Summer Swim Team Coaching- tell me about yours

[Anonymous]

Trying to get a feel for what should be expected of summer swim club coaches- do they encourage and correct swimmers of all skill sets? Do they just focus on the stronger swimmers/A Team? I find ours completely lackluster and disengaged with B Team is this the norm/expectation or do they need to go? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Ours seems to encourage and work with all ages and skill sets, but we don't have an A and B team. It's just a team.

[Anonymous]

We moved this past winter so have recent experience with 2 different summer teams in 2 different leagues. We have had a night and day experience. The coach at our new team is awesome and fully engaged with all the kids regardless of whether they are a top performer. The coach at our old team didn’t really do anything except chase her kid around the pool during practice, the HS assistants did most of the actual coaching. Common to both teams though is that the top kids are club swimmers so they are not at summer practice a lot, so it wasn’t a matter of the best kids getting the most attention at practice. Where we also saw a difference between our new coach and old coach is the improvements the non club kids make over the course of the summer. The non club kids have improved a ton at our new team, and we didn’t see that type of improvement in the strokes other than freestyle at the old club. All of this is to say it’s appropriate to expect a baseline of decent coaching, and there are good summer coaches out there.

[Anonymous]

We have a very good enthusiastic coach that is very good about developing and encouraging everyone, whether you are winning every race or just getting across the pool. On the down side he is booked solid with club swimmers for lessons and if you have a young swimmer that needs some private lessons you have to get them from the HS assistant coaches. Not bad, but I really would have preferred the professional. I think he should have blocked out some slots for the kids on the team that are not club swimmers. The club swimmers knew to sign up and filled almost every slot for the summer before the first meet.

[Anonymous]

Most are pretty bad and like you say but we got a new one and they are wonderful.

[Anonymous]

We're at a very competitive pool and the coaches engage with all the kids. My non-A meet kid will get individual coaching at meets after finishing a heat from time to time even. And both my swimmers say they get corrections during practice.

[Anonymous]

Super hands-off. They put a workout on a white board and then flirt with each other.

I was pretty surprised by it. My summer swim experience was a head coach at the same pool for 20 years who was a professor at the local university and a decorated masters swimmer and well-known former star at that university. His assistants were always college swimmers and the positions were considered very desirable. Workouts fully prepared me for high school swim and were much more similar to what’s done at club workouts now.

[Anonymous]

We have a huge team with lots of year round swim kids in the older ages. Only some kids get picked for A meets. But they all practice at the same time and there is not splitting out to A swimmers and B swimmers during practice.

My view as mom of one older year round swimmer and one younger summer inly swimmer. Normal practices are not really enough for them to learn the stroke mechanics well enough. You need to add some of the one on one lessons or at least small group clinics (ours offers these for a small extra fee). It is just too many kids on a large team.

In my view if there is favoritism or different treatment of A meet vs B meet kids in any way other than selection for Sat swimming then it is a toxic team feel I would not want my kids on. It should be one big full team - some of which swims on Sat.

[Anonymous]

^ adding - the coaches do correct the kids especially younger ones but I stand firm in the view that it’s not enough and one on one is critical to actually ironing out the kinks in movements.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have separate A and B teams either. Many of the year round swimmers get minimal feedback, if they even attend practice.

The coaches are often in the pool with the 8 & under swimmers while the 15-18 group is all about having fun. Which IMO, is how it should be. The older non-club swimmers are not going to swim given they have jobs, and other sports and activities, unless it is fun.

The 11/12-13/14 age group is a delicate balance of instruction and fun, they are given some stroke feedback but it appears it is for kids that are close to the stroke but a small adjustment would make it stronger. Early in the summer, these groups work on starts, finishes and especially turns. Our coaches charge $20/half hour if you want a private lesson. This is such a great opportunity to work on stroke work, and well worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a huge team with lots of year round swim kids in the older ages. Only some kids get picked for A meets. But they all practice at the same time and there is not splitting out to A swimmers and B swimmers during practice.

My view as mom of one older year round swimmer and one younger summer inly swimmer. Normal practices are not really enough for them to learn the stroke mechanics well enough. You need to add some of the one on one lessons or at least small group clinics (ours offers these for a small extra fee). It is just too many kids on a large team.

In my view if there is favoritism or different treatment of A meet vs B meet kids in any way other than selection for Sat swimming then it is a toxic team feel I would not want my kids on. It should be one big full team - some of which swims on Sat.

Our team doesn’t separate out to A swimmers and B swimmers per se, the kids are separated by age groups, the 8 and unders, early ES, late ES, middle school, and HS, but they do move kids into different practice groups based on ability. Essentially all the club kids are in the HS practice group regardless of their age. I think this is helpful because then you don’t have the 10 year old club kid swimming with their age group, who can’t keep up with them and then get salty about that kid being the best all the time. If you want the club kids to come to practice you also can’t have the 10-12 year old club kids swim with their age group because they get nothing out of that practice. The mix of ages in my kid’s practice group has been fun for them, they make a point to go to summer practice after club practice at least once a week and feel like they also get something out of it.

[Anonymous]

Ours is very little coached instruction- almost exclusively endurance in practice. Private lessons with the coaches gets you actual instruction on the technical stuff.

[Anonymous]

Ours has almost 200 swimmers to deal with and only about 7 weeks, so there’s not a lot of technical instruction that can happen.

[Anonymous]

We had a great coach a few years back, but with so many swimmers there wasn't a lot of technical instruction. I really wouldn't expect that OP.

What he did well:
Really positive even when the team lost or kids would come in last and wanted to make sure everyone felt that way too
Not just focused on the "top" swimmers but on personal improvement. Genuine hugs when B meet swimmers drop 5-10 seconds after working hard.

New coach
Plays favorites
Makes a big deal about kids who are year-round swimmers getting all-star times but ignores the B meet swimmers
Know it all - has to be their way
Rigid
Makes thinly veiled critical comments about kids who are slow
No instruction at all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a huge team with lots of year round swim kids in the older ages. Only some kids get picked for A meets. But they all practice at the same time and there is not splitting out to A swimmers and B swimmers during practice.

My view as mom of one older year round swimmer and one younger summer inly swimmer. Normal practices are not really enough for them to learn the stroke mechanics well enough. You need to add some of the one on one lessons or at least small group clinics (ours offers these for a small extra fee). It is just too many kids on a large team.

In my view if there is favoritism or different treatment of A meet vs B meet kids in any way other than selection for Sat swimming then it is a toxic team feel I would not want my kids on. It should be one big full team - some of which swims on Sat.

Our team doesn’t separate out to A swimmers and B swimmers per se, the kids are separated by age groups, the 8 and unders, early ES, late ES, middle school, and HS, but they do move kids into different practice groups based on ability. Essentially all the club kids are in the HS practice group regardless of their age. I think this is helpful because then you don’t have the 10 year old club kid swimming with their age group, who can’t keep up with them and then get salty about that kid being the best all the time. If you want the club kids to come to practice you also can’t have the 10-12 year old club kids swim with their age group because they get nothing out of that practice. The mix of ages in my kid’s practice group has been fun for them, they make a point to go to summer practice after club practice at least once a week and feel like they also get something out of it.

My club swimmer loves swimming with her age group.