Loved the home page feature on the USMS website today...
www.usms.org/features.php
Since the NCAA Championships are all around us these two weeks, who hasn't thought about our outstanding collegiate swimmers?
But have any of us considered inviting them to join us at masters in their near future?
Masters Swim Clubs in college areas could do all kinds of great things to inspire a retiring collegiate swimmer to join them.
Invite them to talk to the team at a social event would be an easy no-brainer.
But even beyond.
How about asking them to hold a clinic for your club?
And pay them since now they can accept the cash - and probably need it?
What else can we do to entice them to join our clubs (rack up points at the championship meets) and begin the rest of their healthy fit lives?
I am the youngest member of my team at 25. A few issues I see off hand with recruiting the "under 30 crowd" in general:
- Money; a lot of us in my age group don't feel like spending the extra $30 +/month it takes to be on a team (in addition to gym fees, etc.)
- Fitness; a lot of 20 somethings either feel they are in good enough shape currently or do not have the motivation yet to swim for health/fitness reasons.
- Competition; generally the 20 something swimmer falls into one of two categories - really fast ex-swimmer or new adult swimmer. The age group is not very conducive to "middle of the road" type swimmers.
All this is my opinion, based on my experience swimming in USMS. On my team, I fall into the "really fast" category - though I don't feel this would be true at the state and National level Master's competition. It does tend to be hard to get overly motivated when the majority of my teammates are 25+ years older than me and not really at my ability level. Recruiting additional ex college or high school swimmers to my team would certainly up my level of swimming and be good for things all around.
I am the youngest member of my team at 25. A few issues I see off hand with recruiting the "under 30 crowd" in general:
- Money; a lot of us in my age group don't feel like spending the extra $30 +/month it takes to be on a team (in addition to gym fees, etc.)
- Fitness; a lot of 20 somethings either feel they are in good enough shape currently or do not have the motivation yet to swim for health/fitness reasons.
- Competition; generally the 20 something swimmer falls into one of two categories - really fast ex-swimmer or new adult swimmer. The age group is not very conducive to "middle of the road" type swimmers.
All this is my opinion, based on my experience swimming in USMS. On my team, I fall into the "really fast" category - though I don't feel this would be true at the state and National level Master's competition. It does tend to be hard to get overly motivated when the majority of my teammates are 25+ years older than me and not really at my ability level. Recruiting additional ex college or high school swimmers to my team would certainly up my level of swimming and be good for things all around.
