On our MCSL team coaches own the lineup for A meets

It is a little bit of strategy. Especially at the younger ages you want kids who are going to complete the event legally. One of my kids ends up being number one or two seed in all events at our lower half team and they frequently don’t get a chance to do FR (their favorite) because our 2-4 seeds can still beat their likely top 3 swimmers and we need them to put points on the board in FL and BR. The 3 individual stroke or 5 total event rule is pretty much the only reason an event wouldn’t be seeded “straight down the line”. There may also be some issues with swimmers who aren’t solidly legal yet being pulled in favor of slower more legal swimmers, mostly in the 8U and 9-10 categories.

So this happened to my DC last year in the divisional. He was ranked #1 in the 50 free for the entire season, but he was chosen to swim in divisional, 2 others were chosen. He was only chosen to do the backstroke.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the flip side, as a team rep, I’ve had parents chew me out on deck for not bumping a faster swimmer for their slower swimmers. It’s a hard enough job, but even if you do it the fairest way (do they have the time or not), you get yelled at. No matter what you do, someone’s gonna be pissed.

That does sound thankless. Can anyone lay out where the line is between coach and rep responsibilities? I'm trying to understand who actually owns the A-meet lineup — is selecting and seeding swimmers entirely the coach's job, with reps running the meet logistics (declarations, entries, scratches/subs, rule enforcement)? Or do reps have a hand in the lineup itself? Curious how it works across pools.

This is 100% dependent on the team. By most summer league rules, team reps are Gods responsible for everything including pool setup, concessions, volunteers, officials, meet directors, equipment, pool water quality, team rosters, meet entries, times, overseeing timers, disputes, league board member, hiring coaches, etc, etc, etc. Seriously, go read your summer league bylaws...

Most teams offload a lot of that onto others though.

Yep. And parents have this “we pay your salary” attitude, and we’re volunteers. Our team hasn’t kept a team rep more than 1 or 2 years in years. And yet, as soon as board members leave from being utterly exacerbated, they go on to trash the new boards for not doing it the same way that failed for them. It really brings out the toxic side of otherwise normal people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the flip side, as a team rep, I’ve had parents chew me out on deck for not bumping a faster swimmer for their slower swimmers. It’s a hard enough job, but even if you do it the fairest way (do they have the time or not), you get yelled at. No matter what you do, someone’s gonna be pissed.

That does sound thankless. Can anyone lay out where the line is between coach and rep responsibilities? I'm trying to understand who actually owns the A-meet lineup — is selecting and seeding swimmers entirely the coach's job, with reps running the meet logistics (declarations, entries, scratches/subs, rule enforcement)? Or do reps have a hand in the lineup itself? Curious how it works across pools.

Coach makes the lineups but as I hired the coaches, and agree with their decisions, it’s my cross to bear. Nobody should ever throw the coach under the bus. You should know their philosophy when you hire them or they’re doing your bidding. Either way, you (should) own it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the flip side, as a team rep, I’ve had parents chew me out on deck for not bumping a faster swimmer for their slower swimmers. It’s a hard enough job, but even if you do it the fairest way (do they have the time or not), you get yelled at. No matter what you do, someone’s gonna be pissed.

That does sound thankless. Can anyone lay out where the line is between coach and rep responsibilities? I'm trying to understand who actually owns the A-meet lineup — is selecting and seeding swimmers entirely the coach's job, with reps running the meet logistics (declarations, entries, scratches/subs, rule enforcement)? Or do reps have a hand in the lineup itself? Curious how it works across pools.

This is 100% dependent on the team. By most summer league rules, team reps are Gods responsible for everything including pool setup, concessions, volunteers, officials, meet directors, equipment, pool water quality, team rosters, meet entries, times, overseeing timers, disputes, league board member, hiring coaches, etc, etc, etc. Seriously, go read your summer league bylaws...

Most teams offload a lot of that onto others though.

Anonymous wrote:On the flip side, as a team rep, I’ve had parents chew me out on deck for not bumping a faster swimmer for their slower swimmers. It’s a hard enough job, but even if you do it the fairest way (do they have the time or not), you get yelled at. No matter what you do, someone’s gonna be pissed.

That does sound thankless. Can anyone lay out where the line is between coach and rep responsibilities? I'm trying to understand who actually owns the A-meet lineup — is selecting and seeding swimmers entirely the coach's job, with reps running the meet logistics (declarations, entries, scratches/subs, rule enforcement)? Or do reps have a hand in the lineup itself? Curious how it works across pools.

the part that seems odd to me is that he is only in one event. i would ask about getting more events, but not necessarily worry about being faster than the other kids.

On the flip side, as a team rep, I’ve had parents chew me out on deck for not bumping a faster swimmer for their slower swimmers. It’s a hard enough job, but even if you do it the fairest way (do they have the time or not), you get yelled at. No matter what you do, someone’s gonna be pissed.

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like this isn't NVSL since I don't think there are meets yet and I believe most teams have time trials this weekend (also there aren't IMs at most NVSL meets right?).

Sounds like MCSL - IM + 3 strokes is a typical max schedule that will come out in the lineup and we start A meets tomorrow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He probably just wants to make sure your kid doesn’t reach his full potential…

This is what it feels like to my son. That his coach doesn’t really care about his development or prioritizes others over him. My natural inclination is not to say anything to the coach but I hate that my son is feeling this way. It’s a tough age to move to a new place, and he’s worked hard to get to where he is as a swimmer. At the very least, I hope the coach explains his decision making to my son, and the other swimmers impacted.

If your son doesn't get a reasonable explanation from the coach, it is fine to ask this question to the team rep. Just approach them kindly and remind them you are a new parent. They field these questions a lot.

I’m sorry. There’s definitely some strategy that goes into seeding, along with the times. There was a year when my daughter kept getting put in backstroke because she could score points while there were a bunch of kids who were slower than her who could still score points in free. That being said, it doesn’t make any sense to put a faster kid in only 1 event. We’ve been swimming for almost 15 years and there are definitely coaches/reps who play favorites - especially with the first meet of the season. I’ve seen multiple swimmers who had a slow time trials suddenly in an A meet in the center lane because someone put in a “coaches time” for a swimmer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our pool, if there are two swimmers with similar times, the preference seems to go towards the boys that wear briefs, rather than jammers. Because the boys that wear briefs look more like “real swimmers”.

I don’t know how they select the girls with close times, but I heard it might be related to parental volunteer points on a rolling 3 week lag.

I'm sorry, what?

Someone is just being stupid on this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I did declare him as available and the times I’m talking about are from this summer, time trials and the first B meet.

Just to make sure, did your kid DQ at TT or in the B meet? You will often get a time for those meets but the coach will know if the swim stroke is legal or not despite a provided time.

No DQs. Legal swims in all 4 strokes.

Then yeah, as several people have said ask. If you're not NVSL I don't know if you have a Team Rep type person, but that's who we have to go to. I've never had a situation like this but any questions I have always had my kids go to the coach/es first.

Anonymous wrote:At our pool, if there are two swimmers with similar times, the preference seems to go towards the boys that wear briefs, rather than jammers. Because the boys that wear briefs look more like “real swimmers”.

I don’t know how they select the girls with close times, but I heard it might be related to parental volunteer points on a rolling 3 week lag.

I'm sorry, what?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I did declare him as available and the times I’m talking about are from this summer, time trials and the first B meet.

Just to make sure, did your kid DQ at TT or in the B meet? You will often get a time for those meets but the coach will know if the swim stroke is legal or not despite a provided time.

No DQs. Legal swims in all 4 strokes.