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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Do teams not send out the ladder to everyone? Ours does after every meet. I appreciate it because it’s transparent and also because I would lose track of whether or not my kid is eligible to swim in the A meet (and for what) if they didn’t. I don’t have time to be parsing over results from previous meets to see whose times are faster or slower than whatever my kids just did. Our ladder is based on overall best times from any point in the season not just the previous B meet.

No. I think that would be humiliating to some swimmers and not great for morale.

Ours is on a publicly available site. I though that was the norm

They used to hang ours on the bulletin board until they moved it online. It's available to anyone.

Not sure if nvsl is softer for this ladder thing or for having older kids swim 50s

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Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Do teams not send out the ladder to everyone? Ours does after every meet. I appreciate it because it’s transparent and also because I would lose track of whether or not my kid is eligible to swim in the A meet (and for what) if they didn’t. I don’t have time to be parsing over results from previous meets to see whose times are faster or slower than whatever my kids just did. Our ladder is based on overall best times from any point in the season not just the previous B meet.

No. I think that would be humiliating to some swimmers and not great for morale.

Interesting perspective. My child is still very young so he is oblivious. I am the one who gets the emails and I wait till the lineup comes out to tell him whether he's swimming on Sat (and what). I am purposely not telling him anything about his times or rank unless he asks. I want him to remain blissfully unaware for as long as possible. I'm sure it changes quickly though. I have already overheard the older kids in his age group talking with him about times and in my head I'm like "nooo don't talk about that just talk about what snack you're getting after your event".

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Do teams not send out the ladder to everyone? Ours does after every meet. I appreciate it because it’s transparent and also because I would lose track of whether or not my kid is eligible to swim in the A meet (and for what) if they didn’t. I don’t have time to be parsing over results from previous meets to see whose times are faster or slower than whatever my kids just did. Our ladder is based on overall best times from any point in the season not just the previous B meet.

No. I think that would be humiliating to some swimmers and not great for morale.

Ours is on a publicly available site. I though that was the norm

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Do teams not send out the ladder to everyone? Ours does after every meet. I appreciate it because it’s transparent and also because I would lose track of whether or not my kid is eligible to swim in the A meet (and for what) if they didn’t. I don’t have time to be parsing over results from previous meets to see whose times are faster or slower than whatever my kids just did. Our ladder is based on overall best times from any point in the season not just the previous B meet.

No. I think that would be humiliating to some swimmers and not great for morale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

Most teams leave it up to the coach's discretion. They may want to give a child an opportunity one meet so they may skip over someone. Swimmers can only swim three individual events so sometimes the fastest kid doesn't get to swim all his or her preferred strokes. It's really based on balancing need for the team. If it's a close meet and they think that they already have fast swimmers who can win in backstroke according to seed times they may put your child in breast stroke for the third stroke even though they are the top in backstroke.

This seems wrong to me. The teams I know if allude the ladder. I am not new to swimming, and I myself swam competitively for decades, so I get the strategy of the coach picking the swimmer’s three strokes. If the coach wants to put someone at breast instead of free, that’s fine. But I have never heard of a coach getting to skip swimmers on the ladder because he likes a slower swimmer better. That is terrible for team morale. Especially on a huge team where the coach doesn’t know all the swimmers.

What seems wrong? No one said it's completely up to the coach's whim. Everyone including this PP explained that they usually follow the ladder but leave some room for the coaches to have input the decisions. The good thing about summer swim is that there are parent reps and volunteers who provide a balance of power. If they left off a child entirely because they didn't like her that's not going to fly. The coach will be called out on that and will have to fix. An example is if they want to give one child an opportunity who is very close on times and may have been left out due to having a bad swim one day they might do that if the another swimmer above her had one great swim that was an anomaly and never duplicated that time again. Do you see what people are saying?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Do teams not send out the ladder to everyone? Ours does after every meet. I appreciate it because it’s transparent and also because I would lose track of whether or not my kid is eligible to swim in the A meet (and for what) if they didn’t. I don’t have time to be parsing over results from previous meets to see whose times are faster or slower than whatever my kids just did. Our ladder is based on overall best times from any point in the season not just the previous B meet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are in a competitive division, your coach would be none too happy if the top swimmers "sat one out" to give other kids a chance at an A meet.

What does this mean? Aren’t all teams competitive among the teams in their division?

Yes all teams are competitive with their division, but not teams and divisions are as cutthroat. Probably talking about the very top divisions where winning they literally recruit kids to swim on their team and winning is everything.

If their times are close I could see a coach might do this for one meet to give the slower kid a chance to compete at the A meet, particularly if the slower kid is younger and the coach expects them to be swimming A meets next summer.

I would be annoyed if it happened regularly though.

Are you sure the faster kid’s parents actually marked them as available for the meet? Easy to forget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

This should have you asking to see the ladder and explaining himself. I would definitely bring this up to the team reps, etc.

Anonymous wrote:If you are in a competitive division, your coach would be none too happy if the top swimmers "sat one out" to give other kids a chance at an A meet.

What does this mean? Aren’t all teams competitive among the teams in their division?

If you are in a competitive division, your coach would be none too happy if the top swimmers "sat one out" to give other kids a chance at an A meet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

That’s just wrong. What’s the reasoning for this? Favoritism? I’d be pissed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

You don't always swim the fastest swimmer since you are limited on events. Coaches swim the top swimmers in each stroke/age/gender which is usually the top six. If you know the other team has a faster swimmer and you can't pick up points with your fastest swimmer, you might move them to other strokes and swim one of your slower swimmers - but still top six generally.

This. In DDs age group, the same two swimmers are the top two in all four strokes, and another swimmer is #3 in three of them, #4 in the fourth. But each kid can only swim two strokes, so when putting together the line up for a meet, the coach is going to have to skip someone somewhere and move down to #s 4-6. Where that happens can change week to week as the coach looks at the best way to earn points against the other team. As pp said, if it's highly unlikely that even the best swimmer will score in one stroke it makes sense to move them somewhere they have a better chance.

I am the person who asked the question, and this is not what I am asking about. Of course kids can only swim three strokes and the coach decides which three, meaning that some kids ranked fourth and fifth get a chance. I was a college swimmer so this isn’t new to me. I am asking about something different - the coach entirely skips a swimmer who is ranked higher and available to swim that day, so that a lower ranked swimmer can swim instead. Meaning the higher ranked swimmer is not being saved for another stroke, but left out of the meet entirely. Our coach has started doing this, and it is toxic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most teams require the coach to use ranked times for individual events too? That had always been our team policy but we have a new coach and he skipped a swimmer in one event (but not another event) for today’s meet. And not even back to back events - he skipped her in free and is swimming her in breast. Seems like it would be terrible for morale.

Most teams leave it up to the coach's discretion. They may want to give a child an opportunity one meet so they may skip over someone. Swimmers can only swim three individual events so sometimes the fastest kid doesn't get to swim all his or her preferred strokes. It's really based on balancing need for the team. If it's a close meet and they think that they already have fast swimmers who can win in backstroke according to seed times they may put your child in breast stroke for the third stroke even though they are the top in backstroke.

This seems wrong to me. The teams I know if allude the ladder. I am not new to swimming, and I myself swam competitively for decades, so I get the strategy of the coach picking the swimmer’s three strokes. If the coach wants to put someone at breast instead of free, that’s fine. But I have never heard of a coach getting to skip swimmers on the ladder because he likes a slower swimmer better. That is terrible for team morale. Especially on a huge team where the coach doesn’t know all the swimmers.