Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Unless it’s a top 10 team most coaches recruit based upon who can help them win CONFERENCE titles, meaning who can score points at the conference meet. ASU, Virginia, Florida, Cal, etc recruit for NCAAs but that’s not the most typical scenario. There aren’t cut times for conference meets but you can look up the results on swimcloud and see what the times looked like for last year’s meet. That gives you a good idea of where a swimmer would fit in.
Also coaches recruit in cycles. If they recruited two strong breaststrokers the last two years they probably won’t recruit another one for a couple years. Typically they shoot to have a strong senior, up and coming sophomore and 1-2 developing freshman in the wings to take over when that senior graduates. Look for teams with graduating seniors or juniors in your swimmer’s stroke to get an idea of where the coaches have gaps that will need to be filled.
Would also add that many coaches look for kids who are still developing and have room to grow as a swimmer versus super stars who have maybe plateaued. When looking at their races and strokes is they think there is room for improvement they might be more inclined to recruit over someone with perfected technique who might be maxed out. For boys, they’re also looking at whether they’re still growing and filling out. DS was a butterflier and all coaches looked at his wingspan, shoulder mobility and flexibility, ratio of shoulder to waist & waist to ankles, foot size.