Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately I think a lot of teams are clear in their terms that they don’t offer refunds. I’m not saying that’s right but it’s a common policy.

But there is a basic agreement. Club provides services (swim coaching) and families (customers) commit to a year’s worth of fees. The families have an expectation of a certain level of service in exchange that was sold when families registered - and it’s professional coach (not a HSer).

When services are not being provided as advertised families get cranky. It was brought to the Site Director’s (Bill Marlin) attention. Bill did nothing to correct/resolve and created an acrimonious relationship between the coach and family. It was a jerk move. Marlins certainly didn’t uphold its end of the agreement in the scenario as portrayed.

Depending upon timing, perhaps Bill or Barry themselves could have coached the practices to fill in for the missing coach? That would definitely have been a better solution to the issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the area top teams have coaches in high school

Ummm…. No.

lol. No way. I’ve never seen a high schooler at ANY level coaching for our club. No even a college student.

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately I think a lot of teams are clear in their terms that they don’t offer refunds. I’m not saying that’s right but it’s a common policy.

I was looking more for them to replace the Coach, so we actually had one that showed up the practice, than a refund. Bill decided on doing neither.

Unfortunately I think a lot of teams are clear in their terms that they don’t offer refunds. I’m not saying that’s right but it’s a common policy.

Anonymous wrote:All the area top teams have coaches in high school

This is about club swim, not summer swim.

Anonymous wrote:All the area top teams have coaches in high school

Maybe leading summer swim practice for the 8&unders, but not the Marlins for which you pay thousands for….

This is a teenager that usually just helps kids in the water. He was expected to actually lead practice, for which he didn’t know how to properly. We switched to Makos and never ever had a JR coach aka teenager lead the entire practice….

Anonymous wrote:All the area top teams have coaches in high school

Ummm…. No.

All the area top teams have coaches in high school

Well it won’t do any good if you/they do. You will send all your complains to the Coach with you CC’d and it will just be extremely awkward. If they are gonna be this big with multiple sites, they need to do some quality assurance themselves periodically since they don’t want to listen to the parents that are at all the practices. Even when you forward all the Coaches emails of absences it doesn’t matter. They already have your money.

We've had a similar experience with the GW Rec Coach. A few parents have complained to me but I don't know that anyone has raised it with Bill.

The response I got clearly showed Bill is only in it for the money. He never even took the time to remedy the situation. He just punted it to the Coach, and then co signed all their excuses and said zero refund. If I had made the installment payments, atleast I could have disputed it with my credit card company. Showing them all the emails if asked proving they weren’t providing the services they said they were. I saved all the Coaches emails stating they wouldn’t be at practice.

Save your $$$ and go elsewhere.

DP. There’s no point reaching out to Barry at this point. The OP moved onto another club.

IME Bill and Barry are only in it for the money at this point and biding time until they retire.

Would suggest reaching out to Barry as well since he is the team manager

Would highly discourage people from signing their young swimmers up with the Marlins. Our Marlins coach missed too many practices to even count, and just shoved their responsibility to their JR coach whom was a high school teenager. Emailed Bill (figured he would want to know, since he was never there to witness first hand) and his response was to forward my email and CC the Coach. The Coach just made excuses, and said they had a full time job that was their priority. We paid upfront early in the year, nothing was refunded and Bill could care less. Bringing this to his attention, made things extra awkward with the Coach that we were suppose to finish the rest of the season with. We left and went elsewhere.

Bill is completely unprofessional, and so is the Coach he hired. He couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain with his coaching staff. Highly encourage young swimmers to give this team a skip.