Nepotism and favoritism were rampant at our former pool. The resultant coaching was so bad that the pool lost several familles with young, solid swimmers. To top it all off, the parents whose kids were the coaches badmouthed those families after they left. We weren’t one of those families, but decided we didn’t want to spend another summer at that pool.

Life is too short to pretend you like people.

Anonymous wrote:It's competitive at our team. But we have had the same summer coach for a decade so they know almost all the kids coming up who apply. The coach makes the decisions. It's his employees and his team.

Sounds similar in terms of coach longevity for us.

Our head coach has been with us for about five years and has kids on the team. They're also a PVS coach, so they have the creds to back it up. While our hiring process for the assistants isn't competitive (i.e., there hasn't been an interviewing process as long as I've been around because we don't have enough candidates), our assistants are phenomenal and all have been involved on a number of levels over the years. The Team Reps runs the names of all interested kids by the Head Coach (who knows all of them very well), and the Coach will decide if they want those kids on their staff. Once those decisions are made the only involvement the Reps have after that is to get the contracts written and signed - the Head Coach handles the rest.

I always find it incredible to read about teams that have a competitive hiring process or committees to handle all manner of team-related tasks and activities. Us lower-division teams barely have enough parents to fill our volunteer jobs a meet, let alone get them to be involved in non meet-related jobs!

The team reps know what those boxes are that need to be checked for their kid to be considered for a coach, and they make sure those boxes get checked. So it may not be nepotism per se, it just looks sorta like it.

Anonymous wrote:You sound like you go to our pool! I don’t think kids should be laid to give feedback to their peers. At some point you could just have team captains like HS swim and not pay anyone under 21 that was ever part of the team!

At our pool, they are cheap and like the nepo coaches even if they are terrible. Like on their phone, filming and laughing at swimmers. Sitting on each other’s laps, throwing basketballs and tennis balls over the heads of swimmers, flirting with each other, walking AWAY from the pool as serious injuries occur, kicking swimmers, etc. Our team continues to PAY assistant and junior coaches to be this inappropriate and dangerous!

My oldest only has a couple of years left, but will prioritize their club team this year. My youngest asked to quit because it was so bad.

That sounds like a coach problem. They should be leading and coach development should be a part of their contract. There's no way ours would let our assistant or junior coaches get away with that - even if they weren't being paid.

You sound like you go to our pool! I don’t think kids should be laid to give feedback to their peers. At some point you could just have team captains like HS swim and not pay anyone under 21 that was ever part of the team!

At our pool, they are cheap and like the nepo coaches even if they are terrible. Like on their phone, filming and laughing at swimmers. Sitting on each other’s laps, throwing basketballs and tennis balls over the heads of swimmers, flirting with each other, walking AWAY from the pool as serious injuries occur, kicking swimmers, etc. Our team continues to PAY assistant and junior coaches to be this inappropriate and dangerous!

My oldest only has a couple of years left, but will prioritize their club team this year. My youngest asked to quit because it was so bad.

I have seen both cases are true.

Rabid swim families are likely to have parents that volunteer and kids that are bought in and interested in being coaches. A kid whose parent is the team rep might be more likely to want to coach.

On the flip side, I’ve seen team reps force feed their kids into roles to build their resume. These kids often are not bought in and don’t do a good job. Many of these kids are not tough enough to be lifeguards day to day, so their parent gives them a “job” and they show up to work when they please and don’t give their all.

Honestly if it bothers you that much, you should probably volunteer or be on the committee. Those roles take a lot of time all year and the people in them naturally build relationships with the coaches. The coaches are interacting with those parents constantly, so they know those kids better and feel more comfortable hiring them. So yeah, those kids often have an edge. Help out and maybe Larla will be a coach next year.