Reply to Swim Meet Relay Policy? What is your summer teams relay policy?

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "Swim Meet Relay Policy? What is your summer teams relay policy?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]+1 we have swimmers who don’t do practice but do early morning NCAP and they still do A meets. [/quote]

Our coach reserves the right to sub these players out for swimmers who actually do summer swim team. I am fine with that, and I think most other parents on our team feel the same way. It doesn't happen at every meet but this gives a chance for the swimmers who work hard and improve but don't do year-round swim to have that A meet experience.
[/quote]

I think they’re part of the team. A lot of the older ones coach and the younger ones still participate in all of the team stuff that comes with a meets. They are going to earlier and hard practices, so it’s not like they’re lazy[/quote]

This definitely dives into the deeper question of what it means to be part of a team.  When my son hit 3rd grade and travel soccer began, their star player showed up for maybe 3 rec games and never any practices, yet always got playing time since he was the best player.  At the time the boys didn't mind since they won when Larlo played, but he was absent for every other practice, scrimmage and game.  They liked to win, but it also meant one more kid was on the bench when Larlo was there, even if that kid had been working hard week in and week out as part of this team.  It actually hurt them a bit mentally too, more than once one of them would say "well, we're going to lose since Larlo isn't here".

If a child shows up only for six Saturday morning A meets but no other practices or meets, is that child really part of the team? He or she is clearly a dedicated swimmer, but not necessarily an integral and dedicated part of the summer swim team.  I don't think it's unreasonable for coaches to take that into consideration.  It's always going to be balanced by the reality that those kids are also probably incredibly fast and strong, so it's advantageous to the team to let them swim, but that's a question of priorities for the summer team.
[/quote]

FWIW- as a parent of children who are good rec travel players, and who sometimes swim the 3rd lane of A meets, but are not stars by any stretch of the imagination- I don't think the club swimmer and the travel soccer player playing rec are analogous.   Swimming is an individual objective sport.  Yes, our swim team is fun and does team bldg activities- but I have no problem with the fastest kids being the ones to swim in A meets, regardless of their 'team' attendance.
Soccer is a team sport.  It hurts the rest of the team when a kid is not there for practices.  They don't learn how to play together, etc.  My DS rec team has been basically destroyed with kids playing ADP/ Travel and thus not coming to practice.  (My belief in the competitiveness of those programs has also been destroyed b/c the kids playing ADP/Travel do not appear to be any better than the rest of the team.)   I think rec coaches should not have to play kids who don't come to practice.[/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