Reply to MCSL rule changes for summer 2026

Forum Index » Swimming and Diving

Reply to "MCSL rule changes for summer 2026"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love the idea of the age group determination date being August 1st. Whatever age you are by August 1st is the age group you swim in for that summer season. 
So if you turn 9 on August 1st or anytime before that, you swim in 9-10s that whole summer. It makes sense.

Most of the girls in the "8&U" age group who made coach's long course and individual all stars this year were already 9 years old or days/weeks away. The fastest "8&U" girl who is breaking a bunch of MCSL records literally had her birthday announced on the individual all star meet day. Before all you keyboard warriors come at me like OMG ARE YOU A STALKER?! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THEIR AGES?!...this is publicly available information online. If you don't like this, write to you're representative to get legislation in place. It's utterly creepy how publicly available all of our swimmers' info is on MeetMobile etc etc.

Let's not kid ourselves either about "oh this is just for fun!!! It's summer swim you troll!!!! How dare you take this from the children?!?!". I'd say 99% of the 8&U girls who made coach's long course or individual all stars are year-round club swimmers. So they're used to the year-round rule which is....you age up on your birthday. Changing it to August 1st would give ACTUAL 8&Us that aren't club swimmers a chance to make those events.  [/quote]

Changing the date would advantage different kids, but it wouldn’t change the huge advantage that club swimmers have.  Why are you confusing those things?[/quote]

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?![/quote]

I am the PP you quoted.  I don’t object to club swimmers swimming, as long as they get that it’s a team rec sport and entirely different from club swimming.

But the PP I quoted seemed to be saying that the advantage that club swimmers have somehow justifies changing the age when the two things are completely separate.

The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others.  I have a kid with a late July birthday, he  has an advantage in Summer Swim, a disadvantage in his favorite sport which has a August 1 cut off, a bigger disadvantage in lacrosse where they play by age and lots of kids are redshirted, and unclear status in soccer right now because the ages seem to be changing.  It just is what it is.  But I don’t go demanding that the rules change in any of those sports.  Because I am not a poor sport.[/quote]

"The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others."

Except....in club swim. There is no cut off date. You swim as the age you are. You age up on your birthday. That doesn't advantage or disadvantage any kids. It just is what it is. Everyone knows it and accepts it.

I fully support summer swim kids aging up on their birthdays. Someone picking a random arbitrary date and everyone sticking by it for years and years is ludicrous to me. It's like the people that say, "Oh this is how we've always done it! It's tradition!"
A tradition that makes no sense. [/quote]

Club swim isn't a team sport.  
[/quote]

DP - unless a kid is swimming unaffiliated, it's not an entirely individual sport.  It's not a team sport in the way that soccer or softball are, but club meets do keep track of team scores/results.  So kids are scoring points for their team, even while they're swimming individual events.

As an aside, my kids' club absolutely makes them feel like they're on a team.  They cheer for each other at meets, hang out, etc.  That's a huge part of the fun.[/quote]

Yes to all the above plus RELAYS in club meets (wish there were more relays). It isn’t soccer or basketball but there is some teamwork in club swim.[/quote]

No one is saying that club isn’t fun, or doesn’t develop teamwork.

But summer swim is structured like soccer in that you have a group of kids working together for a clearly defined season towards a team goal.  Having kids move from one group to another during the short season doesn’t make sense, just like it doesn’t make sense for soccer players to age up mid season.  [/quote]
The age up argument is so tired and I agree that aging up in the middle of a 6 week season is stupid, but summer swim is not akin to a team sport like soccer or basketball where teamwork and chemistry are a big part of how well a team performs. Summer swim is a bunch of individual swims that score points for the team. Relays are the only area of teamwork and honestly there is not that much teamwork involved in swimming a relay, you dive in and swim your leg. [/quote]

Chemistry and spirit in our experience actually have a big impact on how kids swim on summer team.  Just because they're not ball-handling at the same time doesn't mean they're not competing together and mentoring one another.  You sound like you haven't had the good fortune to be on a summer team with a strong culture.[/quote]
Maybe my experience is skewed because my kid is a year rounder and I find this area’s obsession with summer swim to be completely over the top, but the “spirit” and “chemistry” of their summer team has zero impact on how fast my kid swims. Maybe you could say that your “culture” is so great that the summer only kids want to practice as much as possible and that helps them be better swimmers, but they aren’t actually competing together in a way that chemistry matters as it does on a basketball court or soccer field. Doing a million pancake breakfasts and pep rallies during the season is not actually making kids appreciably faster.[/quote]
I see your point, but I will say that my DC consistently swims faster in relays in club swim than in individual events (including in the lead-off leg, where you can actually compare times to individual events). It's the pressure and accountability to perform for their relay team, not just themselves.  I imagine this translates to summer and high school swim at least a tiny amount, where your performance counts for the team. And, the positive culture makes them want to. [/quote]

DP.  Funny enough, I've seen the exact opposite.  Some kids are very fast individually, but choke during relays.  A good coach will hold relay team practices to ensure it has the right members, not just the fastest individual swimmers.[/quote]
No club has meaningful relay team practices because the relays are across the club not just specific sites of the club. Maybe some of the small clubs with just 1 practice site can try to do this, but  the larger more competitive clubs can’t. And I don’t know how you would go about holding relay team practices in the summer than weren’t based on the fastest times. [/quote]

Correct, sites with 1-2 practice sites can do this.  As for summer swim relay teams, I know of several that hold practices before relay carnival to ensure the relay team works well together.  They also do relay practices during regular summer swim practice if someone is new to the relay team.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics