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 didn't mean to imply they ALL want a break from swimming. I just think the front page article is kinda dumb.
See, I thought the article was pretty good. I think a lot of us assume that either a. college swimmers already know all about USMS, and/or b. college swimmers aren't interested in masters swimming. The "plea" may have been a little overblown, but I think the author brings up a good point that it can't hurt for current masters swimmers to reach out to the kids who might otherwise be thinking they are done with swimming.
I didn't mean to imply they ALL want a break from swimming. I just think the front page article is kinda dumb. I think most NCAA swimmers know that "Masters" swimming exists. I'm not gonna "plea" for more USMS swimmers from the NCAA ranks.
While the use of the word 'plea' is a little over the top, from my experience most younger (22 and under) swimmers have no idea that Masters swimming exists and those that might know 'of' Masters swimming don't realize exactly what it is.
Back when I did meets, our coach at the time (Ron Johnson) made some deals with the ASU team. They let us use the competition pool, they provided timers (the swim team), and he gave the team any profits from the meet. It was a great system. We had very knowledgeable people timing us, who would sometimes even cheer us on. I remember some of them asking how long I had been swimming, how often I swim, etc. Was a great way to mix us up.
Currently our head masters coach is an assistant women's team coach, and we have a bit of interaction with both the men's and women's teams. I'm sure they're aware we exist, but I don't know how well they know about masters swimming in general.
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'm sure there are lots of college swimmers who need a total break from swimming, but there are many more who would still want to swim if it was a low stress activity they could do on their own terms. These are the ones USMS can reach out to. There's no reason to just assume they all need or want a break from swimming.
I didn't mean to imply they ALL want a break from swimming. I just think the front page article is kinda dumb. I think most NCAA swimmers know that "Masters" swimming exists. I'm not gonna "plea" for more USMS swimmers from the NCAA ranks.
As a 20-something the biggest "issue" (if you could call it that) I have with Masters is that it doesn't really cater to us. I think out of all the people on my team maybe 6 are under 30, and we have a pretty big team. And as nice as everyone is on the team (they're GREAT wonderful people) it's awkward to go to team social events where everyone brings their kids and talks about work. Other than swimming it's hard to find common interests. I think that is the biggest challenge when you're talking about recruiting new grads to swim. You need to overcome the stigma that Masters is for old people before you can try to recruit younger people.
If we need a volunteer to go to next year's men's NCAA DI Championships to sit at a desk (on deck, of course, about mid-pool) and promote USMS and recruit swimmers, I'm your guy. I'll selflessly take some vacation time for an all-access deck pass:)
As a former college swimmer(never on the same level as those who qualify for ncaa champs), I can see two sides to the argument here. I agree that it would be great to have former NCAA level swimmers involved in usms and offer their expertise to clubs. My experience tells me that most of these kids want to enjoy their last few months of school, maybe train for national and international competition, and then move on with their lives.
I would be interested to find out how many of this caliber of swimmers get involved in usms, and at what age does that happen.
It is surprising to me how many have never heard of this program. I think the ball is in our hands and it is up to masters swimmers to "recruit". Was MS present at the Conference and NCAA meets?
True, it IS surprising how many have never heard of masters swimming. I think partnerships between USAS and USMS clubs are one way to change that...there are three major age-group teams in Richmond and ALL of them share pool time and at some point will see groups of masters swimmers practicing. There are a handful of local masters people who swim at local USA-S meets, too, so I think most age-groupers will grow up knowing that it is "out there," even if the specifics are vague.
I think pushing USMS at college swimmers at NCAAs or conference meets might be a tough sell, however gently it is done. I had a pretty benign college swimming experience, and I wanted nothing to do with competitive swimming after my last event at NCAAs my senior year.
And yet, about nine months later, I started practicing with a masters group...I still wanted to exercise, and I was attracted by the lower yardage, the fact that you could get out of practice -- or change it to your liking -- at any time. The social aspect was good too. So were beer relays.
It might be interesting for USMS to survey their current ranks for former (young) competitive swimmers and find out what drew them back (if this hasn't already been done).
The article talked about varsity college swimmers, but I can tell you one potentially greater source of young USMS members: college club teams. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people on such teams than on varsity swim teams, and their attitude towards swimming more closely mirrors that of a typical masters swimmer. I think it may be a pretty seamless transition.
Along those lines, I've often thought that USMS should just waive the annual membership fee for swimmers in the 18-24 age group. If even one in ten of such swimmers becomes a lifetime member, I bet the organization would more than recoup the investment.
As a 20-something the biggest "issue" (if you could call it that) I have with Masters is that it doesn't really cater to us. I think out of all the people on my team maybe 6 are under 30, and we have a pretty big team. And as nice as everyone is on the team (they're GREAT wonderful people) it's awkward to go to team social events where everyone brings their kids and talks about work. Other than swimming it's hard to find common interests. I think that is the biggest challenge when you're talking about recruiting new grads to swim. You need to overcome the stigma that Masters is for old people before you can try to recruit younger people.
When I was in the sports information field, this same issue came up a lot at CoSIDA events (the national association for sports information). But, an interior, informal group was created called Young CoSIDA. Maybe something similar could be done within Masters? It's really difficult to try to get everyone from 20 to 100 on the same page. Might not hurt to have some informal groups catering to the various larger age groupings within the sport.
Not sure how you would go about putting something like that together, but it could at least be a discussion to be had.
