Anonymous wrote:Each team is going to be different. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that one coach (maybe not the head coach) address a DQ with a swimmer after a meet. Summer swim is not a great place for one on one coaching though. Each swimmer cannot get a lot of attention given how big teams can be. I’d consider private lessons do work on individual strokes and technique.

Agreed, find out why your swimmer was DQed and then consider private lessons with one of the assistant or junior coaches. Unfortunately, summer swim is not a great place for one on one coaching. It’s such a large group of kids and very fast paced with A and B meets weekly. A few private lessons will do wonders. Many of the assistants are year round swimmers and can provide help with technique and would love some extra spending money.

I agree with the above that the head coach coaches the younger coaches. My son qualified for about half of the A meets this summer - was just on the cusp - and I HIGHLY doubt the head coach even knew my kids name. I wouldn’t expect a head coach to personally discuss DQs with each swimmer.

Our head coach primarily oversees and directs the teenage coaches. One of my daughters was an assistant coach this year and her job at nearly every Monday and Tuesday practice was to pull aside the kids that dq-ed in breaststroke and work with them on those issues. She was considered the breaststroke whisperer.

Each team is going to be different. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that one coach (maybe not the head coach) address a DQ with a swimmer after a meet. Summer swim is not a great place for one on one coaching though. Each swimmer cannot get a lot of attention given how big teams can be. I’d consider private lessons do work on individual strokes and technique.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not sure if we expect too much, the DQ help part, or it is normal for a summer swim team.

I think I have a few more questions, how old is your swimmer? How long have they been swimming? And what are they struggling with?

I am a team rep and we try very hard to work on DQs. But as someone else said, summer is short and tough to fix things. After meets we print out the DQ report and go over it (head coach, asst. coach and myself). We also take notes during the meets on swimmers that should have been called by S&T and were not. We try to work on those kiddos too because nothing like a kid getting "legal" times at a B meet because the S&T judge has zero clue what they are doing and then DQing at an A meet. Or the parents thinking their kid can do something and they cannot.

If a kid is really struggling with something I will reach out to the parent and recommend some private coaching. Sometimes some one on one makes a huge difference and in 2-3 sessions they have it.

Regardless we try and keep every swimmer in the water over winter in some sort of program so that they can progress and more importantly not forget everything that they learned.

Not 8 and under. Can't give more information because they can identify who we are. All we want are reason(s) for DQ and a few pointers to work on. Then it's up to the swimmer to improve.
Our team has a winter swim program, and we're not signing up due to the issue above.
Thanks for the information. Now we know what to expect from a good team (head coach & team rep).

With a billion teams in NVSL, MCSL, colonial league etc you could say I have a BLaNK that did X and there are 100 examples and teams with the same issue.

OP find a swim program for winter or next year will not be better.

Wow, our MCSL team is reasonably commensurate in size (about 120+ kids, I think?), and my DCs have always received personal attention even at regular practice. I am beginning to get the impression on these boards, though, that we might have a little more water time than some other teams (not sure). We have about 7 coaches total (not counting pre-team coaches), and there are 3 practice slots every morning M-F and 3 practice slots every afternoon M-T and Th-F (no afternoon practice on Wednesdays because of B meets). What this means is that there are never a huge number of swimmers at any one practice once the routine settles into place by the week after time trials or so.

Our coaches are available to interpret DQs right away at odd moments during the meets, and even our head coach offers individual feedback right after races. But truth to tell we don't have that many DQs generally - and we're not in a super high division, either. If a team is racking up so many DQs that the coaches do not have time to explain them to the swimmers, the coaches might want to re-think their B meet entry baselines. There is plenty of debate as to how much of a bar should be set there, but to me as a parent, I would want a team to only enter as many swimmers in a B meet as they can reasonably support, manage, coach, and help to improve during that 3-hour window. If they all DQ, fine, as long as they have the chance to learn from it.

It sounds like your DC is working on breast and/or fly (DQ in back is really easy to see, and DQ in free is really hard to do!), and private lessons can be helpful with that no matter what. But one way you as a parent can help to support this in the (frenzied) summer environment is to observe practice when you can and ask the advice of others around you. In this geographical area, there are a _lot_ of former swimmers who are now fellow team parents and can provide some good feedback on what DC is doing well and not so well. Our team's S&T judges are also in that category, and they have pointed out in conversation some really useful subtleties in one of my DC's strokes that it took _DC_ an entire season to understand, notice, and feel.

We had similar issues last year in our first summer swim (MCSL), both kids under 10. We never really got a lot of great feedback from the coaches as to the DQ reasons.
You can pull the exact reason from swimtopia or the MCSL results, but even then there's sometimes some jargon, like in breast stroke, hands beyond hipline, or incomplete stroke cycle. We ended up putting both kids in year round swim (which they were both excited to do) and this summer they didn't DQ once.
Summer swim is really about getting "everyone" to a semblance of legality, so there's just sometimes not enough time to get to everyone. Ideally, if your swimmer comes 1x to every M-F practice after the meet in which the DQ happened, it's certainly reasonable to expect some to be spent on that. I encourage you to bring it up to your team rep though, especially if other parents are also feeling lost about their children's performance.

4 yr summer swim team member in NVSL. Have had 2 head coaches during this time on our team.

Neither was good about going over DQ slips with kids. They have 150+ kids between 5 and 18 to manage. One on one attention and improvement is a bit much to expect.

One was very strict about giving "permission" for kids to try to be legal in a stroke at B meets. Wouldn't allow kids to try without coach approval. Did not love that approach.

The other lets anyone who wants have a crack at it. Much preferred this. I do think more work should fall to assistant coaches and some parents, either team rep or data or someone, to notify parents/kids of reason for DQ and point them in right way to fix it. Usually this means you pay a teen coach or older swimmer for a few private lessons. Well worth the $20.

No one is going to personally invest themselves in getting your child to legal strokes when they are responsible for a minimum of 25 kids if they're lane coaches or more if the head coach of a team. New parents often expect too much during the very short summer season, but more seasoned parents can help more by sharing contact info for yr round swim and the names of teens giving private lessons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not sure if we expect too much, the DQ help part, or it is normal for a summer swim team.

I think I have a few more questions, how old is your swimmer? How long have they been swimming? And what are they struggling with?

I am a team rep and we try very hard to work on DQs. But as someone else said, summer is short and tough to fix things. After meets we print out the DQ report and go over it (head coach, asst. coach and myself). We also take notes during the meets on swimmers that should have been called by S&T and were not. We try to work on those kiddos too because nothing like a kid getting "legal" times at a B meet because the S&T judge has zero clue what they are doing and then DQing at an A meet. Or the parents thinking their kid can do something and they cannot.

If a kid is really struggling with something I will reach out to the parent and recommend some private coaching. Sometimes some one on one makes a huge difference and in 2-3 sessions they have it.

Regardless we try and keep every swimmer in the water over winter in some sort of program so that they can progress and more importantly not forget everything that they learned.

Not 8 and under. Can't give more information because they can identify who we are. All we want are reason(s) for DQ and a few pointers to work on. Then it's up to the swimmer to improve.
Our team has a winter swim program, and we're not signing up due to the issue above.
Thanks for the information. Now we know what to expect from a good team (head coach & team rep).

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why you are asking now, summer swim is over.

It's for next year, whether to move to a different pool/team.

Anonymous wrote:First year swim parent here. We're new so don't know what to expect. Does the head coach mostly handle admin duty and only some hand-on coaching? Do they pay attention (coaching) only to the faster swimmers (of the A meet) while leaving the slower ones (A & B meets) coaching to the teenage assistants? Do they tell the DQed kids of what they did wrong and tried to correct it or at least told the assistants/older kids to help?

Not sure if we expect too much, the DQ help part, or it is normal for a summer swim team.

I think I have a few more questions, how old is your swimmer? How long have they been swimming? And what are they struggling with?

I am a team rep and we try very hard to work on DQs. But as someone else said, summer is short and tough to fix things. After meets we print out the DQ report and go over it (head coach, asst. coach and myself). We also take notes during the meets on swimmers that should have been called by S&T and were not. We try to work on those kiddos too because nothing like a kid getting "legal" times at a B meet because the S&T judge has zero clue what they are doing and then DQing at an A meet. Or the parents thinking their kid can do something and they cannot.

If a kid is really struggling with something I will reach out to the parent and recommend some private coaching. Sometimes some one on one makes a huge difference and in 2-3 sessions they have it.

Regardless we try and keep every swimmer in the water over winter in some sort of program so that they can progress and more importantly not forget everything that they learned.

What league?

We are NVSL. For us the admin stuff is handled by the team rep and almost all parent communications go through the team rep and the head coach. They are constantly talking to one another.

The head coach handles the practices, the practice plans, the meets, the coaches, the DQs and keeps everyone safe on deck. They are responsible for all swimmers and generally the goal is to have some sort of improvement in the very short 5-6 weeks for all swimmers. Summer is too short to make huge gains except for the little ones. Generally the team focuses on DQs on Monday and Tuesday and goes over them with the individuals if unique to them or the whole team if a more systemic issue.

Our seeding is done by our coach and team rep and then communicated out by our team rep.

Not sure why you are asking now, summer swim is over.
Our head coach is in charge of coaching. Yes he tells DQ kids what they did wrong and works on it with them. He pays attention to all the swimmers equally. Lots of positive reinforcement and great energy.
He keeps track of times at the meets but other than that the admin stuff is handled by our swim team reps ( we have 2 who share duties)
We are MCSL division N if that matters. Maybe the higher divisions have stricter coaches.

First year swim parent here. We're new so don't know what to expect. Does the head coach mostly handle admin duty and only some hand-on coaching? Do they pay attention (coaching) only to the faster swimmers (of the A meet) while leaving the slower ones (A & B meets) coaching to the teenage assistants? Do they tell the DQed kids of what they did wrong and tried to correct it or at least told the assistants/older kids to help?

Not sure if we expect too much, the DQ help part, or it is normal for a summer swim team.