George asked whether age group swimmers are being bullied/pressured into swimming by parents, coaches and friends. Are they? Are parents living out their "unfulfilled dreams" through their young ones, as Geek suggested in another thread? Share your funniest/saddest story about overbearing swim parents or coaches.
At the age group club where Dave "chaos" Barra and I are volunteer coaches, we've recruited three parents - including the board prez -- to join us as volunteer coaches. I'm mentoring them and they're swimming too. Now that they're standing behind the blocks at practice, seeing what the coaches see and dealing with what they deal with, they totally get it and have become invaluable ambassadors to the other parents. We used to get the questions about why we weren't doing more yardage. Our parent-coaches now see how irrelevant the question is until the kids can do fundamentals - technique, stroke counting, knowing their time and the interval - correctly AND pay attention and stay on task.
Actually here in Illinois this would be an issue in our LSC. Only registered coaches with Illinois Swimming are insured to coach on deck. ISI says that having volunteer coaches of this nature is a liability issue and would not allow this.
At the age group club where Dave "chaos" Barra and I are volunteer coaches, we've recruited three parents - including the board prez -- to join us as volunteer coaches. I'm mentoring them and they're swimming too. Now that they're standing behind the blocks at practice, seeing what the coaches see and dealing with what they deal with, they totally get it and have become invaluable ambassadors to the other parents. We used to get the questions about why we weren't doing more yardage. Our parent-coaches now see how irrelevant the question is until the kids can do fundamentals - technique, stroke counting, knowing their time and the interval - correctly AND pay attention and stay on task.
Actually here in Illinois this would be an issue in our LSC. Only registered coaches with Illinois Swimming are insured to coach on deck. ISI says that having volunteer coaches of this nature is a liability issue and would not allow this.
