2026 Summer Swim Crazy - Word on the Street

[Anonymous]

Fake time trial at practice yesterday. Mom of an eight year old proclaimed "IT'S A
A COMPETITION" and peacocked when her kid won.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I had a parent talking to me about the best combination in his kids age group for Relay Carnival. We also have not even had time trials at this point. Probably jumping the gun a bit.

Same lololol

lol yep. Complaining how far it is and how it's going to be hard to get there on their "in office day." Especially arrogant when their kid is at the bottom of the age group and half our good kids aren't coming to practice bc they are wrapping up other sports..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We had multiple families try to join our team based on their club times and get upset that they would have to get on the pool's waitlist. They thought there was a cut the line policy for fast kids.

I fully support cut lines based on times. My impression is that good portion of pool boards probably wouldn't go for it given the sometimes adversarial relationship given the competing interests. I know our pool would definitely say no.

Our pool board has nothing to do with the swim team. Separate entities.

DP
The board for the club would determine membership requirements. It would be the board’s decision on while not to allow a family membership while skipping the waitlist.

Why not join a club without a waitlist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fake time trial at practice yesterday. Mom of an eight year old proclaimed "IT'S A
A COMPETITION" and peacocked when her kid won.

I have seen this so many times. It is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I had a parent talking to me about the best combination in his kids age group for Relay Carnival. We also have not even had time trials at this point. Probably jumping the gun a bit.

Same lololol

lol yep. Complaining how far it is and how it's going to be hard to get there on their "in office day." Especially arrogant when their kid is at the bottom of the age group and half our good kids aren't coming to practice bc they are wrapping up other sports..

Would it be less arrogant if their kid was fast? Are the parents of fast kids allowed to be more obnoxious?

[Anonymous]

Makes me really glad to be at a pool in the middle of the pack divisions in NVSL that has a summer swim is about fun and community approach.

[Anonymous]

Reality is, there's always going to be obnoxious parents and obnoxious athletes. They usually have their obnoxious posse of similarly obnoxious friends. It's fun to commiserate about THAT group of people, but ultimately, they're not going anywhere, and if the athlete is a top athlete on the team, leadership will look the other way. The difference in the higher divisions is that the obnoxious behavior is more open and likely accepted as mainstream.

What works for our family (and may not work for yours) is that we enforce an athlete's ineligibility to compete. In other words, you have a bad attitude against your team or your opponents, you have a bad attitude against yourself because of your performance, you have a bad attitude because you're a hormonal kid, etc.... you are ineligible to compete. If that costs points? Fine. We refuse to raise entitled jerks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I had a parent talking to me about the best combination in his kids age group for Relay Carnival. We also have not even had time trials at this point. Probably jumping the gun a bit.

Same lololol

lol yep. Complaining how far it is and how it's going to be hard to get there on their "in office day." Especially arrogant when their kid is at the bottom of the age group and half our good kids aren't coming to practice bc they are wrapping up other sports..

Would it be less arrogant if their kid was fast? Are the parents of fast kids allowed to be more obnoxious?

I mean, a little in the sense that in this situation, their kid's spot is far from guaranteed and just because she made it last year doesn't mean she'd make it this year..

Most of the parents of our truly fast kids are very humble and do not sit at practice complaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I had a parent talking to me about the best combination in his kids age group for Relay Carnival. We also have not even had time trials at this point. Probably jumping the gun a bit.

Same lololol

lol yep. Complaining how far it is and how it's going to be hard to get there on their "in office day." Especially arrogant when their kid is at the bottom of the age group and half our good kids aren't coming to practice bc they are wrapping up other sports..

Would it be less arrogant if their kid was fast? Are the parents of fast kids allowed to be more obnoxious?

I’m on a lower (12-15) division team and my kids consistently are in the top 5 points scorers on the team. The coach lets them come to practice whatever time we can make work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have had parents get mad about stupid stuff and refuse to volunteer at Time Trials in protest. It is incredibly childish and I am just embarrassed for them when they are talking about it on deck.

Protest by refusing to volunteer? Wow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, there's always going to be obnoxious parents and obnoxious athletes. They usually have their obnoxious posse of similarly obnoxious friends. It's fun to commiserate about THAT group of people, but ultimately, they're not going anywhere, and if the athlete is a top athlete on the team, leadership will look the other way. The difference in the higher divisions is that the obnoxious behavior is more open and likely accepted as mainstream.

What works for our family (and may not work for yours) is that we enforce an athlete's ineligibility to compete. In other words, you have a bad attitude against your team or your opponents, you have a bad attitude against yourself because of your performance, you have a bad attitude because you're a hormonal kid, etc.... you are ineligible to compete. If that costs points? Fine. We refuse to raise entitled jerks.

Oh I can totally get behind this!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve already had a family quit in a huff and complain to the pool board when they found out their wildly differently-aged kids couldn’t attend the same practice. We have a huge team full of siblings; practice HAS to be by age group.

I think we can all understand the challenge of their situation. It's hard to make 2 or practice times, there are other things going on in life etc. If they are new to the team (sounds like they are) then they don't have a carpool situation figured out etc.

I'm also going to guess your Board said "Ok thanks for letting us know" and promptly moved forward with no change to anything.

The board doesn’t have to do anything. Swim team is not a right. It’s an extra activity. And if it doesn’t work for your family, you just…don’t do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We had multiple families try to join our team based on their club times and get upset that they would have to get on the pool's waitlist. They thought there was a cut the line policy for fast kids.

Not sure if this is true or trolling, but many teams looking to move up divisions will move families with top club swimmers up the waitlist. This is reality (so don’t complain about line cutting), but shouldn’t be demanded by a family. It’s a conversation to be had discretely with the coach and reps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We had multiple families try to join our team based on their club times and get upset that they would have to get on the pool's waitlist. They thought there was a cut the line policy for fast kids.

I fully support cut lines based on times. My impression is that good portion of pool boards probably wouldn't go for it given the sometimes adversarial relationship given the competing interests. I know our pool would definitely say no.

Not what Summer swim is about.

But it is. Pools live and die based on membership. Parents pay for pool membership and swim team fees. Winning summer swim teams attract young families with little kids whom they want to learn to swim from older, top performing kids.

Yes, summer swim is full of fun and friendship, but it’s much better when you win. You may not lime it, but reputation matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We had multiple families try to join our team based on their club times and get upset that they would have to get on the pool's waitlist. They thought there was a cut the line policy for fast kids.

Not sure if this is true or trolling, but many teams looking to move up divisions will move families with top club swimmers up the waitlist. This is reality (so don’t complain about line cutting), but shouldn’t be demanded by a family. It’s a conversation to be had discretely with the coach and reps.

This cannot be true. What the absolute hell? That shows lack of sportsmanship and not in the spirit of summer league. Also if coaches have to pad their roster with ringers, that shows poor coaching and not working with the talent you have.