Swim Team Drama

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

Ugh my kid has been disappointed at not making it to divisionals and I’ve definitely mentioned that to others in conversation. It doesn’t mean I thought they should have been picked at all. The coach makes the right decisions and I’d never question them (and it’s been very clear cut) but it’s ok for kids to be disappointed!

Someone told me a parent was so disappointed, they sent a letter to the board for further investigation into how the lineup was chosen. It's ok for a kid to be disappointed. This is going to be the first of many disappointments in life. Move on. The parent needs to get a life!

DP. How do lineups get “chosen”? At our pool the top swimmers get to pick their strokes. If you have one of the top two times you are guaranteed your choice. The times can be from an A or B meet. If you’re lower down on the list you may not make it based on which strokes the top swimmers pick, but there’s not really any way to game this? Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

We have a game where we take a drink every time a kid who swims for the coach's club year round gets a discretionary coach's award. It gets us pretty tipsy.

Find me next year so I can play! I’ll wear a Hawaiian lei and you’ll know me by my yeti filled with wine slushie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Oh naive little summer swim parent, that’s actually easy to manipulate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

We have a game where we take a drink every time a kid who swims for the coach's club year round gets a discretionary coach's award. It gets us pretty tipsy.

We had coaches actually referencing the kids' club swimming in the awards speeches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

We have a game where we take a drink every time a kid who swims for the coach's club year round gets a discretionary coach's award. It gets us pretty tipsy.

We had coaches actually referencing the kids' club swimming in the awards speeches.

Jell-O shots for all on that one!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Points can be gamed too by clearing a path for a good swimmer who might otherwise be second or third in points. You know this is going on when you see line-ups set to keep one swimmer in their strongest events and out of match-ups with teammates further up the latter while another better around swimmer is swimming in their weakest event as the #2 or even #3 seed on their own team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Oh naive little summer swim parent, that’s actually easy to manipulate.

How? We have many parents who track the points to make sure the proper kid gets the proper award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Oh naive little summer swim parent, that’s actually easy to manipulate.

How? We have many parents who track the points to make sure the proper kid gets the proper award.

How is your seeding done? What are the rules? Is it transparent. Very easy to pick winners and losers if you are in control of that. Watch carefully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Points can be gamed too by clearing a path for a good swimmer who might otherwise be second or third in points. You know this is going on when you see line-ups set to keep one swimmer in their strongest events and out of match-ups with teammates further up the latter while another better around swimmer is swimming in their weakest event as the #2 or even #3 seed on their own team.

Yep, this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

Ugh my kid has been disappointed at not making it to divisionals and I’ve definitely mentioned that to others in conversation. It doesn’t mean I thought they should have been picked at all. The coach makes the right decisions and I’d never question them (and it’s been very clear cut) but it’s ok for kids to be disappointed!

Someone told me a parent was so disappointed, they sent a letter to the board for further investigation into how the lineup was chosen. It's ok for a kid to be disappointed. This is going to be the first of many disappointments in life. Move on. The parent needs to get a life!

DP. How do lineups get “chosen”? At our pool the top swimmers get to pick their strokes. If you have one of the top two times you are guaranteed your choice. The times can be from an A or B meet. If you’re lower down on the list you may not make it based on which strokes the top swimmers pick, but there’s not really any way to game this? Weird.

At our MCSL team for "A" meets, the coaches pick the lineups. It is always the top swimmers in those events, except for when you have swimmers are that have top 3 times in 4 events (MCSL has a 3 event max). Then it is a matter of trying to figure out how best to maximize points. For example in fly if the times for your 3 top swimmers are 27,28,29, and the other team has 24,23,24, then it's probably not worth burning that 27 swimmer in fly if they are better at their other events vs the other team. This only becomes a problem when you have a couple of exceptional swimmers in an age group and there's not a deep bench behind them. And yes, this can "hurt" that 27 fly swimmer IF they're on an improvement track and want to make individual all stars because there's only 6 meets possible (5A + divisionals) and you just "burned" one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

We had a parent who was “SO disappointed” about an award situation that she wrote and sent a multi-paragraph email while the end of season picnic was still happening.

Wow. I just drank my wine and went home early. Maybe she had a little TOO much wine. The awards at our pool were honestly laughable. Sometimes I am not sure why we let our kids participate in this farce: starting to understand why the older parents we know started planning vacations during swim season!

I rolled my eyes a little at our awards too (though it was a fun night overall). Definitely reflected the "who's who" of the families in the in-crowd. We also have a big team and some kids got multiple awards - seems like they could have spread those out a bit, especially some of the more subjective ones. (My kids are new and average and did not deserve nor get any special awards - but there were plenty of kids they could have given awards to without giving the same kids 2 or 3.)

They are all subjective, lol. There’s a noticeable drop off in participation in summer swim as the age groups go up. Trophies don’t have the same appeal when it’s obvious they aren’t earned—kids move on but not without some drama. Best not to encourage kids to get too invested in the awards, but that’s a topic for another day.

Except for MVP, at least at our pool. It is purely based on points earned in individual races ( not relays). We had a couple kids win all their races so they both got it.

Oh naive little summer swim parent, that’s actually easy to manipulate.

How? We have many parents who track the points to make sure the proper kid gets the proper award.

Swimstandards.com tracks MCSL points for all individual events, but doesn't "give points" to the swimmers for any relay placements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

Ugh my kid has been disappointed at not making it to divisionals and I’ve definitely mentioned that to others in conversation. It doesn’t mean I thought they should have been picked at all. The coach makes the right decisions and I’d never question them (and it’s been very clear cut) but it’s ok for kids to be disappointed!

Someone told me a parent was so disappointed, they sent a letter to the board for further investigation into how the lineup was chosen. It's ok for a kid to be disappointed. This is going to be the first of many disappointments in life. Move on. The parent needs to get a life!

DP. How do lineups get “chosen”? At our pool the top swimmers get to pick their strokes. If you have one of the top two times you are guaranteed your choice. The times can be from an A or B meet. If you’re lower down on the list you may not make it based on which strokes the top swimmers pick, but there’s not really any way to game this? Weird.

At our MCSL team for "A" meets, the coaches pick the lineups. It is always the top swimmers in those events, except for when you have swimmers are that have top 3 times in 4 events (MCSL has a 3 event max). Then it is a matter of trying to figure out how best to maximize points. For example in fly if the times for your 3 top swimmers are 27,28,29, and the other team has 24,23,24, then it's probably not worth burning that 27 swimmer in fly if they are better at their other events vs the other team. This only becomes a problem when you have a couple of exceptional swimmers in an age group and there's not a deep bench behind them. And yes, this can "hurt" that 27 fly swimmer IF they're on an improvement track and want to make individual all stars because there's only 6 meets possible (5A + divisionals) and you just "burned" one of them.

This is another area where I find MCSL to be so much more transparent than NVSL. Because an MCSL swimmer can swim 3/4 strokes plus the IM at A meets it is a lot harder to “game” someone out of points to help boost a coach’s favorite teammate.

[Anonymous]

Oh my god who cares.

The points and awards don't mean anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents complaining that their kid didn’t swim “X” stroke, parents telling the coach that their kid was VERY DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t make it to divisionals.

Otherwise it was a fun season.

Ugh my kid has been disappointed at not making it to divisionals and I’ve definitely mentioned that to others in conversation. It doesn’t mean I thought they should have been picked at all. The coach makes the right decisions and I’d never question them (and it’s been very clear cut) but it’s ok for kids to be disappointed!

Someone told me a parent was so disappointed, they sent a letter to the board for further investigation into how the lineup was chosen. It's ok for a kid to be disappointed. This is going to be the first of many disappointments in life. Move on. The parent needs to get a life!

DP. How do lineups get “chosen”? At our pool the top swimmers get to pick their strokes. If you have one of the top two times you are guaranteed your choice. The times can be from an A or B meet. If you’re lower down on the list you may not make it based on which strokes the top swimmers pick, but there’s not really any way to game this? Weird.

At our MCSL team for "A" meets, the coaches pick the lineups. It is always the top swimmers in those events, except for when you have swimmers are that have top 3 times in 4 events (MCSL has a 3 event max). Then it is a matter of trying to figure out how best to maximize points. For example in fly if the times for your 3 top swimmers are 27,28,29, and the other team has 24,23,24, then it's probably not worth burning that 27 swimmer in fly if they are better at their other events vs the other team. This only becomes a problem when you have a couple of exceptional swimmers in an age group and there's not a deep bench behind them. And yes, this can "hurt" that 27 fly swimmer IF they're on an improvement track and want to make individual all stars because there's only 6 meets possible (5A + divisionals) and you just "burned" one of them.

This is another area where I find MCSL to be so much more transparent than NVSL. Because an MCSL swimmer can swim 3/4 strokes plus the IM at A meets it is a lot harder to “game” someone out of points to help boost a coach’s favorite teammate.

Sounds like a lot more fun for the swimmers too, more opprtunities to compete and improve. Oh well. NVSL is going to stay in the dark ages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh my god who cares.

The points and awards don't mean anything.

Says the parent whose kid got the big award 😂

Just kidding. But yes, that is clear. It’s just that they’re sold to kids as something meaningful so it’s somewhat confusing to tell them they don’t matter at the same time.