Meet Expectations
Dual Meets vs Invitational/Championship Meets
Dual Meets: Swimmers only declare their attendance, coaches create the line-up; we choose all events for all swimmers. In the notes section tell me if you need to leave early or arrive late. This is a PARENT DECISION for a FAMILY OBLIGATION. It is NOT a swimmer one, as EVERYONE is expected to stay the whole meet in uniform (their team suit). * See below for rationale & approach. * In the notes you may also request an event, usually we cannot honor it, but occasionally we can if it fits into the over-all team strategy. At dual meets team strategy takes precedence over individual goals.
Invitational/Championship Meets: Swimmers choose their individual events, coaches choose the relays. In the notes section tell me the order of priority for your individual events, as we may need you in relays too, which will necessitate removing 1-2 individual events. At the Invitational choose up to three individual events, which of course I recommend swimming all three (just don't choose one). If your swimmer is in something I think they will DQ in, or if they can do much better in another event, I'll let you know.
Rationale & Team Approach: We sit together, cheer together, swim together, and win together. No one should leave a meet until we give our last cheer after the last event, and they have helped clean up our area.
Everyone counts and everyone contributes. From lane 1 to lane 6, all have something positive to contribute, and all make a us a better team.
We strive to have every swimmer compete in at least two events in every meet.
Everyone must stay until the end of a dual (Invitational, only to the end of the swimmer's session). I know…, swim meets are long; they last about 3.5 hours. However, think of the swimmer who sat there all meet long, cheering her heart out, only to see her team leave when it’s her turn, swim in a quiet pool, finish, and no one is there to cheer for her. It’s a really cruddy thing to do.
Everyone must stay in uniform (our team suit). Often times we may call for swimmers to be in another race; or they forget, or they didn’t realize they had another event. Plus, like any other sport when you’re sitting the bench.., no one would ever tell a football or basketball coach, “Hey coach, since you’re not going to play me the last part of the game, I’m going to get changed. See you later.” If swimmers are leaving early or changing early without prior approval, it’s disrespectful to their teammates, their coaches, and the other team***.
It is absolutely our belief that swimmers who sit together, swim together, and cheer together, perform better together.
When swimmers don't show up at meets, it affects many more kids. One swimmer who misses a relay, means that the other three potentially don't get to swim. Often we can make quick substitutions, but when the number of changes starts to become overwhelming, not only do we start to run out of people to substitute, but it screws up the marshallers, judges, scorers, coaches, and swimmers. If one swimmer does not show up without informing us, then the changes to the meet line-up snow balls, and potentially, for every one swimmer who doesn't show up, it can potentially result in 9 changes we need to make off-the-cuff during the meet. If several kids don’t show up, the coaches start prioritizing and when we get to the last few, often it results in no other choice but to scratch the event and/or swimmer.
Additionally, the major strength of any successful team is not just how "fast" your kids are or how "good" the coaches are at training swimmers, but how well organized we are. Successful teams are able to more consistently get their swimmers to attend meets, to arrive on time, to get the right swimmer, to the right block, at the right time. If you can't do that, it doesn't make a difference how "fast" or "good" you are. The score of the meet reflects that organizational acumen as well.
Swimming is a team sport:
If you put Michael Jordan in his professional prime on any high school basketball team, the performance of that one player would likely result in a trip to a state championship game. In fact, if you put even just one professional level athlete on any high school basketball, football, soccer, or baseball team, it would have a dramatic impact on how that team performs. However, in swimming if we had Michael Phelps on our team, we still might end up with the same record, even when we were winless in some seasons. The reason being is that any one swimmer’s impact is limited. For example, in the PennJersey League, a swimmer is limited to four events, which means the most points he/she can score is 16.25, or only 3.0% of the total. Even if we had four Olympic swimmers, their impact is limited to the age group they compete in, which represents no more than 20% of the total points needed to win. As a result, in swimming the team score truly reflects the total strength of the team, and not how “fast” individuals appear on paper.
See you on deck,
Coach Drake
