Let the Rivalries Resume: USA Swimming Reviving East-West Junior Nationals

Photo Courtesy: Swimming World

By Jeff Commings

Before rap music made it nationally popular, USA Swimming had its own version of an East Coast-West Coast rivalry with its split junior national championships. After a 19-year hiatus, the East-West junior nationals returns this December with the East meet set for Atlanta and the West meet scheduled for Austin, Texas. It’s the first time the East-West meets will be held in December, with previous editions held in the spring.

USA Swimming is returning to the split junior nationals in response to the large number of competitors at its single December meet. Splitting the meet into two, the organization believes, will allow for more swimmers at juniors while keeping the time standards at a reasonable level. USA Swimming is keeping its summer junior nationals as one meet but will offer a “Futures” meet to those who barely make the junior national qualifying time.

High attendance was the major reason why USA Swimming started the East-West junior nationals in 1982, two years after the organization took over the meet from the Amateur Athletic Union. The first short course “AAU Junior Olympics” took place in 1977, four years after AAU held the first long course juniors. Various reports indicate the junior national meet was bursting at the seams in the late 1970s, and some teams were turned away when the meet cap was reached.

In its recap of the inaugural East-West junior meets in the July 1982 issue, Swimming World Magazine quoted 200 IM and 400 IM winner Craig Popp as saying “I wish the two meets could be combined again, but would hate to see the meet limited too much” in terms of the number of competitors. As the years went on, athletes and coaches began to accept the split format, and the two meets became a battle to see which side of the country held the best swimmers. It’s not easy to determine which meet churned out the best athletes, as junior national records were falling with regularity at both meets each year. But Swimming World Magazine attempted to stir the pot in the June 1983 issue by declaring the East meet had the best swimmers in terms of times, and even scored the two meets as one virtual meet.

The final East-West meets were held in 1996, where Mission Viejo won the East meet and Bolles took the West meet. The format would change to a three-meet format for the next four years as athletes competed in either the West, Northeast or Southeast divisions. Whereas the East-West meet used the Mississippi River as the primary dividing line, the regional meets had weird boundaries where, for example, Illinois teams did not compete in the Northeast meet in Indiana, but in the Southeast meet in Florida.

Instead of fixing the system, USA Swimming in 2002 decided to rebrand the junior nationals into what are now the dozen or so sectional meets. No age limit existed at the sectional meets, so 18-and-unders found themselves racing often against Olympians and national champions of college age or older.

Though USA Swimming ended the junior national meet in 2000, a new organization called the National Club Swimming Association revived junior nationals with a meet in Long Beach, Calif., in March 2002, and a long course edition in Boca Raton, Fla., in August. The NCSA was the only place where a true short course junior national champion could be named until 2008, when USA Swimming brought back short course juniors. To perhaps avoid conflict with the NCSA junior nationals, USA Swimming put the meet in December, where it remains to this day.

Though the USA Swimming junior nationals is open to any registered USA Swimming team, the NCSA juniors is open only to those clubs registered with the NCSA, though some teams overlap. According to the NCSA website, a team is only eligible to swim at juniors if it is “independently organized and operated, not being under the direct control of any other institution.” Both short course junior nationals continue to be popular meets, and the NCSA doesn’t plan on following USA Swimming’s lead in terms of splitting its meet.

“We’re good with (short course juniors),” said NCSA President John Carroll. “We’re very happy with where it’s going, and the quality is certainly there.”

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