Why America stopped building public pools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

[Anonymous]

In 2020 the public rec center pools started having swim teams. These teams compete in the NVSL. Any kid can join.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/sites/parks/files/assets/documents/parktakes/sp20-5.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
In 2020 the public rec center pools started having swim teams. These teams compete in the NVSL. Any kid can join.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/sites/parks/files/assets/documents/parktakes/sp20-5.pdf

Do they compete in NVSL?? The rules say that only private member clubs compete in NVSL.

Page 69: https://www.mynvsl.com/handbook.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DMV has more swim teams per capita than any other metro area. There may not be as many outdoor pools as there are in places like Florida or California, but that's because the weather and environment make that difficult. DC gets very cold in winter, which jeopardizes the water lines that go into pools to keep them continuously filled. It has 2 leaf, pollen, and dirt filled seasons in spring and fall, which means not just more chemical cleaning but also more manual cleaning.

So:
1) the idea that DC area kids are deprived of pool time seems at odds with the fact that there are more swim team kids in the DC area than any other metro area. To take this even further-- they aren't just on swim teams, they are absolutely dominating. NCAP has more swimmers awarded swim scholarships than any other team in the US. The only 2 true swim celebrities are Phelps and Ledecky. This area is not deprived of pools, they are just structured differently.

2) having mostly outdoor pools would actually limit swim time unless a "bubble" were constructed over them to keep them indoors 9-10 months per year, due to the repair costs that would come from trying to maintain a large outdoor pool in a 4 season climate with harsh weather.

You have to know very little about DC swim, and very little about pool maintenance, to think that racism is the most obvious reason for DC area pools being indoors.

Before you jump in and say only rich kids can afford swim teams, most of these swim teams have fee waivers for those unable to pay. Face it, the DC area has pool privilege.

Exactly. No one is saying there isn’t room for improvement and that even more pools would be better, but the pool situation here is so much better than where I grew up, where swim teams were for the kids in the wealthy suburbs and even lessons were hard to find if you did not belong to the YMCA. I learned to swim in part because my aunt was a swim instructor and taught us. Interestingly, even though our town and neighboring towns had no public pools, my high school had a pool and we had swimming for physical Ed in high school. I remember being blown away by all of my otherwise athletic classmates who did not know how to swim beyond a dog paddle.

Contrast that to Montgomery county, where I live now, where there are both indoor and outdoor county pools with pretty affordable swim lessons, you just need to register early.

[Anonymous]

Move to Reston - 16 public pools for the community. Not free, but at $25.00 per season, it is doable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

I'm extremely familiar with competitive swim.

What you're saying- the coach's discretion about which swimmers to put in which events-- is separate from displaying seed times. You can choose not to use seed times to organize the heats/lanes, but it is impossible to hide swimmer performance. You gave the example of NVSL not using seed times-- but look, here is the entire league's time records. https://reachforthewall.org/summer-pools/Northern_Virginia_Swimming_League/

So you have to explain why not using seeding is racist. If anything, not using seeding reduces intimidation and bias by not making it obvious which kids have better records. When a swim meet uses seed times, you know which kid is "supposed" to win based on their heat and lane position.

So try again. NVSL has public records of their times for ALL their swimmers. There is no hiding. Now explain why this is racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

NVSL isn't considered a competitive swim club. It's a summer league, meant for fun, themed meets, and pasta dinners. There aren't as many black people in high levels of swim- true- but NVSL is just a rec league so this is a bizarre analysis. It's like saying that the racial makeup of your I9 peewee baseball league can be used as a proxy for professional baseball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

You haven't made the case that private pools are discriminatory. Let's take the Stonegate swim team as an example. For years, they've had one of the highest rated swim clubs in MCSL, at their private pool. And, they are less than a mile from the MLK swim center, a public indoor pool with a branch of RMSC. This is in a primarily black and Hispanic neighborhood. The swimmers are most white. Explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

You haven't made the case that private pools are discriminatory. Let's take the Stonegate swim team as an example. For years, they've had one of the highest rated swim clubs in MCSL, at their private pool. And, they are less than a mile from the MLK swim center, a public indoor pool with a branch of RMSC. This is in a primarily black and Hispanic neighborhood. The swimmers are most white. Explain.

Are you saying that Stonegate is excluding black/Hispanic families from joining? If so, that’s a pretty serious accusation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

You haven't made the case that private pools are discriminatory. Let's take the Stonegate swim team as an example. For years, they've had one of the highest rated swim clubs in MCSL, at their private pool. And, they are less than a mile from the MLK swim center, a public indoor pool with a branch of RMSC. This is in a primarily black and Hispanic neighborhood. The swimmers are most white. Explain.

Are you saying that Stonegate is excluding black/Hispanic families from joining? If so, that’s a pretty serious accusation.

No. I'm asking the "pools are racist" pp to explain why, even in a neighborhood with both public and private pools, and among the best performing swim club/team in the area, it's not dominated by proportionate racial ratios.

One theory is racism- that minorities are being repelled from joining somehow. There are many other theories. Mine? That people tend to get interested in sports based on what their friends and family do for sports. So swim moms have swim kids etc and that accounts for racial clusters in sports. Like, no one is telling white kids not to play basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

I'm extremely familiar with competitive swim.

What you're saying- the coach's discretion about which swimmers to put in which events-- is separate from displaying seed times. You can choose not to use seed times to organize the heats/lanes, but it is impossible to hide swimmer performance. You gave the example of NVSL not using seed times-- but look, here is the entire league's time records. https://reachforthewall.org/summer-pools/Northern_Virginia_Swimming_League/

So you have to explain why not using seeding is racist. If anything, not using seeding reduces intimidation and bias by not making it obvious which kids have better records. When a swim meet uses seed times, you know which kid is "supposed" to win based on their heat and lane position.

So try again. NVSL has public records of their times for ALL their swimmers. There is no hiding. Now explain why this is racist.

This was discussed at length in the sports forum. So, I’m not going to get into again after this.

While NVSL publishes times on their website, their written guidance to team data managers instructs them NOT to provide meet sheets with times on them (except for the Divisional champs meet) while MCSL does this as a matter of course. If you want to know how a meet was strategized as a parent on an NVSL team, you must look up individual times manually, after your team distributes the meet sheet on Friday. Only the most involved parents will do this, and usually only for their child’s events, not the whole meet.
So, it is quite easy to hide any discriminatory decision making.

I never used the word racist by the way. I said that certain policies might be leftovers from a time when people were more likely to want to keep black children from succeeding at swim, and it might be a good idea to ask what purpose the policies serve now. I don’t think your argument against transparency is compelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is confusing. Why would Fairfax integrate everything else, but draw the line at pools. And, if private pools only allowed white people to join, I think we'd be hearing about this in the real estate forum.

Many of the pools your kids swam in this summer were built in the 50s and 60s, when black people were systematically prevented from living in your neighborhood. Literally not allowed, and it was legal to exclude them. DC had some public pools, and white people didn’t want to share them. They moved out to VA and built private pools. This is not controversial, it’s just history.

Today, yes, we have fair housing laws and our neighborhoods and pool memberships are more diverse. However, some neighborhoods and pools have old policies that might have had discriminatory impact even after desegregation if you were to look closely.

For example, there was a discussion in the sports forum on the differences between MCSL and NVSL swim team practices and policies. Did you know that NVSL recommends that teams NOT share seed times for competitive duel meets? MCSL makes that information available. Why the lack of transparency in NVSL? Why is it that swimming has such low participation by black families in NoVA? How many families tried to get their kids into swimming but were harmed by racist coaches and leagues?

Obviously, the kind of discrimination I’m talking about would have been more rampant in the late 60’s and 70’s. Today, we just operate old systems without looking too closely at why they exist. But thinking a little more critically about this won’t hurt, I promise.

Explain the connection between seed times and racism-- why black families would say to themselves, well, if I don't know what another swimmer's previous record for this event is, it's not worth participating.

Racism was rampant in the 1970s. But you've not addressed any of my points at all, so please rebut them so we can be on the same page about why neither climate, nor the actual rate of swim team participation, should matter. Otherwise we are just talking about racism that existed 50 years ago.

It is easy for a coach to hold back a fast swimmer from the “wrong” family, if their times are secret. If you are involved with competitive swimming, you would have some idea about how conteoversial seeding decisions (who swims what strokes at which meets) can be.

ETA: this is just a tiny example of why there might be a low rate of participation by black swimmers at the highest levels of the sport in this area. Housing policies and private pools definitely had the most historical impact. But even when those policies changed, it takes time to overcome the harm. If this area had built public pools instead of private pools, I imagine the racial make-up at this weekend’s NVSL all-stars would look quite different.

NVSL isn't considered a competitive swim club. It's a summer league, meant for fun, themed meets, and pasta dinners. There aren't as many black people in high levels of swim- true- but NVSL is just a rec league so this is a bizarre analysis. It's like saying that the racial makeup of your I9 peewee baseball league can be used as a proxy for professional baseball.

Tell that to the D1 and D2 parents sweating it out tomorrow at all-stars. By summer swim standards, NVSL is highly competitive. They tout themselves as the largest league in the country. Most if not all of the swimmers tomorrow are in competitive club swimming—NVSL is a developmental pipeline for those clubs, which is why so many of the club coaches also coach summer league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move to Reston - 16 public pools for the community. Not free, but at $25.00 per season, it is doable.

Love Reston!

[Anonymous]

Why are governments at any level involved in the pool business?