Summer swim brings out the crazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits from all over NoVa and is certainly anything but chill. After going 0-5 in D1 last summer, they’re back again for another whipping season. The fruits of recruiting turn brutal in D1.

OP's statement is proven to be true. SMH.

[Anonymous]

OKM recruits-and everyone knows it. You don’t go from Div 15 to 1 in 8 years with local neighborhood talent. But hey, enjoy another year of 0-5 in D1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits from all over NoVa and is certainly anything but chill. After going 0-5 in D1 last summer, they’re back again for another whipping season. The fruits of recruiting turn brutal in D1.

Oh my. Honey, you do realize this is kids’ summer league swim? Bless your heart…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My favorite summer swim story is when my 7 year old daughter — who attended every single practice and swam every single B meet — got excited about getting a trophy at the end of summer banquet. And then they only gave trophies to A meet swimmers.

She said to me that night, “I guess I wasn’t good enough for a trophy.” 😢

Well, she’s correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits from all over NoVa and is certainly anything but chill. After going 0-5 in D1 last summer, they’re back again for another whipping season. The fruits of recruiting turn brutal in D1.

Approx # of club swimmers on OKM:
8U: 2 (1 girl, 1 boy)
9-10: 5 (4 girls, 1 boy)
11-12: 7 (6 girls, 1 boy)
13-14: 4 (3 girls, 1 boy)
15-18: 8 (5 girls, 3 boys) — every one of the older kids goes to the same public high school
…Does this look like a team that recruits?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite summer swim story is when my 7 year old daughter — who attended every single practice and swam every single B meet — got excited about getting a trophy at the end of summer banquet. And then they only gave trophies to A meet swimmers.

She said to me that night, “I guess I wasn’t good enough for a trophy.” 😢

Well, she’s correct.

I assume this was meant to be inflammatory, but it makes zero sense that random A meet swimmers get a trophy and B meet swimmers don’t. Either give high point or give to all swimmers across the board. These are kids this is a recreational swim league I’m not a big participation trophy person but this is 100% the place for it. Kids going to practice daily should get acknowledged for their efforts. Especially the little kids who are the ones who improve by leaps and bounds through the summer.

Ours does medals for all and high point trophy for division.

[Anonymous]

Echoing the PPs that it’s usually the parents of the young kids that are crazy competitive. It’s weird but there are plenty of other parents who don’t care.

I always tell people heading to laws school to find the group heading to the bar on Friday for happy hour, not the kids starting outlines on day 1. Same applies here. Find the fun parents and hang with them. Life is too short.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite summer swim story is when my 7 year old daughter — who attended every single practice and swam every single B meet — got excited about getting a trophy at the end of summer banquet. And then they only gave trophies to A meet swimmers.

She said to me that night, “I guess I wasn’t good enough for a trophy.” 😢

Well, she’s correct.

I assume this was meant to be inflammatory, but it makes zero sense that random A meet swimmers get a trophy and B meet swimmers don’t. Either give high point or give to all swimmers across the board. These are kids this is a recreational swim league I’m not a big participation trophy person but this is 100% the place for it. Kids going to practice daily should get acknowledged for their efforts. Especially the little kids who are the ones who improve by leaps and bounds through the summer.

Ours does medals for all and high point trophy for division.

OP said she wasn't sure, but thought everyone who scored a point (finished 1-2-3 in an A meet) got a trophy. That's an earned thing, not a participation trophy for some but not all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give season high point awards for B meets

B meets don’t use “points” - they aren’t scored at all. Because no one wins a B meet and they aren’t even official meets - we swim against nearby pools from a few divisions to minimize commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite summer swim story is when my 7 year old daughter — who attended every single practice and swam every single B meet — got excited about getting a trophy at the end of summer banquet. And then they only gave trophies to A meet swimmers.

She said to me that night, “I guess I wasn’t good enough for a trophy.” 😢

Well, she’s correct.

I assume this was meant to be inflammatory, but it makes zero sense that random A meet swimmers get a trophy and B meet swimmers don’t. Either give high point or give to all swimmers across the board. These are kids this is a recreational swim league I’m not a big participation trophy person but this is 100% the place for it. Kids going to practice daily should get acknowledged for their efforts. Especially the little kids who are the ones who improve by leaps and bounds through the summer.

Ours does medals for all and high point trophy for division.

OP said she wasn't sure, but thought everyone who scored a point (finished 1-2-3 in an A meet) got a trophy. That's an earned thing, not a participation trophy for some but not all.

I’m awards lady from previous post.

Kids that swim in A meets and place 1-2-3 get ribbons. Why do they also need a trophy too? That’s ridiculous in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits-and everyone knows it. You don’t go from Div 15 to 1 in 8 years with local neighborhood talent. But hey, enjoy another year of 0-5 in D1.

Many years ago we swam against Sideburn Run. It had moved up like 7 spaces to Division 3 or 4 very quickly. It was a small team, but did have some large swim families move over from Fairfax. All it takes is 1-2 swim families with lots of fast kids spread across all the age groups to make a points difference. Then, when those kids graduate or leave, the team sinks and moves back down.

Also, teams like OKM and Sideburn and Fairfax Station are not neighborhood pools, per se. Swimmers come from neighborhoods close by. (This is different than South Run and Little Rocky Run, which do not allow people outside the neighborhood.) Our family doesn’t live in a neighborhood, so we drive to a pool. Does that mean our pool recruits? No. But it does allow those of us without any neighborhood/HOA options to join pools.

Burke/Springfield/Fairfax/Fairfax Station are heavily military. You’ll see a lot of kids pop up on teams in these areas but similarly see good swimmers vanish from these teams (and from NVSL) due to PCS. Our team will lose 4-5 club swimmers (maybe more) in 2026 due to PCS.

Further, by your account, LRR should not be consistently good year to year because it only allows swimmers from the neighborhood. Yet it is a very good D3/D2 team year to year.

Stop with the unfounded allegations of recruitment. It’s stupid and conflates people choosing to join a nearby pool with going out and offering membership to specific swimmers who live nowhere near the pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits-and everyone knows it. You don’t go from Div 15 to 1 in 8 years with local neighborhood talent. But hey, enjoy another year of 0-5 in D1.

Many years ago we swam against Sideburn Run. It had moved up like 7 spaces to Division 3 or 4 very quickly. It was a small team, but did have some large swim families move over from Fairfax. All it takes is 1-2 swim families with lots of fast kids spread across all the age groups to make a points difference. Then, when those kids graduate or leave, the team sinks and moves back down.

Also, teams like OKM and Sideburn and Fairfax Station are not neighborhood pools, per se. Swimmers come from neighborhoods close by. (This is different than South Run and Little Rocky Run, which do not allow people outside the neighborhood.) Our family doesn’t live in a neighborhood, so we drive to a pool. Does that mean our pool recruits? No. But it does allow those of us without any neighborhood/HOA options to join pools.

Burke/Springfield/Fairfax/Fairfax Station are heavily military. You’ll see a lot of kids pop up on teams in these areas but similarly see good swimmers vanish from these teams (and from NVSL) due to PCS. Our team will lose 4-5 club swimmers (maybe more) in 2026 due to PCS.

Further, by your account, LRR should not be consistently good year to year because it only allows swimmers from the neighborhood. Yet it is a very good D3/D2 team year to year.

Stop with the unfounded allegations of recruitment. It’s stupid and conflates people choosing to join a nearby pool with going out and offering membership to specific swimmers who live nowhere near the pool.

Yeah. I would argue that swimmers from Overlee, Chesterbrook, and Tuckahoe come from much further away than the teams you mentioned. If that’s the basis for the PP’s argument of OKM recruiting, then it’s looking at the wrong D1 team. You can see that most of the OKM club and high school swimmers are at NCAP-Burke or Makos, and at Lake Braddock High School. That’s squarely where OKM sits. The PP is either stirring up trouble or delusional. Or maybe it’s OKM posing as a heckler, trying to give their swimmers “bulletin board material.” But that would require me to wear a tin foil hat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits from all over NoVa and is certainly anything but chill. After going 0-5 in D1 last summer, they’re back again for another whipping season. The fruits of recruiting turn brutal in D1.

Approx # of club swimmers on OKM:
8U: 2 (1 girl, 1 boy)
9-10: 5 (4 girls, 1 boy)
11-12: 7 (6 girls, 1 boy)
13-14: 4 (3 girls, 1 boy)
15-18: 8 (5 girls, 3 boys) — every one of the older kids goes to the same public high school
…Does this look like a team that recruits?

Why in the world do you know this and why are you sharing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite summer swim story is when my 7 year old daughter — who attended every single practice and swam every single B meet — got excited about getting a trophy at the end of summer banquet. And then they only gave trophies to A meet swimmers.

She said to me that night, “I guess I wasn’t good enough for a trophy.” 😢

Well, she’s correct.

I assume this was meant to be inflammatory, but it makes zero sense that random A meet swimmers get a trophy and B meet swimmers don’t. Either give high point or give to all swimmers across the board. These are kids this is a recreational swim league I’m not a big participation trophy person but this is 100% the place for it. Kids going to practice daily should get acknowledged for their efforts. Especially the little kids who are the ones who improve by leaps and bounds through the summer.

Ours does medals for all and high point trophy for division.

OP said she wasn't sure, but thought everyone who scored a point (finished 1-2-3 in an A meet) got a trophy. That's an earned thing, not a participation trophy for some but not all.

I’m awards lady from previous post.

Kids that swim in A meets and place 1-2-3 get ribbons. Why do they also need a trophy too? That’s ridiculous in my opinion.

This is true, plus they get medals if they place top six at relay divisionals, relay all stars, individual divisionals, and/or all stars, so they don’t need anything more than that. Save the trophy for the kids who make great progress but do not swim in these meets (or for the kids that started as a B meet swimmer and moved into A meets by hard work and grit).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OKM recruits from all over NoVa and is certainly anything but chill. After going 0-5 in D1 last summer, they’re back again for another whipping season. The fruits of recruiting turn brutal in D1.

Approx # of club swimmers on OKM:
8U: 2 (1 girl, 1 boy)
9-10: 5 (4 girls, 1 boy)
11-12: 7 (6 girls, 1 boy)
13-14: 4 (3 girls, 1 boy)
15-18: 8 (5 girls, 3 boys) — every one of the older kids goes to the same public high school
…Does this look like a team that recruits?

Why in the world do you know this and why are you sharing?

Because I hate liars and I know the kids. Also, it’s easy public info for club swim families who happen to swim on the same club team as half of the kids on OKM.