I am looking for information on how to become more involved in the age-group swimming community, i.e., becoming an official or working at a swim meet, etc.
I don't have children, so I don't know the first thing about what I should do and I did not find any useful information on the U.S. Swimming website.
Does anyone have any advice? Thank you.
Parents
Former Member
Bob, I don't deny that horrible things have happened to children in the past. For me, I grew up in a small town - Hastings, NE pop 25,000 where everyone knew my family - very low crime rate and swimming was huge. Even people that didn't have kids worked at the meets in some function.
So I guess I should have said that I live in a different world rather than the use of the royal "we."
In college, I worked as a lifeguard during the summer months in Lincoln, NE. There were these 2 little girls - sisters. The younger one always had big bruises on her back and the older one was extremely protective of her. They would come to the pool right when we opened and they stayed all day long, only eating from the vending machine. Even then it wasn't hard to suspect some sort of physical abuse from someone in this little girl's life.
The pool manager, was a teacher, and I told him about my suspicions and concerns. I thought that as a teacher he would know how to call or where to get help for these little girls. He basically told me it was none of my business.
The next summer, he hired all of the life guards back, except me. To this day, I wonder what became of those little girls and I regret not being more forceful or going to someone else.
Bob, I don't deny that horrible things have happened to children in the past. For me, I grew up in a small town - Hastings, NE pop 25,000 where everyone knew my family - very low crime rate and swimming was huge. Even people that didn't have kids worked at the meets in some function.
So I guess I should have said that I live in a different world rather than the use of the royal "we."
In college, I worked as a lifeguard during the summer months in Lincoln, NE. There were these 2 little girls - sisters. The younger one always had big bruises on her back and the older one was extremely protective of her. They would come to the pool right when we opened and they stayed all day long, only eating from the vending machine. Even then it wasn't hard to suspect some sort of physical abuse from someone in this little girl's life.
The pool manager, was a teacher, and I told him about my suspicions and concerns. I thought that as a teacher he would know how to call or where to get help for these little girls. He basically told me it was none of my business.
The next summer, he hired all of the life guards back, except me. To this day, I wonder what became of those little girls and I regret not being more forceful or going to someone else.
