Is Swimming Eating Its Young?

This post has really made me sad. The emphasis today on organized sports is way off base. What I don't see today is kids just playing for the sake of having fun. When we were kids, we would come home after school and "go out and play". I loved playing softball as a kid. We would play for hours without adults, referees, umpires. We played a game of baseball/stickball sometimes with just two people, a pitcher and batter. We played it in the school playground between two three storey brick buildings of the school. A single was below the line on the wall, a double was above the first floor windows, a triple was above the second floor windows etc. It was not only fun, but we were practicing and honing our throwing and catching and batting skills. All this emphasis on games and practice and winning at all costs........makes me crazy. I just retired from over 30 years as a teacher of physical education or adapted physical education at the elementary school level. There are plenty of kids out there who don't know how to skip, or jump rope or climb trees. But they do know about the soccer game on Saturday and the uniform they must have. And they do know how important it all is when they see the adults arguing with each other or worse. Hey, guess what, kids can have arguments in a game and they can figure it out too. It's part of growing and learning. Now all this about age groupers with 6 practices a week and mega yardage I think is also off the mark. Let kids be kids. My father was a gymnast, NJ state champion in 1940. At age 6 or 7 he had me join a gymnastics club. This was around 1956 or so. We met once a week and did a lot of tumbling and mat work. I was OK at it but no super star. I probably stayed with it a year or so and never really was all that interested. My father wisely let it run its course. Interestingly enough I did forgo my senior year of swimming in college in order to join the gymnastics team. And had a wonderful time competing at the parallel bars and floor exercise. I did it because I enjoyed it and as a tribute to my father. He came to several of the meets (and most of my swim meets). My freshman year in HS I wanted to go out for the football team. I'm 5' 10" now and 175, I was probably 5'6" and 135 then. My parents said no. Thank goodness!! I was disapointed at the time, but swimming was a winter sport in NJ and that was the next season, and I knew how to swim, so I went out for the team. We practiced one hour per day from mid November to the first week in March, that was the season. If we did 1500 yards a day we did alot. We didn't even swim circles, we swam waves, i.e. the first group did a 50, then the next group did a 50, then the third group etc. Guess what, we were state champions for ten years in a row and won the Easterns 4 years in a row. My junior year we swam against and beat the Yale freshman and the Princeton freshman. We had numerous All -Americans and three swimmers made the Olympic trials in '68. What I am saying here is that although swimming was important in our town, there was a perspective. No one that I swam with burned out from too much practice. In 1965 our best freestyler went 21.8 in the 50 and 48.8 in the 100 and our breastroker set the national record at 1:01.+ Swimming is a lifetime sport. I have had the pleasure of swimming and competing in masters for 27 years. I do waaay more yardage than I ever did and enjoy getting in the water at 5:30AM. I look forward to swimming everyday. That's what the sport should be about - health, fitness and enjoyment. No one is going to do it if it is a drudgery. Let kids be kids. Whew, I feel better getting that off my chest.

This post has really made me sad. The emphasis today on organized sports is way off base. What I don't see today is kids just playing for the sake of having fun. When we were kids, we would come home after school and "go out and play". I loved playing softball as a kid. We would play for hours without adults, referees, umpires. We played a game of baseball/stickball sometimes with just two people, a pitcher and batter. We played it in the school playground between two three storey brick buildings of the school. A single was below the line on the wall, a double was above the first floor windows, a triple was above the second floor windows etc. It was not only fun, but we were practicing and honing our throwing and catching and batting skills. All this emphasis on games and practice and winning at all costs........makes me crazy. I just retired from over 30 years as a teacher of physical education or adapted physical education at the elementary school level. There are plenty of kids out there who don't know how to skip, or jump rope or climb trees. But they do know about the soccer game on Saturday and the uniform they must have. And they do know how important it all is when they see the adults arguing with each other or worse. Hey, guess what, kids can have arguments in a game and they can figure it out too. It's part of growing and learning. Now all this about age groupers with 6 practices a week and mega yardage I think is also off the mark. Let kids be kids. My father was a gymnast, NJ state champion in 1940. At age 6 or 7 he had me join a gymnastics club. This was around 1956 or so. We met once a week and did a lot of tumbling and mat work. I was OK at it but no super star. I probably stayed with it a year or so and never really was all that interested. My father wisely let it run its course. Interestingly enough I did forgo my senior year of swimming in college in order to join the gymnastics team. And had a wonderful time competing at the parallel bars and floor exercise. I did it because I enjoyed it and as a tribute to my father. He came to several of the meets (and most of my swim meets). My freshman year in HS I wanted to go out for the football team. I'm 5' 10" now and 175, I was probably 5'6" and 135 then. My parents said no. Thank goodness!! I was disapointed at the time, but swimming was a winter sport in NJ and that was the next season, and I knew how to swim, so I went out for the team. We practiced one hour per day from mid November to the first week in March, that was the season. If we did 1500 yards a day we did alot. We didn't even swim circles, we swam waves, i.e. the first group did a 50, then the next group did a 50, then the third group etc. Guess what, we were state champions for ten years in a row and won the Easterns 4 years in a row. My junior year we swam against and beat the Yale freshman and the Princeton freshman. We had numerous All -Americans and three swimmers made the Olympic trials in '68. What I am saying here is that although swimming was important in our town, there was a perspective. No one that I swam with burned out from too much practice. In 1965 our best freestyler went 21.8 in the 50 and 48.8 in the 100 and our breastroker set the national record at 1:01.+ Swimming is a lifetime sport. I have had the pleasure of swimming and competing in masters for 27 years. I do waaay more yardage than I ever did and enjoy getting in the water at 5:30AM. I look forward to swimming everyday. That's what the sport should be about - health, fitness and enjoyment. No one is going to do it if it is a drudgery. Let kids be kids. Whew, I feel better getting that off my chest.