The Demise of Mens Swimming in the US

Interesting discussion. I'm sure there are many factors that can account for the differences. Here are my observations of swimming here in rural Nevada. In the past, most of our boys dropped out of swimming by high school so they can play high school sports. Even though Nevada has high school swimming we are one of the few 4A schools that doesn't have a team so the age group club was their only opportunity to compete in swimming. So the 15 and over kids on our age group team was mostly girls and one or two boys that would stick it out in spite of peer pressure. Then one of our boys who had stuck it out through high school walked on the swim team at Arizona. He was a good athlete and if he had quit swimming he probably would have been a good high school football or basketball player (he did play on the golf team). Instead he chose swimming. Now he's a senior at U of Arizona and has qualified for the NCAA's both last year and this year and also has qualified for the Trials. His success has been a factor in keeping more of our high school age boys active on our club and we now have more boys than girls. Sometimes it takes a role model they can relate to to keep them interested.

What do you think causes the disparity? John Smith Excellent question, I have no idea whatsoever. I definitely acknowledge the disparity but I don't see it as the demise of the sport as you do. I think a better thing for you to research (not me, I'm beat on the number crunching) is some times comparison of 197X versus now. Now, I know you feel swimming had it's hey day back then (oddly enough that corresponds exactly to your hey day) and wish to discount all current exceptional achievement due to advances such as goggles, chlorinated pools, tech suits, starting blocks, etc. I see a whole lot of fast boys swimming every day so I don't think there is any male crisis. And, if you are a teen boy, what is a better sport for, um, mingling than swimming? Heck, if you are an adult boy, for that matter, although I will acknowledge I did lose my man card credibility when I didn't appropriately oogle (S)he-man at the recent meet.

So many swimmers now they have to qualify to enter a meet. They even have to qualify to swim in a club. Too many want to swim and only so much room. The club I used to swim for trained in 1 pool used four lanes for one hour 4 days a week. Now they use 4 or 5 pools two workouts a day in all these pools and have times set aside for several levels of swimmer.

Geek: As I recall, there were two subjects to the original post -- wife and tri-bike. If for no other reason than the sake of clarity, you may want to point out to which of those two you were referring in the above sentence. :rofl:

Our Masters coach is also one of the coaches for the 600-kid age-group program. Last night at practice I asked him about the ratio of boys to girls on their "elite" team. He said it's right at 50-50. Anna Lea

Geek, You need to normalize your data and take out the US general population increase since the mid 70s. Right now its about 300 million www.census.gov/.../popclockus.html In say 1972 (when I was 10)...... a great year by the way..... the general population was about 210 million www.census.gov/.../popclockest.txt Thats an increase of around 42%. How does this growth compare to the growth of US swimming? John Smith

Dorthyrde, Careful making any statements about effects on budgeting from Title IX. You will be shot down as a woman hater very quickly. John Smith

Geek, Then going all the way back to the beginning of this thread. Give us your thoughts on the variance between boys and girls at this years Junior Nationals. What do you think causes the disparity? John Smith

Back to topic: At the age group level there seem to be an equal amount. I think the best male athletes have a hard time staying in this sport due to pressures of playing more "socially acceptable" sports for males. I can't count the nmber of times I have seen talented 10 and under boys and 11-12 boys basically quit. It is not because of video games, that is too easy an answer. It is just not cool to talk to their friends (unless they are other swimmers) about their swimming events since none of their friends understand the sport in the first place. Like it or not, kids want to fit in. I think Sam has said it best. There may be a lot of broad-based participation (a good thing) but many of the top athletes abandon the sport. I doubt that this is going to lead to its down fall. But I don't ever see swimming challenging other sports for popularity, either. Lets face it, we have a niche sport. Best thing going for us on a national level is that it will take just a handful of standouts to bolster our Olympic team. Sounds like many of the will come from the Potomac Valley!

Illinois has some really good swimmers coming out of it. However, the whole state is struggling with pool issues. Building new ones is a big issue. Agreed. Somewhere recently I read that Los Angeles and New York each have two public long course pools. Sydney, Australia has 20 (or was it 40?). Swimming there is very much a part of the culture. Here it truly is a niche sport. If the US only had 20 million people like Australia does we'd be toast at major international competitions. Ah, here's the reference: Summer in Sydney When we still lived in Scotia, NY (about 20 miles west of Albany) we tried to get the school district to build a pool as part of a major renovation of the high school/middle school complex which included lots of updating of the sports facilities. They were having none of that. Our girls team practiced at the local YMCA. There was, at the time, one boy who swam. (Needless to say, the school didn't have a boys team.) I think they let him swim at girls meets so he could get qualifying times for postseason meets. All three of my boys swam outdoors during the summer at Ridgewood Swim Club but not during the indoor season. OTOH, Karly Brooks started swimming at Ridgewood and now swims for the University of Georgia. Besides being extraordinarily talented, Karly had lots of outlets for her swimming interest. I can understand that it wasn't cool for boys to swim. Skip