HS 500 yd free record observation

Paul and Ehoch: I agree with all of your points and I will add some more points as to why this record will not be touched. A lot of distance swimmers do not want to swim HS but want to stay with there club coach and train all year around and not disrupt that. Plus some of the HS rules about swimming don't make any sense to me. I am not sure if its NICSA or the local HS federations, but they have these rules that you can't swim club and HS at the same time which is ok but then you can't swim HS and Club for certain time periods, even if that time period is not during the HS season but during the HS year. Larsen Jensen quit HS swimming after his freshmen year because of these constraints. Plus a lot of distance events that swimmers train for are not offered in HS like the 200's of strokes, 400 IM, and 1000/1650 Free and if they are National caliber they don't want to swim in HS and just do the 500 Free and sprints. Plus if you are a HS coach, you cannot coach your swimmers during the off season. I am not sure if this is a National rule but I know its applied in a lot of states. This seems like it would cause a lot of conflict between the HS and Clubs and the rules applied make it hard to do both. So a lot of swimmers don't swim HS like they did 30 to 40 years ago when they didn't have these rules. When I was in HS some 39 years ago, the only rule I remember was that you could not compete in AAU once the HS season started and when the HS season was over, you would go back to the AAU and compete. The black out period was the first day of practice thru your last Championship meet. There was never any of these coaching rules like today and it was nobody's business what you did in the off season. I swam AAU with the same HS coach that was fine but today if you do that, you are in trouble and in violation of rules. Some real good swimmers just don't want to deal with that.

Paul and Ehoch: I agree with all of your points and I will add some more points as to why this record will not be touched. A lot of distance swimmers do not want to swim HS but want to stay with there club coach and train all year around and not disrupt that. Plus some of the HS rules about swimming don't make any sense to me. I am not sure if its NICSA or the local HS federations, but they have these rules that you can't swim club and HS at the same time which is ok but then you can't swim HS and Club for certain time periods, even if that time period is not during the HS season but during the HS year. Larsen Jensen quit HS swimming after his freshmen year because of these constraints. Plus a lot of distance events that swimmers train for are not offered in HS like the 200's of strokes, 400 IM, and 1000/1650 Free and if they are National caliber they don't want to swim in HS and just do the 500 Free and sprints. Plus if you are a HS coach, you cannot coach your swimmers during the off season. I am not sure if this is a National rule but I know its applied in a lot of states. This seems like it would cause a lot of conflict between the HS and Clubs and the rules applied make it hard to do both. So a lot of swimmers don't swim HS like they did 30 to 40 years ago when they didn't have these rules. When I was in HS some 39 years ago, the only rule I remember was that you could not compete in AAU once the HS season started and when the HS season was over, you would go back to the AAU and compete. The black out period was the first day of practice thru your last Championship meet. There was never any of these coaching rules like today and it was nobody's business what you did in the off season. I swam AAU with the same HS coach that was fine but today if you do that, you are in trouble and in violation of rules. Some real good swimmers just don't want to deal with that.