Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a public pool that can only take people who buy homes in our catchment area. No possibility to recruit or fill the team in any other way. We lose most of the time but the kids have fun. They all understand that we are who we are and that you are primarily swimming against yourself and the clock. The team aspect is for fun and community building.

Same for us. Swim Team members have to live in our neighborhood/be members of the HOA. This severely restricts who can be on our team. It is also making it difficult to recruit new swimmers. But the kids (and most parents) love it - so we keep going!

And isn’t that the point?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our league is very lopsided in the divisions with pools that have open membership and recruit heavily decimating pools that have a waitlist and cannot recruit. Seems silly (and unfair and unfun) to have them in the same division.

In MCSL this is becoming a non-issue. The recruiting teams are almost entirely in A and B. So if you are in C through O it won’t affect you much. No fun for the true neighborhood pools who don’t recruit. But does it really matter whether the unspirited teams from Rockville or Bethesda or stonebridge wins the league? They are all teams from 9am-11am on saturdays. Doesn’t mean much besides that.

What MCSL teams recruit? We are in B and have never heard of this at our pool.

This is all fascinating to me. We are new to MCSL and I never heard anything about summer swim recruiting. Is this really a thing?

Anonymous wrote:We are a public pool that can only take people who buy homes in our catchment area. No possibility to recruit or fill the team in any other way. We lose most of the time but the kids have fun. They all understand that we are who we are and that you are primarily swimming against yourself and the clock. The team aspect is for fun and community building.

Same for us. Swim Team members have to live in our neighborhood/be members of the HOA. This severely restricts who can be on our team. It is also making it difficult to recruit new swimmers. But the kids (and most parents) love it - so we keep going!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our league is very lopsided in the divisions with pools that have open membership and recruit heavily decimating pools that have a waitlist and cannot recruit. Seems silly (and unfair and unfun) to have them in the same division.

In MCSL this is becoming a non-issue. The recruiting teams are almost entirely in A and B. So if you are in C through O it won’t affect you much. No fun for the true neighborhood pools who don’t recruit. But does it really matter whether the unspirited teams from Rockville or Bethesda or stonebridge wins the league? They are all teams from 9am-11am on saturdays. Doesn’t mean much besides that.

What MCSL teams recruit? We are in B and have never heard of this at our pool.

The kids at my pool seem to care about winning the division and have no inkling about what goes on in other divisions.

Anonymous wrote:Our league is very lopsided in the divisions with pools that have open membership and recruit heavily decimating pools that have a waitlist and cannot recruit. Seems silly (and unfair and unfun) to have them in the same division.

In MCSL this is becoming a non-issue. The recruiting teams are almost entirely in A and B. So if you are in C through O it won’t affect you much. No fun for the true neighborhood pools who don’t recruit. But does it really matter whether the unspirited teams from Rockville or Bethesda or stonebridge wins the league? They are all teams from 9am-11am on saturdays. Doesn’t mean much besides that.

Anonymous wrote:Can’t speak to MCSL, but we are at a D1 pool in NVSL (and not one of the Big Three). I think scuttle about pools recruiting is significantly overblown. Sure, might happen here & there, but mostly the fast kids grow up through the “mini” system, start doing winter swim by 6/7, and are generally the products of more focused swim training earlier on. With a very few exceptions, most of the kids swimming A meets are year-round swimmers by 7 or 8. Does this equate to a “fun” summer swim experience? Not particularly. But doesn’t mean these pools recruit.

Completely agree on recruiting. I doubt it happens much at all . i’m sure occasionally a swimmer’s friend or club swim coach might suggest switching to their summer pool, but the competitive pools are not going out of their way to contact the top swimmers at other clubs. My kid has been at or near the top of the best times since they started in the league and we have never been contacted by another pool (not even ones whose waitlists we joined years ago and are technically still on).

But regardless of whether the kids do year round, summer swim is still mostly a fun experience for the kids. For us it is the carrot that makes year round worth it. I wish the year round clubs could have some inkling of the fun and team camaraderie that summer swim brings.

Can’t speak to MCSL, but we are at a D1 pool in NVSL (and not one of the Big Three). I think scuttle about pools recruiting is significantly overblown. Sure, might happen here & there, but mostly the fast kids grow up through the “mini” system, start doing winter swim by 6/7, and are generally the products of more focused swim training earlier on. With a very few exceptions, most of the kids swimming A meets are year-round swimmers by 7 or 8. Does this equate to a “fun” summer swim experience? Not particularly. But doesn’t mean these pools recruit.

Also MCSL reseeds divisions every year, so presumably the divisions never get super lopsided.

What league? MCSL has a lot of boundaried pools who seem to do quite well - I am pretty sure the top 3 divisions all have neighborhood pools. Sure, some open pools are perennial powerhouses but does it matter much? Most teams have fun competing within their division.

It's only an issue for the uber-competative parents. Otherwise your child's scores are the most important and focusing on summer swim vs. year round seems silly. Summer should be fun.

Anonymous wrote:We are a public pool that can only take people who buy homes in our catchment area. No possibility to recruit or fill the team in any other way. We lose most of the time but the kids have fun. They all understand that we are who we are and that you are primarily swimming against yourself and the clock. The team aspect is for fun and community building.

That sounds like a private pool, not a public one. Is it an HOA?

We are a public pool that can only take people who buy homes in our catchment area. No possibility to recruit or fill the team in any other way. We lose most of the time but the kids have fun. They all understand that we are who we are and that you are primarily swimming against yourself and the clock. The team aspect is for fun and community building.

This sorts itself out over time as top recruiters move to the top divisions and teams that get pummeled move to the lower divisions (higher numbers).

Our league is very lopsided in the divisions with pools that have open membership and recruit heavily decimating pools that have a waitlist and cannot recruit. Seems silly (and unfair and unfun) to have them in the same division.