There is favoritism in swimming
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Anonymous
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And No! The results highly depend on the swimmer, but the swimmer’s performance during practice and consequently in meets depends heavily on the coaches attention and demeanor toward that particular swimmer.
It’s a known fact that if coaches favor certain children, those children reach their potential more often than the others who aren’t shown the favoritism, or are disliked. |
Anonymous
| Ok ……… |
Anonymous
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This is true in most sports and activities. Things are meritocratic... to a point.
It takes unusual talent and self-determination to overcome the advantages of attention and support. |
Anonymous
| People become favorites because they are fast, they are not fast because they are favorites. If your swimmer is mediocre all the attention in the world isn’t going to change that. Sorry to burst your bubble on that one. |
Anonymous
| It’s life. |
Anonymous
Op here. My post was inspired so to speak from the coach in a private plane thread. People there were saying that the times speak for themselves and favoritism can’t happen in swimming. A coach can totally discourage a child in every sport, including swimming, and make them hate it. A coach could also favor certain children, treat them better and design practices to suit those kids and their needs moreso than others. A swimmer doesn’t become a favorite because they’re fast. However, even if that’s the reason, it’s still unfair and unethical to all the other kids in the team. You must be the owner of said private jet. |
Anonymous
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Teachers have favorites, coaches have favorites, bosses have favorites and sometimes parents have favorites. It's the way of the world.
Is your child likeable? Do they follow instructions or goof off or talk back? Do they do the minimum, or work to do their best every time? There are many reasons, this is just life, which is unfair, and the sooner you accept that, the less unhappy you'll be. |
Anonymous
| Maybe you have a bad coach? Switch clubs if that is the case. |
Anonymous
| Sure, but also if you can’t swim fast, you can’t swim fast. It’s your biology: muscle potential and lung capacity as much as coaching that makes or breaks you. |
Anonymous
I have no affiliation with York or that coach, but I do know that he lives rent free in some heads here in DCUM land since you have created yet another thread about it. A coach can definitely discourage a swimmer, generally though it’s the kid that spends most of their time in the bathroom to skip sets, talks when the coach is explaining the set or is otherwise not engaged and paying attention. The attentive kids and the ones who act like they want to be there get positive reinforcement. But in terms of truly being a coach’s favorite, come on, like in any sport it’s usually the kids that perform the best. Coaches may have a soft spot for the kid that is earnest, loves the sport and tries hard even if they will never be elite, but I don’t know that you can call that favoritism. This is how life works, not just sports. |
Anonymous
The rent free statement has really gotten old. If you’re trying to be cool come up with something new. Again, I had absolutely no idea about who that Coach is or who he was with. I just learned from you that it was from York. This was a post about a statement about favoritism. And you are continuing to go through with this performance bs. A coach will like a kid that is good, etc, and the coach will show it to the kid who hides and misbehaves. Sure, that is true generally, but that’s not favoritism. Favoritism is when a coach treats athletes unfairly. ‘Favoring the good ones’ is total bs. Out of the tens of thousands of swimmers in the DMV area, how many olympians are there? These families pay thousands of dollars every year, and neither these coaches nor those swimmers are elite. Coaches like to feel powerful and use the benefits and status that they get from certain parents, like that other example. |
Anonymous
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Ps. Basically your point is that good swimmers are good, they’re good swimmers, behave well and have cool personalities and are likable, are well adjusted, mature and silly, and that’s why coaches ‘favor’ them.
Do you know how hard it is to be a growing kid and have all of the above qualities? Do you happen to know how many elite athletes commit suicide because they’re overwhelmed after years of trying to be perfect to ‘earn the coaches respect and favoritism’? There have been quite a handful of these unfortunate few in the dmv area. You really ought to stop perpetuating this thing about athletes deserving to be favorites. That’s unethical if coaches do that. There is a reason there are safe sport rules. |
Anonymous
You must be too poor for private lessons. |
Anonymous
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I am a rec coach in a different sport. I work hard to treat every kid with respect and fairly, but yes obviously I like some I kids more than others.
The kids I like tend to be polite, enthusiastic, helpful and good teammates. The kids I am less fond with tend to be disruptive, mean to others or have a bad attitude. I know they are just kids and will mature, but still. Anyways, there are probably logical reasons why a coach prefers one kid to another. |
Anonymous
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There is favoritism in every sport. There are plenty of parent coached sports where the coaches' kid get more playing time even if they aren't that great.
In swimming times will speak for themselves and are what are used for things like relays, but it is true that coaches will pay more attention to some kid over others. As others have mentioned, these kids tend to be the ones who are nice, take direction/coaching well and often, not always, the kids with more talent. A lot of it probably goes hand-in-hand- kids is motivated, works hard and it a kid a coach want to coach so they get more attention. I know in another post someone mentioned kids not doing meets and while this is fine I do think that the kids who never do meets probably get less attention because the coach knows they don't really care about swimming and competing. |