Swim & Dive Team "Gala"

[Anonymous]

The other important point that drives swim parents to be involved is that a meet takes like 30+ parent volunteers to run. It's easy to go to a soccer or basketball game, watch the paid ref manage the game and leave. At a swim meet, many of the parent have to stay and learn to work together to support the team. The Referee is a trained volunteer parent, the stroke and turn officials are trained parents, the person running the computer that records the times, the ribbon-writer etc. etc. It takes at least 30 volunteers to run a swim meet. Lots of hours outside the meet times to manage the entries, manage the other volunteers, etc.

All that work together does create a community not just among the swimmers but among the parents too. So if you're that parent that just drops your 4 kids off and leaves you should be thankful for the "over involvement" of your neighbors. Without them, you'd have no swim team.

[Anonymous]

Happy to report that there was little makeup or false eyelashes at our "gala" and I may have been wearing the highest heels. Adults and kids all behaved appropriately. I'm not a hard core swimmer parent but I do what I can to help. My kid had a great time this year and has received great support from the older kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If swim team being "weird" means girls and boys are finally in a sport together, older kids cheer for younger kids and vice versa (yes 00:54, this even happens every day at practice and of course at the meets at our pool), parents from various elementary schools get to know each other during and outside of practice at the pool, children get to be in a sport that is both individual and team oriented, get daily exercise for less than $100 a month, get to be with many of the same children from age 4 to age 18, get awards for every little bit of improvement no matter how bad their starting time is, and get awards for citizenship and athletic awards at the end, I guess I like the "weird" swim culture.

+2 million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swim team parents verses travel soccer, basketball, softball etc is not the same. Have (are) doing both. Sorry but have to agree with the other posters. Many of the swim parents are really strange. The fact that they all hang out at the pep rallies and other team events is just strange. It most certainly does not happen in other sports the same way.

Swim teams are local to a specific area and kids stay on the teams often for over 10 years. I don't really get why it's strange that the parents wouldn't hang out together after dropping off their kids. They don't participate in the pep rally. By the time kids are on the swim team they can usually swim independently so at a pep rally parents are just hanging out among themselves. There's definitely a culture of travel parents hanging out together too. Obviously you don't like your pool or the people there. Sorry you don't like it, but our pool is great and so are all the others ones nearby as well. There is no gala, and everyone is down to earth and all the kids go on to high school together. You get to meet entire families including all the brothers and sisters, not just the one elite player. I have to think that places like Bethesda, these parents are over the top whether they're at the pool, on the soccer field, at the gymnastics facility, or at the school. If you want more down to earth people, move out of neighborhoods full of rich, type A parents.

Please don't attack others. Not everyone in Bethesda is rich or over the top, and every pool I've been to has a fun, laid back pool culture that the members enjoy.