Swim Rant

Maybe I should clarify or risk losing my status as an uncaring blowhard (could be too late to reverse that perception). This relates to Summer League only, not year round. First, I'm never gonna DQ a 6 and under and will make no apologies for that. If any of you judges does that, well, you can stuff yourself. No shrimp is gonna learn a life lesson from that. Oh, and if you DQ my 4 year old, I'm coming after you with a friend who is big and can fight. I'll watch from behind him/her. Next, I carefully watch the first couple of heats, as that is when the fast swimmers go in our league. Most of these are year rounders anyway. I give pretty wide leniency on the 7/8s and much much less as the age groups get older. However, if I see some kid in the last heat doing his/her level best and doing a pretty fair semblance of the stroke as it was intended, I'm damn sure gonna let it slide. Blatant turn issues, early leaving, wrong stroke, wrong kick and I'll DQ them. My philosophy is to remember the general nature of Summer League. Most of these kids swim 2 months a year, do it for both the exercise and fun of being with their friends. I'm not gonna be some ogre and read them the letter of the law and toss them. We have a kid in our division who is disabled. He swims the 50 free and 50 back. The kids adore him. He's always last and he always does a version of the stroke. When you see 300 kids standing and cheering for him every single meet, you really kind of keep it all in perspective about the whole DQ thing. Now, USS meets are a different story, chuck 'em all. BTW - tennis is a rotten example. If ever a sport had more controversy about calls I can't name it. There was even a big article last week on the error rate of cyclops at Wimbledon. John McEnroe might have a different take on that.

Maybe I should clarify or risk losing my status as an uncaring blowhard (could be too late to reverse that perception). This relates to Summer League only, not year round. First, I'm never gonna DQ a 6 and under and will make no apologies for that. If any of you judges does that, well, you can stuff yourself. No shrimp is gonna learn a life lesson from that. Oh, and if you DQ my 4 year old, I'm coming after you with a friend who is big and can fight. I'll watch from behind him/her. Next, I carefully watch the first couple of heats, as that is when the fast swimmers go in our league. Most of these are year rounders anyway. I give pretty wide leniency on the 7/8s and much much less as the age groups get older. However, if I see some kid in the last heat doing his/her level best and doing a pretty fair semblance of the stroke as it was intended, I'm damn sure gonna let it slide. Blatant turn issues, early leaving, wrong stroke, wrong kick and I'll DQ them. My philosophy is to remember the general nature of Summer League. Most of these kids swim 2 months a year, do it for both the exercise and fun of being with their friends. I'm not gonna be some ogre and read them the letter of the law and toss them. We have a kid in our division who is disabled. He swims the 50 free and 50 back. The kids adore him. He's always last and he always does a version of the stroke. When you see 300 kids standing and cheering for him every single meet, you really kind of keep it all in perspective about the whole DQ thing. Now, USS meets are a different story, chuck 'em all. BTW - tennis is a rotten example. If ever a sport had more controversy about calls I can't name it. There was even a big article last week on the error rate of cyclops at Wimbledon. John McEnroe might have a different take on that.