What happened to summer swim?
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Anonymous
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So I know there are a few teams in the area that have literally hundreds of swimmers and kids who will never see an A meet.
But our pool and many in our division are tiny. Sure, we can field enough kids for meets and we’re competitive, but there isn’t a ton of depth and kids flit in and out for a couple of years and that’s it. I did summer swim in the mid-80s to mid-90s. Our country club team was huge and it seemed like every kid with a pulse participated through 9-10s and even through high school a lot of kids stayed on in spite of being far more serious about soccer, baseball, lacrosse, etc. The team was a mix of winter swimmers and casual swimmers. It was very competitive- I rarely swam outside of the equivalent of B meets. Out of curiosity I looked up my old pool’s online record board, and more than half of the records are kids I knew or records I remember seeing from the early 80s. There was still one from 1976. They haven’t been broken! How is this possible? While I was down that rabbithole, I looked up practice times at my old country club. There are two: one for 8 & unders and one for 9 & ups. We used to have practices going from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm with lanes of 8-10 kids. 1) why haven’t records been broken? They were set by year-round swimmers who went on to D1 and D3 programs, but it’s not like they were Eastern Europeans from the 70s. The oldest records are for 8 & unders and 9-10s. 2) what’s shrinking summer swimming by you if your club is experiencing something similar? My old club seems to be struggling with aging membership and long waitlists that are keeping young families out. My current club has a lot of kids who go to day camps, play select sports, or just can’t swim competently. |
Anonymous
| They are probably swimming with mcsl... |
Anonymous
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I think you are drawing some very strange and unwarranted conclusions. The vast majority of NVSL records were set in the last decade, many of them in the past 3 years.
Our team has over 300 swimmers ranging from rising kindergarteners to super seniors who have returned for a final summer of fun after their freshman year in college. Based on conversations I’ve had with parents at our A and B meets, they are struggling more with over-subscription rather than under-subscription. I think your childhood team just went downhill, sorry. |
Anonymous
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So funny you should ask - summer swim can only cater to the elite where families can have a stay at home parent, nanny, etc. Practice times do not work for most families. Whereas in the 70s and 80s most families had a parent at home. That was the genesis of summer swim.
Nowadays kids are in camps, sports, etc that they spend all day at while mom and dad work. A lof of kids don't waste their time on "fun" summer league and just swim club. Pools that gave into their general membership to limit practice times or not make the pool family friendly are dying. It is all about the young families. Offering swim lessons, fun things for them to do, etc. |
Anonymous
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We have one of the 200+ kid teams. We have practices for younger kids before camp so kids with working parents can participate.
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Anonymous
| Yeah I think this is very team and area specific. I grew up in another state where summer swim is also a big thing. My team growing up was like the OP describes. We were a huge team, best in the league, lots of kids went on to swim in college. I still have a couple records there. A couple years after I graduated high school it seems like the team really went downhill and got a lot smaller. I think we even moved down into a lower division which is crazy considering how we dominated in the 90s. I think what happened is that there were just no young families moving into the neighborhoods that feed into the pool club. When I was a kid one of the main neighborhoods was on its second generation of families and then a few new construction neighborhoods were built nearby which brought more young families. I think that it has taken until now for there to be a new generation of young families, Basically people my age with kids now old enough to join the swim team, for the team to grow again. My parents still live in the home like Ru up in but a lot of people their age and a bit older have sold, opening up room for the young families. |
Anonymous
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We have been in our house and at our pool for 13 years. During that time the swim team has probably had between 100 and 135 members and has been anywhere between Division 13 and 18 (when NVSL had an 18). The records board had team records into the 90s and then nothing until probably about 10 years ago when they started to fall again. When we started there were no year round club swimmers. No swimmers even came close to All-Stars. No there are a good number of club swimmers and the team has sent 4 to 6 swimmers to AS the past few years. There are many in the mini swimmer groups, and 8 and under up to about 12, but they are severely lacking in 15-18 boys. You can see that in the club membership, which has grown overall the past few years and so has the number of families with young kids on deck.
I don’t know about catering to the elite. Families seem to do a lot of ride-sharing and such to get the kids to where they need to be. |
Anonymous
How much more competitive are those other sports now? With year-round training and travel? |
Anonymous
| Is there a limit on pool memberships? Once the empty nesters fly south for good there will be room for young families and the team will rebuild |
Anonymous
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Summer swim practice is easiest for kids who have a stay at home parents. Otherwise practice starts around 8 or 10 am and then what for childcare for the little ones?
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Anonymous
This. But the pool has to actively shed non going members and attract families. Not all boards are proactive like this. |
Anonymous
| There have been 3 Olympic swimmers from the DMV in the last couple of years. That's not enough? |
Anonymous
How would you do that? Require people to go a certain number of times or their membership is revoked? I’m a membership chair and I don’t care how often they are at the pool as long as they pay their dues. They are bond members in good standing. Our membership is growing, but we are only at about 60% of our total allowable memberships. |
Anonymous
My mom was a teacher so she was off in the summer. So were the moms of many of the kids on my swim team growing up. We were definitely not elite. There are a ton of dual working parent households on my kids’ swim team. With remote work becoming more common the parents just flex their schedules. They’re either on their phone or laptop at the pool or they just drop their kids off for practice and come back in an hour. Or the kids are old enough to ride their bikes to practice. I don’t think working is the barrier it used to be to joining swim team. Of course there is a separate issue of systemic racism and history of pool clubs, that affects pool membership in general. |
Anonymous
No true. Working parents can make do it too. If you have more than 1 kids, it is easier and cheaper to get a college student as a summer nanny that pay for a summer camps all summer. Nanny share is also an option, All the kids in our neighborhood stay at the pool and play after practice. |