2026 Summer Swim Crazy - Word on the Street

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I have a hilarious mom on my team who shouts things at her sons like "mama didn't raise no losers!" "I brought you into this world and I can bring you out of it." She's truly a funny person, but sometimes it shocks all of us. lol. She's not mean to the other kids and just wants hers to do their best.

Wonder if she will read this thread? Is her quote verbatim?

The quote is verbatim from Cliff Huxtable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I have a hilarious mom on my team who shouts things at her sons like "mama didn't raise no losers!" "I brought you into this world and I can bring you out of it." She's truly a funny person, but sometimes it shocks all of us. lol. She's not mean to the other kids and just wants hers to do their best.

Wonder if she will read this thread? Is her quote verbatim?

The quote is verbatim from Cliff Huxtable.

Even before Cliff, “Bill Cosby Himself” used this in standup. So…YIKES on the quote choice.

[Anonymous]

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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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

Those top division, non-waitlist teams have such an opportunity to “recruit” (quotes because there’s no real recruiting other than membership recruitment, something all non-waitlist clubs do because obviously), yet swimmers largely, if not completely, remain close to home. This data should shut down any debate about “recruitment” of fast swimmers to win summer league meets, outside of those public Maryland pools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

Those top division, non-waitlist teams have such an opportunity to “recruit” (quotes because there’s no real recruiting other than membership recruitment, something all non-waitlist clubs do because obviously), yet swimmers largely, if not completely, remain close to home. This data should shut down any debate about “recruitment” of fast swimmers to win summer league meets, outside of those public Maryland pools.

Define “close to home”? Walking distance? A couple of miles? Some kids want to swim for their club coaches or with their club friends, is that reasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

Those top division, non-waitlist teams have such an opportunity to “recruit” (quotes because there’s no real recruiting other than membership recruitment, something all non-waitlist clubs do because obviously), yet swimmers largely, if not completely, remain close to home. This data should shut down any debate about “recruitment” of fast swimmers to win summer league meets, outside of those public Maryland pools.

Define “close to home”? Walking distance? A couple of miles? Some kids want to swim for their club coaches or with their club friends, is that reasonable?

I don’t think the point is that driving is unreasonable but walking is reasonable. I live in the Fairfax Station/Burke/Fairfax/W Springfield area and my kids are AA-AAA swimmers; I’m not driving to McLean for our team. I do drive 10 minutes to our pool because it’s one of the closest and my kids go to the same school as kids at this pool.

The point above is people are not driving 30+ minutes past 15 other pools to swim on a top division summer league team that has a waitlist.

I don’t think you’ll find any top level team where families of fast kids have been lured that far. Some teams have simply have lots of fast kids nearby (due to a swim culture and easy access to year-round teams), and there are a LOT of big swim families (ie, 3+ kids) in northern VA. If you look at many high division team rosters, there always seems to be another [last name] kid coming popping into 8U or 9-10 age groups.

[Anonymous]

OKM has swimmers who are on their third team in 5 years. Maybe some people just like to jump around. Maybe teams like OKM seek out loosely attached swimmers. Could be some of both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Summer swim clearly began in a time when families had a SAHP to drive kids around in the day, and still mostly caters to families with a flexible schedule. Our team offers late afternoon practice for those who can’t make it in the morning, but I guess it depends on the team staffing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

OKM recruits NCAP kids to their pool. Other pools do it too. They aren't all "home grown"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

OKM recruits NCAP kids to their pool. Other pools do it too. They aren't all "home grown"

You do realize NCAP-Burke is one traffic light away from OKM, right? There’s no recruiting. NCAP-Burke is the closest club for year-round swimmers. Still, OKM has swimmers at STJ, Foxes, Sea Devils, Makos, and NCAP-Burke. Each of these clubs is within 5-10 min from Lake Braddock, White Oak, and Cherry Run.

Daventry and Fox Hunt (NVSL), as well as Burke Centre Penguins (CSL) also have a lot of NCAP-Burke swimmers. It’s about proximity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OKM has swimmers who are on their third team in 5 years. Maybe some people just like to jump around. Maybe teams like OKM seek out loosely attached swimmers. Could be some of both.

OKM swim parent here: Other than losing several swimmers to military or other moves, gaining swimmers in the past due to military move-ins, and gaining an 8 and under 4-5 years ago who left their old pool, I can’t think of any swimmers on our roster who fit your description. We lost about 5-6 fast swimmers this year alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

Those top division, non-waitlist teams have such an opportunity to “recruit” (quotes because there’s no real recruiting other than membership recruitment, something all non-waitlist clubs do because obviously), yet swimmers largely, if not completely, remain close to home. This data should shut down any debate about “recruitment” of fast swimmers to win summer league meets, outside of those public Maryland pools.

Define “close to home”? Walking distance? A couple of miles? Some kids want to swim for their club coaches or with their club friends, is that reasonable?

We picked our pool so my kids could swim with their club teammates. We don’t have a neighborhood pool though, and the pool we picked is only a 7-8 minute drive. So the point the PP made still holds in our anecdotal case.

[Anonymous]

barely into the season and we've covered:
* cutting in line
* recruiting
* afternoon practices/stay at home moms/working families
* purported evidence of someone taking a coveted A meet spot.

Keep it going DCUM swim fam!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:barely into the season and we've covered:
* cutting in line
* recruiting
* afternoon practices/stay at home moms/working families
* purported evidence of someone taking a coveted A meet spot.

Keep it going DCUM swim fam!

And the age-up date passed with barely a word this year! We've had a whole week's worth of kids with birthdays swimming in the "wrong" age group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:barely into the season and we've covered:
* cutting in line
* recruiting
* afternoon practices/stay at home moms/working families
* purported evidence of someone taking a coveted A meet spot.

Keep it going DCUM swim fam!

And the age-up date passed with barely a word this year! We've had a whole week's worth of kids with birthdays swimming in the "wrong" age group.

Kids should age up on their birthday just like in club swim. There. I said it!!! Let's add more pages to this thread!!! Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

It absolutely is true. Rules prohibit recruiting, but line cutting isn’t recruiting.

That is disgusting.

Not to the families that belong to winning pools. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

People say this happens but the teams likely doing it deny it completely. But ten year waitlists would not get new young swimmers on the team.

If true, would definitely fall into crappy behavior for a summer league that is supposed to be fun.

Other than OKM (no waitlist, largely pulls from Lake Braddock school area), Hunt Valley (no waitlist, largely pulls from West Springfield school area), plus Fair Oaks and Crosspointe (both of which sort of have restrictions because of HOA/boundary restrictions), which teams in NVSL D1-D3 *don’t* have a waitlist? Because, to me, when teams DON’T have a waitlist but are only building teams within their current population (little kids who may become good swimmers notwithstanding), that’s much more impressive AND shows how much better their coaches are at developing young swimmers. This said, we swim in a top NVSL division, and very few of the teams actually have noticeable transfers from one team to another year to year, so other than a handful of exceptions we’ve noticed in the past few years, I don’t think this line-cutting-for-fast-kids is happening.

Those top division, non-waitlist teams have such an opportunity to “recruit” (quotes because there’s no real recruiting other than membership recruitment, something all non-waitlist clubs do because obviously), yet swimmers largely, if not completely, remain close to home. This data should shut down any debate about “recruitment” of fast swimmers to win summer league meets, outside of those public Maryland pools.

Define “close to home”? Walking distance? A couple of miles? Some kids want to swim for their club coaches or with their club friends, is that reasonable?

I don’t think the point is that driving is unreasonable but walking is reasonable. I live in the Fairfax Station/Burke/Fairfax/W Springfield area and my kids are AA-AAA swimmers; I’m not driving to McLean for our team. I do drive 10 minutes to our pool because it’s one of the closest and my kids go to the same school as kids at this pool.

The point above is people are not driving 30+ minutes past 15 other pools to swim on a top division summer league team that has a waitlist.

I don’t think you’ll find any top level team where families of fast kids have been lured that far. Some teams have simply have lots of fast kids nearby (due to a swim culture and easy access to year-round teams), and there are a LOT of big swim families (ie, 3+ kids) in northern VA. If you look at many high division team rosters, there always seems to be another [last name] kid coming popping into 8U or 9-10 age groups.

This is wrong. I can name names (but won’t, of course) of many families that drive past many pools to swim at their summer pool of choice (top divisions- not all division 1). Most of them start at the local pool, then move on up to the top division pool.

Families going from west Vienna/Great Falls approaching Reston to McLean pools, for example is done routinely.