If you are in the central MD swim league, the league prioritizes making well matched divisions. There are closer pools, but the competition wouldn't be matched as well. The divisions will change year to year based on wins and losses.

Swim team takes a lot from parents and that is hard when your kids are younger. But do your best, your kids will make friends and that part gets easier and more fun in some ways.

Swim team is a lot of swimming, but often not a lot of instruction. get the extra lessons and ask you coach if you have questions about DQ.

The wins and losses could be division, but also can be the way the meets are scored. In CMSL, you are scored 5/3/1 - which means if you are coming in 2nd and 3rd, that's not enough to be 1st. The kids can be very well matched and come in second over and over - there is some element of luck/chance.

If your kids are learning, getting better, and having fun, you have gotten everything you need to out of summer swim.

Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Others have provided good answers.

Meets are far away so you can swim against other teams with whom your team in competitive. If you are losing every meet, you either were unlucky to be in the lowest of teams qualifying for your division - or you were seeded higher but some of your best swimmers from last year (who contributed to the seeding) did not come back or had to miss meets. It's likely to be better next year when everything is re-calibrated.

Volunteering is what it is. It takes a ton of people to run a swim meet and a ton more to do all the 'spirit' stuff that makes summer swim the fun thing that it is. Those who embrace it usually make good friends in their community and look forward to the short intense swim season (and also look forward to when it ends!). If it's not your thing, that's fine, but it probably means summer swim isn't for your family.

For us at least, summer swim is 40% about the swimming and 60% about the team, fun, and community. Our coaching is good and my kids have gotten better every summer, but if you are looking for great individual instruction, summer swim is not where it's at. If you are looking for something that your kids can work at, get exercise, be challenged emotionally and physically, form friendships, be silly, and have great role models in the form of older kids (or great leadership experiences once they become an older kid) -it's one of the best games in town. This is especially true as the kids spend more years on the team and really become a part of it.

I think it's totally reasonable that someone signing up for something called 'swim team' expects it to be mostly about the swimming and might feel like what they got was not at all what they were signing up for. But those of us who keep coming back see the value in the aspects that transcend swimming -- including all those volunteer hours getting to know other neighborhood families and making something special happen for our kids.

THIS. Thank you so much for capturing what makes summer swim so special, PP.

+1 very well said!

We love summer swim and with three kids, it’s no small commitment. But that intensity is part of what makes it so special. It’s definitely not for everyone and that’s fine. IME, the parents who jump into volunteering are the ones who enjoy it the most. Yes, it’s a ton of work, but also so much fun.

As a LONG time swim parent I totally agree with PP. Summer swim is about the relationships you and your kids build. My kids like to swim, but they love hanging with their friends. And I made some of my closest friends by being very involved in summer swim (yes, I have a FT WOH job.)

You can't automate timing. Even with club swim, there are 2 timers using plungers and watches plus touch pads - 3 methods of timing. I have never seen a summer pool with touchpads. Hence 3 timers.

Anonymous wrote:Others have provided good answers.

Meets are far away so you can swim against other teams with whom your team in competitive. If you are losing every meet, you either were unlucky to be in the lowest of teams qualifying for your division - or you were seeded higher but some of your best swimmers from last year (who contributed to the seeding) did not come back or had to miss meets. It's likely to be better next year when everything is re-calibrated.

Volunteering is what it is. It takes a ton of people to run a swim meet and a ton more to do all the 'spirit' stuff that makes summer swim the fun thing that it is. Those who embrace it usually make good friends in their community and look forward to the short intense swim season (and also look forward to when it ends!). If it's not your thing, that's fine, but it probably means summer swim isn't for your family.

For us at least, summer swim is 40% about the swimming and 60% about the team, fun, and community. Our coaching is good and my kids have gotten better every summer, but if you are looking for great individual instruction, summer swim is not where it's at. If you are looking for something that your kids can work at, get exercise, be challenged emotionally and physically, form friendships, be silly, and have great role models in the form of older kids (or great leadership experiences once they become an older kid) -it's one of the best games in town. This is especially true as the kids spend more years on the team and really become a part of it.

I think it's totally reasonable that someone signing up for something called 'swim team' expects it to be mostly about the swimming and might feel like what they got was not at all what they were signing up for. But those of us who keep coming back see the value in the aspects that transcend swimming -- including all those volunteer hours getting to know other neighborhood families and making something special happen for our kids.

THIS. Thank you so much for capturing what makes summer swim so special, PP.

Others have provided good answers.

Meets are far away so you can swim against other teams with whom your team in competitive. If you are losing every meet, you either were unlucky to be in the lowest of teams qualifying for your division - or you were seeded higher but some of your best swimmers from last year (who contributed to the seeding) did not come back or had to miss meets. It's likely to be better next year when everything is re-calibrated.

Volunteering is what it is. It takes a ton of people to run a swim meet and a ton more to do all the 'spirit' stuff that makes summer swim the fun thing that it is. Those who embrace it usually make good friends in their community and look forward to the short intense swim season (and also look forward to when it ends!). If it's not your thing, that's fine, but it probably means summer swim isn't for your family.

For us at least, summer swim is 40% about the swimming and 60% about the team, fun, and community. Our coaching is good and my kids have gotten better every summer, but if you are looking for great individual instruction, summer swim is not where it's at. If you are looking for something that your kids can work at, get exercise, be challenged emotionally and physically, form friendships, be silly, and have great role models in the form of older kids (or great leadership experiences once they become an older kid) -it's one of the best games in town. This is especially true as the kids spend more years on the team and really become a part of it.

I think it's totally reasonable that someone signing up for something called 'swim team' expects it to be mostly about the swimming and might feel like what they got was not at all what they were signing up for. But those of us who keep coming back see the value in the aspects that transcend swimming -- including all those volunteer hours getting to know other neighborhood families and making something special happen for our kids.

Swim is more technical than you think and learning it takes way more time and practice than you think.

Have you ever been to a dance recital and wondered why don't look like the ballerinas in the Nutcracker despite a year of practice? Dance skills takes time to improve. Basketball skills take time to improve. Swim skills take time to improve. It might look easy from the sidelines, but think about how good your basketball or dancing skills are compared to teens. If you watched a YouTube video of a dance move would you look good right away?

Anonymous wrote:We are wrapping up our summer swim first experience. It was very confusing I’m wondering if there’s some info I can glean from this group:

Why are the away meets so far away? We are in the central Md division and most of our away meets are an hour away? Why don’t they group local pools together?

Does everyone’s practices lack stroke technique instruction ? I ended up signing my kid up for extra swim instruction after he dq’d in a couple meets.

The family time commitment vs actual kid participation time seems pretty extreme. With three kids it’s a tough juggle.

Can’t we automate some of these volunteer heavy duties like timers?

We lost most of our meets. Is this due to coaching or wrong division placement? Or just a younger team?

Any thoughts? We may just not be swim family material. Thanks in advance for helpful wisdom.

What league is this? You will get much much better responses if you tell us the league.

Summer swim is absolutely about fun and about kids feeling like part of a community while doing a sport they enjoy. If you don't have that, it's probably not worth it. But when you do have it, it can be pretty magic. The teenagers on the team are so good to our younger kids and we hope they will grow up to do the same.

We usually have 1-2 A meets that are 30-40 minutes away. It stinks but it's 1-2 mornings of the whole season.

I do see improvement for kids that attend a lot of practices (like 4-5 a week). Our group of junior coaches did a great job with stroke instruction this year, but that's not always the case. It's a really quick season and kids who come in with no stroke instruction or endurance have a tough time and are only just getting into the swing of it when the season ends. If you want to give it a go next summer, try to do some stroke and turn classes in April and May and your kids will feel much more prepared.

Also, our team lost a lot this year because we moved up last year. We had some injuries, conflicts with big USA swimming meets, and a small crew in two age groups. We're moving down in the divisions and it's totally fine! It'll probably be really competitive and fun next summer.

The volunteering is just part of how it all works. We really enjoy the families on our team and we're happy to pitch in but also say no when we really can't do it.

Our B meets away pools in NVSL are maybe within 15 minutes of our pool. A meets are father away, but if your kids are DQing with no instruction it doesn't sound like you are doing a meets. We do private lessons on the side to supplement. I think there are just too many kids for coaches to be giving targeted instruction. Without volunteers there wouldn't be a meet. With 3 children on the team you should definitely be volunteering.

OP - what league are you in? You say "Central MD".

Is it this one?

https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/reccmsl/page/home

As far as teams in your division, it really depends. Most leagues will re-seed every year to keep things competitive. It seems also that you have a pretty wide distribution - for example I see a team in Timonium and a team in Laurel. That is a pretty huge distance gap.

So although there might be closer pools, to use another analogy, it would be like a NCAA division I football team competing against a NCAA division III team - they're just not on the same level.

Some leagues will have off meets (B meets) which are typically local pools, but are just a way to get chances for more swimmers to swim, not score points in rankings.

It's no fun to lose by a lot (and to be fair, not a lot of fun to blow out all the competition as well).

Anonymous wrote:We are wrapping up our summer swim first experience. It was very confusing I’m wondering if there’s some info I can glean from this group:

Why are the away meets so far away? We are in the central Md division and most of our away meets are an hour away? Why don’t they group local pools together?

Does everyone’s practices lack stroke technique instruction ? I ended up signing my kid up for extra swim instruction after he dq’d in a couple meets.

The family time commitment vs actual kid participation time seems pretty extreme. With three kids it’s a tough juggle.

Can’t we automate some of these volunteer heavy duties like timers?

We lost most of our meets. Is this due to coaching or wrong division placement? Or just a younger team?

Any thoughts? We may just not be swim family material. Thanks in advance for helpful wisdom.

I can only speak for NVSL, but the league is spread over a large area and in trying to keep divisions competitive they just look at how teams match up and not distances.

Swimming is labor intensive and takes a lot of volunteers. Not a whole lot around this. Some people love volunteering and the comradery, some hate it. If you hate it then summer swim may not be for you.

Timing- hard to automate- touchpads are vey expensive and not worth the investment for a league that last 6-7 weeks. They can also fail and even at USA swim meets there are 2 timers per lane as backups.

Losing by a lot- likely poor division placement. Coaching matters in summer swim, but not a ton. No matter how good a coach is they can only accomplish so much in 8 weeks. Biggest predictor of team success it the number of kids on the team who swim club year round/come in needing little coaching.

Welcome to the crazy, OP. And don't let the NVSL mania get you down - it's a few people stirring a pot that only they care about. Summer swim can be the _best_ experience for kids if you roll with some of the punches.

As PP noted, your away meets are determined by your team's ranking and grouping in divisions, not by geography. So some years you have a lot of commuting and some years not so much. The older the kids get the easier it becomes.

Swim practice is not really for detailed stroke correction in most summer situations. It is normal for littles to DQ, and sometimes to DQ a lot, and sometimes to DQ a given stroke for multiple seasons until they get it. Coaches can help, but a few lessons are never a bad idea if DC is capable of concentrating through it.

Yes, the time commitment can be real. But like anything, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. The kids who end up feeling the most connected to the team often do two-a-days. If your team practices twice, see if you can get your kids there both times. If they take to it and you can handle the schedule, summer swim can stand in for summer camp. My kids literally don't want to be at camp if they can be at our pool. If you can work remotely, there's often a way to work from the deck.

Some teams assign volunteers or have elaborate systems of points and financial penalties, but PP is absolutely right that it takes an outsized number of volunteers to run a meet, let alone summer swim im general, with all of its extra experiences. My best advice is to find a job that works for you (team breakfast? Ribbons?) and make it your thing. That way you can opt out of the other jobs that don't appeal or don't fit into your family's life.

And some teams have to have losing records if other teams are going to win. Great coaching and genius lineups might be able to capture an extra win per season, but they can't make up for having graduated a big group of fast seniors, or having a gap in a given age group. Again as PP said, try asking the other parents on the team. They can likely tell you when the team was last winning - and what they need to win again.

They likely do teach technique at practice but it can take quite awhile to get breast and fly down. Not sure of your kids' ages but occasionally I've seen almost every 8-and-under DQ in breaststroke, especially at B Meets.

These are questions you could ask the other swim parents at your pool.
There are divisions within each league. We are division N. So swim against the other N division teams in our league. They should not all have been an hour away. The county is not that big.
Swim team is run by volunteers. They need volunteers for every part of a meet. Yes it sucks to time for 4 hours for your kid to swim twice but it is what it is. The other positions you need to do do online training for. Be thankful someone else does that for your team.
If you lost every meet you might move down a division.
It’s summer swim though OP. It’s supposed to be fun, not too
Serious.

We are wrapping up our summer swim first experience. It was very confusing I’m wondering if there’s some info I can glean from this group:

Why are the away meets so far away? We are in the central Md division and most of our away meets are an hour away? Why don’t they group local pools together?

Does everyone’s practices lack stroke technique instruction ? I ended up signing my kid up for extra swim instruction after he dq’d in a couple meets.

The family time commitment vs actual kid participation time seems pretty extreme. With three kids it’s a tough juggle.

Can’t we automate some of these volunteer heavy duties like timers?

We lost most of our meets. Is this due to coaching or wrong division placement? Or just a younger team?

Any thoughts? We may just not be swim family material. Thanks in advance for helpful wisdom.