TIPS FOR NEW SWIM PARENTS

As your child continues with their swimming journey into high school, it may become a natural thought process to start exploring the possibility of continuing to swim in college as well.    Some swimmers (and parents) may think of swimming as a platform to get into their dream college and incorrectly assume it can lead to a full-ride athletic scholarship.    So, can swimming really help a student-athlete to be admitted to their dream college?    Possibly, yes – it could indeed be a factor that could help the student’s case for college admission, but it should not be relied upon as the “only” factor.    As for a full-ride athletic scholarship in swimming, I would say the answer would be a “no” in most cases. <Royalty free image from Pexels > Full-ride athletic scholarships are generally offered to what is called a “headcount” sport.  A “headcount” sport generally produces a lot of revenue for the university and examples include sports such as men’s basketball & Division 1 F

Most swim clubs rely heavily on their parent volunteers to host swim meets & many clubs enforce or mandate that the parents volunteer a set number of hours per year, since without the help of such volunteers, swim clubs will not be able to operate.  Our club would send an email that the sign-up for volunteers will be posted at a certain time – but by the time I clicked on the sign-up link, I would find that most of the volunteer spots have already been signed-up, so I found it somewhat challenging to fulfil my volunteer hours.  Then someone suggested that I should apply to become an official, since officials are always needed in any swim meets and I could also get my required volunteer hours by officiating at swim meets.  Hence, I started my journey as a swim official in parallel to being a swim parent. There are three different types of swim officials: a.       Stroke & Turn (ST or S&T) They are the most common “hands-on-deck” officials who are visible at swim meet

One of the surprising differences I have noticed about kids’ activities in the US compared to Australia is the higher level of parent involvement that is required (or in some cases, even expected of).   Swimming is not an exception to that.   At least within most of the swim clubs in Texas that I have seen, there seems to be a certain requirement of volunteer hours that each family needs to do for the club.   Volunteering can be a great way to ensure your kids can continue to do the sport that they like, and it can also be a great way for parents to get to know other parents in the swim club. One of the most common “duty” that a swim parent may have to do is to work as a “timer” during the swim meet.   If there are 8 lanes in a pool, you will need at least 8 timers.   I say “at least”, because in most meets, you normally require two timers per lane. If your swim club is hosting a meet, they will probably be required to fill the timer slots with parents from the swim club and will a

If your child happens to develop into a strong & fast swimmer, there is a good chance he/she will be competing at a "bigger stage".  So what are some of these "bigger stage" competitions when it comes to swim meets?   The below "pyramid" is a good visual aid to show a simplistic view of the different levels of swim meets within the US. Image source:  https://reachforthewall.org/2016/04/14/what-are-junior-nationals-and-futures/ The term "Junior Olympics" (JO)** seems to be more of a term that is used in the US West-coast, as I have never encountered that term here in Texas.  The LSC that my kids belong to, Gulf Swimming, hosts the Gulf "Age Group Championships" twice a year (one for Short Course and another for Long Course).  In order to qualify, the swimmer needs to meet the Gulf Age Group Champs Time Standards.  As the name "Age Group" Champs suggests, it is for swimmers who are 14 years or younger. Although not listed in

In most of the Timed Final Meet s or during the Preliminaries where there are multiple heats for an event, the usual order is fastest to slowest heats (i.e. swimmers in Heat 1 are faster than those in Heat 5).  Each swimmer is seeded according to their previous best time.  If it's an event that the swimmer has never previously acquired a swim time, then the swimmer has a " NT " (No Time) and is usually grouped together in the latter heats with other swimmers who also have a NT. But how do the swimmers get assigned in their lanes for their respective heats? General rule of thumb:  the fastest swimmers are positioned in the middle lanes. Using the information available from 2020 USA Swimming Rulebook   (102.5.3, page 28), I created the below graphical table.  I highlighted two rows in yellow as the 8-lane and 10-lane formats are the most common ones you will encounter (the 8-lane format is most common for the US  SCY ).  <Lane assignments> So for an 8-lane pool: - the

I have previously covered various elements of a Prelims/Finals meet in my earlier posts.  One final term I would like to introduce about a Prelims/Finals meet is the " Swim-off ".   A swim-off is required to break a tie for certain swimmers who have finished the Prelims of an event with the same swim time for a certain seeding position. Using an example of a SCY Prelims/Finals meet where the top 16 qualify for the A/B Finals, a swim-off would be required in the following scenarios: a) After Prelims, two swimmers finished with the same swim time for the 8th position.  A swim-off is required to seed the faster swimmer as 8th (& hence qualifying for the A-Final) and the other as 9th (to be assigned to the B-Final) b) After Prelims, two swimmers finished with the same time for the 16th position.   A swim-off is required to seed the faster swimmer as 16th (& hence qualifying for the B-Final) and the other as the first Alternate . c) After Prelims, two swimmers finished wi