Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/katie-ledecky-returns-to-her-summer-swim-league-to-sign-autographs--and-set-records/2014/07/05/023f7b54-0392-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html

The great thing about summer swim is that it is for everyone. But then parents go and ruin it by calculating kids ages down to the month and claiming an unfair advantage.

Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmill have an unfair advantage over my kids - they are phenomenal swimmers. I seriously doubt their birthdate has anything to do with it.

Moral of the story - teach your kids that life isn't fair and to do the best with what gifts you do have.

So you admit the birthday rule is unfair.

Any way you manage it, kids sports have an element of unfairness. Kids exactly the same age are going to be taller or shorter, or have hit puberty or not. Whether the cut off is the day of the meet, or another day, there will be kids competing who are 729 days older or younger than other kids. There will be kids who have advantages like club swim, or pools in their backyards, or parents who taught them to swim early.

The birthday rule is just the same as all of the rest. It's no more or less fair than aging up on your birthday, and a lot less unfair than allowing club swimmers to compete. But none of this matters, because the vast majority of people in summer swim get that it's a rec sport, and that the point is to get kids active, and learning to support each other, and having fun.

I really think that summer swim should be like my kids' church rec basketball team where every player gets exactly the same number of minutes, or in this case A and B races. The people like OP whose priority seems to raising their kids to be entitled a-holes who whine about things like this would leave, and the rest of us would have even more fun.

I do data for my team. Are any of the people complaining that this rule is unfair willing to do the data for their team and fulfill the additional administrative hassle that having kids age up in the middle of the season would create? I seriously doubt it. And while it may not be entirely fair, its less fair than having an 8 year old learn a flip turn in the middle of the season, in my opinion. Kids would be moving practice groups and parents would have to adjust schedules in the middle of the season. Its a such a short season. There is a lot that goes into running a team that would be complicated by this.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/katie-ledecky-returns-to-her-summer-swim-league-to-sign-autographs--and-set-records/2014/07/05/023f7b54-0392-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html

The great thing about summer swim is that it is for everyone. But then parents go and ruin it by calculating kids ages down to the month and claiming an unfair advantage.

Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmill have an unfair advantage over my kids - they are phenomenal swimmers. I seriously doubt their birthdate has anything to do with it.

Moral of the story - teach your kids that life isn't fair and to do the best with what gifts you do have.

So you admit the birthday rule is unfair.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/katie-ledecky-returns-to-her-summer-swim-league-to-sign-autographs--and-set-records/2014/07/05/023f7b54-0392-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html

The great thing about summer swim is that it is for everyone. But then parents go and ruin it by calculating kids ages down to the month and claiming an unfair advantage.

Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmill have an unfair advantage over my kids - they are phenomenal swimmers. I seriously doubt their birthdate has anything to do with it.

Moral of the story - teach your kids that life isn't fair and to do the best with what gifts you do have.

This.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/katie-ledecky-returns-to-her-summer-swim-league-to-sign-autographs--and-set-records/2014/07/05/023f7b54-0392-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html

The great thing about summer swim is that it is for everyone. But then parents go and ruin it by calculating kids ages down to the month and claiming an unfair advantage.

Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmill have an unfair advantage over my kids - they are phenomenal swimmers. I seriously doubt their birthdate has anything to do with it.

Moral of the story - teach your kids that life isn't fair and to do the best with what gifts you do have.

Anonymous wrote:This thread reminds me of opposing high school parents' whining about decorated Olympian Missy Franklin's participation in high school competition.

"The Los Angeles Times story describing Missy Franklin's participation on her high school swim team is by and large a feel-good read.

Franklin predictably dominated in the events she swam for Regis Jesuit High School, but even the girls she lapped multiple times were gushing in their excitement at the opportunity to swim against a four-time Olympic champion, an athlete they watched on television just last summer.

There is one problem, though, and it is this quote: "Some people have criticized Franklin for still swimming for her high school team, saying she has an unfair advantage."

I do laugh at local high school record boards when there are a slew of records held by folks like T. Huske, K. Ledecky or other Olympians. My high school didn't have such distinguished alumni so high school records weren't nearly synonymous with world records and actually had the potential to be broken by mere mortals.

This thread reminds me of opposing high school parents' whining about decorated Olympian Missy Franklin's participation in high school competition.

"The Los Angeles Times story describing Missy Franklin's participation on her high school swim team is by and large a feel-good read.

Franklin predictably dominated in the events she swam for Regis Jesuit High School, but even the girls she lapped multiple times were gushing in their excitement at the opportunity to swim against a four-time Olympic champion, an athlete they watched on television just last summer.

There is one problem, though, and it is this quote: "Some people have criticized Franklin for still swimming for her high school team, saying she has an unfair advantage."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I’m thinking you mean he made it to divisionals. All stars is tomorrow so he hasn’t had the opportunity to be ‘crushed’ yet.

All Stars was last week in our league. This weekend is mid-caps. Hint - different leagues do all stars at different times.

I always find it bizarre when someone enters a thread that is primarily about something local- e.g. NVSL, then answers as if they are talking about the same thing- and when pressed for how their answer doesn't make sense, responds in a sarcastic manner in some variation of 'there are other places in the world.' No idea what mid-caps means- I don't think your experience is representative of what we are really talking about here b/c you are using words in a totally different way.

I'm not the PP, but there are other local leagues with the same or similar date cutoff rule. One local example is the Colonial Swim League. There's no reason those parents shouldn't participate in this thread. It's the same issue and the world doesn't only revolve around NVSL.

I agree, and beyond that the point the PP was making regarding her son’s bday and swimming - it wouldn’t matter if it was divisionals or all stars he switched clubs that had less club swimmers and qualified for an end of season championship . It’s not really relevant to the point she’s making. Her point is still valid bdays don’t give the advantage that club swim does.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wait for high school swim. 14 year old freshman compete against 18 year old seniors.

I think everyone understands the landscape of high school sports. Now if you had college freshmen posing as high school seniors people might cry foul.

The OP is crying about age differences and the perceived “unfairness”. In her view, it would be “unfair” for a 14 year old Freshman to have to compete against an 18 year old senior.

At least nobody is a college swimmer coming back to high school to compete, unlike in summer swim.

Wow!! Really?? You know why??? Because you can legally do so in summer swim and you can't in high school swimming. Is this really that difficult to understand the difference?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I’m thinking you mean he made it to divisionals. All stars is tomorrow so he hasn’t had the opportunity to be ‘crushed’ yet.

All Stars was last week in our league. This weekend is mid-caps. Hint - different leagues do all stars at different times.

I always find it bizarre when someone enters a thread that is primarily about something local- e.g. NVSL, then answers as if they are talking about the same thing- and when pressed for how their answer doesn't make sense, responds in a sarcastic manner in some variation of 'there are other places in the world.' No idea what mid-caps means- I don't think your experience is representative of what we are really talking about here b/c you are using words in a totally different way.

I'm not the PP, but there are other local leagues with the same or similar date cutoff rule. One local example is the Colonial Swim League. There's no reason those parents shouldn't participate in this thread. It's the same issue and the world doesn't only revolve around NVSL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I’m thinking you mean he made it to divisionals. All stars is tomorrow so he hasn’t had the opportunity to be ‘crushed’ yet.

All Stars was last week in our league. This weekend is mid-caps. Hint - different leagues do all stars at different times.

I always find it bizarre when someone enters a thread that is primarily about something local- e.g. NVSL, then answers as if they are talking about the same thing- and when pressed for how their answer doesn't make sense, responds in a sarcastic manner in some variation of 'there are other places in the world.' No idea what mid-caps means- I don't think your experience is representative of what we are really talking about here b/c you are using words in a totally different way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I’m thinking you mean he made it to divisionals. All stars is tomorrow so he hasn’t had the opportunity to be ‘crushed’ yet.

All Stars was last week in our league. This weekend is mid-caps. Hint - different leagues do all stars at different times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I’m thinking you mean he made it to divisionals. All stars is tomorrow so he hasn’t had the opportunity to be ‘crushed’ yet.

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.

Exactly! My son has an early fall birthday so in theory the birthday rule favors him. He has done summer swim for several years now, and last year he didn’t even bother competing at meets because all the year-round swimmers won everything year after year. Summer swim stopped being fun. This year we changed clubs, and went to a more relaxed lower level club. He enjoyed swimming again. He made it to all stars, where he got crushed by year round swimmers. At first he was upset, but we explained that to make it to all stars when he’s not a year-round swimmer is amazing and he should be proud of himself.

I have no issue with a college swimmer returning to the summer league because they can for one more year. Turnabout is fair play, if it’s ok for club swimmers to swim in the summer rec league, the D1 swim can too. They meet the age requirements, so why not?

The problem with this entire issue is there are a bunch of parents who pay a boatload for their kids to swim year round and they expect for their kids to crush summer rec swim - having had the advantage of hours in the pool and good coaching throughout the winter. Then they get mad that some kid who also does all those things too (or is just simply a summer swimmer who happens to be a strong athlete) benefits from the birthday cutoff - never recognizing or acknowledging the hypocrisy that their kid has a huge advantage over a large portion of the summer rec swim population because they choose to do club swim and can afford it.

The advantage created by a summer birthday is nothing compared to that created by club swimming.