Anonymous wrote:Out family is new to swim. Are these relay swims important?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Out family is new to swim. Are these relay swims important?

In a scored meet, they are generally an opportunity for higher points than an individual event

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is a year round swimmer who always gets in A meets it might be nice to have your kid skip an A meet at some point just to give other kids a chance. Maybe one against a team your team normally beats easily. Like plan a trip or something for that weekend. My kid is turning out to be an A meet swimmer and I think it kind of works out that we will be out of town for at least one A meet because it will give some other kids a chance. As a former year round swimmer I remember some of the resentment thrown my way by high school and summer teammates because they hardly ever saw me at practice but I was always top seed in my events and on relays at the meets. In retrospect it would not have hurt at all to miss a summer league meet or two each season just to open up spots in the lineup for someone who feels like they’re never going to get a shot. It’s something I’m going to keep in mind if my kid sticks with swimming and stays an A meet swimmer. If we end up having a conflict some weekend I won’t go out of my way to prioritize the swim meet.

Or you do practices and participate on team. They should require 2-3 practices a week to compete.

Anonymous wrote:Out family is new to swim. Are these relay swims important?

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is a year round swimmer who always gets in A meets it might be nice to have your kid skip an A meet at some point just to give other kids a chance. Maybe one against a team your team normally beats easily. Like plan a trip or something for that weekend. My kid is turning out to be an A meet swimmer and I think it kind of works out that we will be out of town for at least one A meet because it will give some other kids a chance. As a former year round swimmer I remember some of the resentment thrown my way by high school and summer teammates because they hardly ever saw me at practice but I was always top seed in my events and on relays at the meets. In retrospect it would not have hurt at all to miss a summer league meet or two each season just to open up spots in the lineup for someone who feels like they’re never going to get a shot. It’s something I’m going to keep in mind if my kid sticks with swimming and stays an A meet swimmer. If we end up having a conflict some weekend I won’t go out of my way to prioritize the swim meet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours does it by ladder. The problem I see is that most NVSL relays kids swim 25s, but our ladder is 50s. Plenty of kids could be higher on a 25 ladder becuase rhey have weak turns or lower endurance. Any pools have a separate 25 ladder?

Before relay carnival our pool will often to an inter squad meet solely to get 25m times for all the kids who typically swim 50s .

Our pool does not, but I would love for all kids to just do 25s. Fun, fast, and quickly over!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours does it by ladder. The problem I see is that most NVSL relays kids swim 25s, but our ladder is 50s. Plenty of kids could be higher on a 25 ladder becuase rhey have weak turns or lower endurance. Any pools have a separate 25 ladder?

Before relay carnival our pool will often to an inter squad meet solely to get 25m times for all the kids who typically swim 50s .

Anonymous wrote:Ours does it by ladder. The problem I see is that most NVSL relays kids swim 25s, but our ladder is 50s. Plenty of kids could be higher on a 25 ladder becuase rhey have weak turns or lower endurance. Any pools have a separate 25 ladder?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 Big difference between year round swimmers who participate in mentoring or coaching other kids, participating in team events like pep rallies and might not swim a lot but are otherwise engaged with the team versus... kids who don't do any of that and just do the Saturday A meets.

Maybe, but I got to say, as the parent of an 18 year old coach who practices exclusively with summer club but is obviously very involved with summer team as a junior coach. Should she not swim at the A meets? This arbitrary judgment some of you want to apply to decide who is a "good enough summer team member is absurd." it's "competitive swimming," the fastest swimmers will swim the A meets. It's pretty simple. This is not a "trophy for trying" situation. Furthermore, you may not see the whole picture if you have not known these kids for years. Things change over time, their interests change, they get jobs, take driver's ed, take summer school, go to sleep away camp, become camp counselors. I don't see any reason to "kick them off the island" when this stuff happens. The summer team community is important to many of them, even if they just dabble in and out for a few years and don't want to give it up because the memories are important. So what??? They aren't taking anything from your kids that they haven't earned by being faster. Being faster is the criteria for swimming at A meets. I don't think you'll find many pools that use another criteria, but feel free to create your own club that assigns lanes based on practice attendance. (I'm not sure enough parents would agree with you to form a team, but maybe there are like-minded folks out there).

I think this is where you and many other parents differ. Summer swim for many swim teams is a trophy for trying type of activity. You have legitimate reasons to disagree but please check your condescending attitude.

I don't mean to be condescending, just stating the obvious fact. Competitive swimming is competitive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 Big difference between year round swimmers who participate in mentoring or coaching other kids, participating in team events like pep rallies and might not swim a lot but are otherwise engaged with the team versus... kids who don't do any of that and just do the Saturday A meets.

Maybe, but I got to say, as the parent of an 18 year old coach who practices exclusively with summer club but is obviously very involved with summer team as a junior coach. Should she not swim at the A meets? This arbitrary judgment some of you want to apply to decide who is a "good enough summer team member is absurd." it's "competitive swimming," the fastest swimmers will swim the A meets. It's pretty simple. This is not a "trophy for trying" situation. Furthermore, you may not see the whole picture if you have not known these kids for years. Things change over time, their interests change, they get jobs, take driver's ed, take summer school, go to sleep away camp, become camp counselors. I don't see any reason to "kick them off the island" when this stuff happens. The summer team community is important to many of them, even if they just dabble in and out for a few years and don't want to give it up because the memories are important. So what??? They aren't taking anything from your kids that they haven't earned by being faster. Being faster is the criteria for swimming at A meets. I don't think you'll find many pools that use another criteria, but feel free to create your own club that assigns lanes based on practice attendance. (I'm not sure enough parents would agree with you to form a team, but maybe there are like-minded folks out there).

I think this is where you and many other parents differ. Summer swim for many swim teams is a trophy for trying type of activity. You have legitimate reasons to disagree but please check your condescending attitude.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 Big difference between year round swimmers who participate in mentoring or coaching other kids, participating in team events like pep rallies and might not swim a lot but are otherwise engaged with the team versus... kids who don't do any of that and just do the Saturday A meets.

Maybe, but I got to say, as the parent of an 18 year old coach who practices exclusively with summer club but is obviously very involved with summer team as a junior coach. Should she not swim at the A meets? This arbitrary judgment some of you want to apply to decide who is a "good enough summer team member is absurd." it's "competitive swimming," the fastest swimmers will swim the A meets. It's pretty simple. This is not a "trophy for trying" situation. Furthermore, you may not see the whole picture if you have not known these kids for years. Things change over time, their interests change, they get jobs, take driver's ed, take summer school, go to sleep away camp, become camp counselors. I don't see any reason to "kick them off the island" when this stuff happens. The summer team community is important to many of them, even if they just dabble in and out for a few years and don't want to give it up because the memories are important. So what??? They aren't taking anything from your kids that they haven't earned by being faster. Being faster is the criteria for swimming at A meets. I don't think you'll find many pools that use another criteria, but feel free to create your own club that assigns lanes based on practice attendance. (I'm not sure enough parents would agree with you to form a team, but maybe there are like-minded folks out there).

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.

Yep. This is where new parents always get confused. Billy might be the fastest in X but the other team has Jonny and he is faster than Billy. Billy can be used in stroke Y and pick up points there. You can use a throw away againt Jonny, and maybe pick up 2nd or 3rd. It gets more interesting when you know a team has a strong cadre of swimmers in a stroke you might throw points. The seeding is complicated and involves a lot of data and looking at the team you are swimming against.