2026 Summer Swim Crazy - Word on the Street

[Anonymous]

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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.

You are absolutely right, I apologize. Families do this because of…waitlists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of this for times that don't even matter.

All to get awarded fake scholarships (discounts they give every applicant) to podunk colleges in the middle of nowhere you'd never consider were you not brainwashed into your kid having to swim "at the next level." Beyond pointless.

[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!

I’ll take tech suits at dual meets for 600, Alex [Ken].

[Anonymous]

How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

Pools are running meets on national holidays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

Pools are running meets on national holidays?

Last year there was a meet on July 5. Kids were all tired and parents hung over.

[Anonymous]

Have we covered "The pool's too shallow to dive!" yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have we covered "The pool's too shallow to dive!" yet?

This one only applies to All-Star swimmers. Give it 6 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have we covered "The pool's too shallow to dive!" yet?

This one only applies to All-Star swimmers. Give it 6 weeks.

Not true though… our pool is 4 feet, my son really has to find a perfect angle to avoid touching the bottom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

Pools are running meets on national holidays?

In 2015, only one meet shifted to Friday. https://mynvsl.com/schedules?year=2015&div=&date=20150703

Same situation, Independence Day on an NVSL Saturday, would have occurred in 2020 .. but COVID happened in case anyone forgot. Not a lot of old timers from 2015 are still around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

Pools are running meets on national holidays?

In 2015, only one meet shifted to Friday. https://mynvsl.com/schedules?year=2015&div=&date=20150703

Same situation, Independence Day on an NVSL Saturday, would have occurred in 2020 .. but COVID happened in case anyone forgot. Not a lot of old timers from 2015 are still around.

Division 1 NVSL I believe is switching to Friday this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

I would have liked ours to be the 4th! It's moved to the 3rd, which is no big deal, but pep rally on a day I don't have work would have been slightly easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about whether that other mom is volunteering enough? And also, why did I just say mom and not parent?

How about whether to hold an A meet on July 4th, simply because it's a Saturday, or do the right thing and have the meet on Friday the 3rd?

Pools are running meets on national holidays?

In 2015, only one meet shifted to Friday. https://mynvsl.com/schedules?year=2015&div=&date=20150703

Same situation, Independence Day on an NVSL Saturday, would have occurred in 2020 .. but COVID happened in case anyone forgot. Not a lot of old timers from 2015 are still around.

Division 1 NVSL I believe is switching to Friday this year.

We're on one of these teams and this is not the case for our team/meet at least.

[Anonymous]

Our Div 1 team is not switching. 4th of July is canceled. Must swim. Very important.