What role, if any, should USMS play in saving college swimming? How about USA Swimming? Are either currently doing anything about the shrinking base? What can they do?
Aside from the participants themselves (including coaches), both institutions seem to be the greatest benefactors of keeping college swimming around:
USA Swimming benefits because its membership believes it has the ability to earn a scholarship or admission to a college or university that they might not otherwise. They may continue in the sport when there is the belief that they may be rewarded down the road. Some may continue training for significant International competition while not losing time on their education by competing and training while in college.
US Masters Swimming benefits because they have a significantly larger recruitment base because of existing college swimming programs.
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Former Member
I really think swimming is starting to dwindle many high schools as well. This probably isn't true for all of the country (probably not at all in places like FL and CA) but this is the problem I see in the Northeast.
None of the towns have the money to build or maintain pools. Lane rentals are atrociously expensive ($8,000 - $10,000 per lane, per season). Many of the divisions have 1-2 good teams and the rest suck. The teams that don't win get their funding cut. These are affluent towns too we're talking about. It's all the impoverished inner city schools that have the teams (numbers, but not usually skill) and the pools.
Even the divisions are folding. Teams end up competing with teams on the other side of the state, 1.5hrs away, in towns you've never heard of. I think this year my HS team actually had a couple out of state meets to find teams to compete with. Teams from schools with 600 students compete against schools with over 3,000 students.
Add on top of it a decreasing number of available swimmers. Most high school boys in the winter choose to play basketball, indoor track, hockey, wrestling, indoor soccer, box lacrosse, or spend their time skiing. New comers are turned away by the thought of having to wear a Speedo. I'm not even kidding. In high school I tried to get some of buddies to do it and they pulled out at the last minute because of the bathing suit :agree:.
The governing body also makes it, in my opinion, very difficult for towns to merge teams to boost numbers. If you get 3 kids from another town, they're not on the main team. They count as a 3 person team from the town they came from and get scored separately from the team they "joined".
Maybe Michael Phelps' success will bring attention back to the sport and inspire people to take up swimming again. I started competitive swimming around 6 years of age. I stopped in middle school because I didn't enjoy it. Looking back it was because none of my friends swam. Therefore I focused more of my time on Soccer and Lax, the sports my friends swam. When I returned to swimming in High School, I realized how much I really loved the sport, and met some of the greatest people I would have never met.
I really think swimming is starting to dwindle many high schools as well. This probably isn't true for all of the country (probably not at all in places like FL and CA) but this is the problem I see in the Northeast.
None of the towns have the money to build or maintain pools. Lane rentals are atrociously expensive ($8,000 - $10,000 per lane, per season). Many of the divisions have 1-2 good teams and the rest suck. The teams that don't win get their funding cut. These are affluent towns too we're talking about. It's all the impoverished inner city schools that have the teams (numbers, but not usually skill) and the pools.
Even the divisions are folding. Teams end up competing with teams on the other side of the state, 1.5hrs away, in towns you've never heard of. I think this year my HS team actually had a couple out of state meets to find teams to compete with. Teams from schools with 600 students compete against schools with over 3,000 students.
Add on top of it a decreasing number of available swimmers. Most high school boys in the winter choose to play basketball, indoor track, hockey, wrestling, indoor soccer, box lacrosse, or spend their time skiing. New comers are turned away by the thought of having to wear a Speedo. I'm not even kidding. In high school I tried to get some of buddies to do it and they pulled out at the last minute because of the bathing suit :agree:.
The governing body also makes it, in my opinion, very difficult for towns to merge teams to boost numbers. If you get 3 kids from another town, they're not on the main team. They count as a 3 person team from the town they came from and get scored separately from the team they "joined".
Maybe Michael Phelps' success will bring attention back to the sport and inspire people to take up swimming again. I started competitive swimming around 6 years of age. I stopped in middle school because I didn't enjoy it. Looking back it was because none of my friends swam. Therefore I focused more of my time on Soccer and Lax, the sports my friends swam. When I returned to swimming in High School, I realized how much I really loved the sport, and met some of the greatest people I would have never met.
