of the summer season. It is a ball and the kids love cheering on their parents. Have we ever seen this at USS meets? Don't get me wrong, swimming takes a great deal of comittment and seriuosness, but with that comes having fun and I think many USS programs are forgetting that.

This article really bugged me, yes it made me think but come on.. As a lifelong swimmers, we probably all had the realization at some point in our lives that this sport was probably not going to make us rich and earn us fame, even the Olypians probably did not start because they wanted to be famous..At some point thay realized they were really good and decided to committ to their dreams through alot of hard work and determination Interesting, people join a club team, most of which have been existing sometime before they joined, and joining that team, they expect to do a program that works for them.. We hear this all the time in club coaching- people expect to do what they want and not do the program the way the coach has set up, which is totally bogus..could you imagine showing up to a football practice and telling the coach..you know, I really am not liking the whole tackling thing, maybe I should be the qaurterback, yea OK! Somebody had made a statement that these kids are forced to do what the coaches want or how they set up the program..No kidding, that's why they are the head coach of an established program...what they do seems to work for everybody, not just little Johnny (what's Johnny gonna do in the relal worl when the Boss comes knocking?). Someone also said that swimming only places emphasis on winners and only one can be a winner.. what society are we living in where we are all winners? the big four (soccer,baseball,football and basketball) all have major world championships for their repective winners!! what is bigger than the Superbowl? Swimming teaches the true fact: There is always someone a little bigger,stronger and faster and you have no control over that and the sooner we deal with that, the sooner we can focus on being the best that we can be... Last part of the article that really irked me.. "Kids are different."? Kids are not different, yes they are taller on average, have higher SAT Scores on average and much are more profficient on computers than we are, but in essence don't they still need: Discipline, to be taught proper ethics and morals, to be praised when they do something well and to be taught when they have done someting wrong, to have a place (like swim practice) where they can be themselves, have friends, be safe and set high standards for themselves and lastly to have people (like swim coaches and parents) who have high expectations of them?.. I believe it's the parents who have to change..not the sports, not the kids.. the parents need to get tougher!

My take on Kipp's comments: 1) I don't see a problem per se with approach to training (in fact my comments are all directed at meets rather than training). One can find club with different approaches to training and/or offering different levels of participation. 2) Personally, as a swimming parent I've found that coach-owned and coach-runned clubs have been better for my kids than parent run organizations. I think it helps to have someone in charge who is very swimming knowledgeable. 3) I can't imagine that many people (coaches, swimmers or parents) think that these long meets are one of the highlights of one's swimming career. Most of remember the "team" element of swimming (relays, close duel meets, conference championships, nationals, etc) as the best part of our competition days. I think we need to introduce some of this "team element" into club swimming--that does require different meet formats.

Matt S - I love you thoughts!!!!! I just put my child in her first swimming lessons (besides the ones I give her) and I am realizing that this is where we make our mistakes. Providing positive reinforcement for kids is easy, but we set up 99% of our kids for failure. We try so hard as coaches to get kids to think about the final outcome (Olympics), when we can motivate legions of kids with much smaller and more satisfying outcomes. Why aren't we putting together meets that reward skill level and accomplishment... not who swam across the pool the fastest. That is why "team sports" will always be more fun to the masses. Every kid has a chance to make a basket or hit the ball. Swimming there is only one winner. We tell a great majority of our swimmer that they are losers, just by making them compete for place. We need to get creative and think out of the box, to keep kids interested and excited about being in swimming.

All good points. One lesson to be drawn from the relative success of HS, REC and to some extent Y swimming is that these programs are organized to encourage participation and promote fun. Most of the complaints I hear from swimming parents of younger children concerns the meets and not the training aspects (most USA programs require no more than 2 practices up to 1 hour each for the younger swimmers). The meets are unbearably long for all but the few diehards (btw, I am one of the die-hards). Swimmers do need to compete in meets at all ages. But I still think that dual-meet, tri-meet formats overcomes most of the objections about meets. Rivals can be local thereby eliminating the long drives. Dual meet format keeps the meets within the two hour range. All of these metrics compare favorably to other sports...in fact emphasis on dual meets would make swimming look better compared to ice hocky, soccer, lacrosse travel teams.

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.

Originally posted by Dennis Tesch Swimming there is only one winner. We tell a great majority of our swimmer that they are losers, just by making them compete for place. I am totally going to disagree with this comment. With this kind of thinking you are setting your children up for failure. I am in the process of teaching my child that it is not coming in first that makes you a winner, but getting in the water and doing your best is what makes you a winner. The only losers out there are those who don't give it a try and the parents who think that their child is a winner only when they come in first. Yes it is great when you come in first and yes it can be disappointing to not place first. You can teach your children to enjoy swimming and be proud of their accomplishments even if they come in last all the time. Everytime I swim or run a race my daughter always ask me if I came in first. Because I am slow I have to tell her no but that I am still happy with what I have accomplished that day. I hope she learns by example that being a winner is not always coming in first.

As a parent who agrees with the article and posted words above, I have to say that I am NOT sorry I got my kids into swimming. The things they have learned from this sport and the good friendships they have achieved far outways the negative. Plus I never would have started swimming myself if they had not turned into swimmers!

I agree with SWinkleblech on his feelings about teaching kids on finding the success in all they do. I think many of our coaches try to teach this. I was just trying to point out, in general society, that a sport like swimming only focus's on the winner. It is rare that the second place person gets the interviews, the accolades, the sponsorships, the face on the Wheates box. I find that the athletes that take second, third, etc typically develop great skills to deal with life. Many of them become more successful later in life. Team sports will always be able to provide more avenues to experience success on an individual and team level than sports like ours.... I hope we can find ways to prove this statement wrong.