This is the Poll of the week for Monday, June 1, 2015 sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products. In our last poll, we wanted to know if is “Okay For High School Swimmers To Skip Their HS State Championships So They Can Train With Their Club Team?”
The results are in and…
55% of you said YES while 45% believe that swimmers should not skip their high school state meets to train with their club team.
I’m actually shocked at the results of this poll. As somebody who has coached competitive high school swimming at the 5A and 6A level in Texas, and as a previous club swimming coach – meets generally trump practice. Especially the State meet!! If it’s an in-season meet, or an invitational that would be one thing. But State? Really? When your entire high school team is depending on you? Maybe I’m biased – in Texas, our State meet is a bigger deal.
I agree with you 100%. I coach high school swimming in California and it was sad to see so many top swimmers not at the inaugural state meet. It’s your concluding high school meet and you are going to regret missing out on the experience. This just shows the manipulative power of the club coach–and I use manipulative in the way it is intended.
Heaven forbid the swimmer have an opinion! How you can automatically lay blame at the club coach is ridiculous. Its my JOB as the club coach to lay out the pros and cons. Its not my decision, its the swimmer’s.
I don’t agree with swimming the HS season and then skipping State. If a swimmer is so inclined, I’d rather they skip the HS season completely. Does CA HS offer stroke 200s and the 1650? If those are the swimmers events, I can see skipping HS for club.
In IL, the issue for boys (winter sport) is tapering for HS and then swimming IL Senior State a week or two later. HS could handle the issue by making both boys and girls a fall sport, and allowing time to retrain after tapering for HS.
I’m a long time high school coach in Colorado, and I agree whole heartedly with everything you said! Well put Margaret!!
I think this depends on the state. In states like Texas and Illinois, high school swimming is huge. Very few in Illinois skip high school swimming at all, and the state meet is a huge deal. In states like Alabama, it goes virtually unnoticed (most don’t even know swimming is a high school sport in the state), and the state meet is scheduled for the same weekend as Winter Juniors or Seniors every December. That puts more competitive swimmers in a quandary: Do you compete in a meet where you may not have much competition for a school that doesn’t really recognize that you did it? Or do you go to the national-level meet for which you qualified?
Boy this smells like “conflict of interest”. Stud swimmer is told to practice instead of go to the state meet because stud swimmer’s coach works for a rival high school.
In IL it doesn’t matter for the girls, as they are a fall sport, and are back well before the SCY Senior State Championship. For boys (winter sport) the ones that are committed to their clubs skip HS completely. I know boys who bypassed HS to concentrate on distance events (200 strokes/1650) because HS does not offer them. If your goal is the Olympic trials, HS is 3 months wasted swimming 100s.
And most club coaches are significantly better than HS coaches. Heaven forbid you get a gym teacher who hasn’t a clue what a taper is.
Scott –
Be careful before painting this picture…
I have coached both club and high school and been associated with both for 40 years. The best coach I ever saw & worked with was a wrestler who coached seasonal high school swimmers to All-American status. He coached divers to all-American status. The kids loved him.
At the same time, a coach with swimming background was pushing 12 year girls to 80,000 yards per week. They were fast then and either slower or not swimming due to injuries when they were 17.
Too many club coaches think high school coaches know nothing. In my experience, it is about a 1:1 ratio. Many club coaches are b/c swimmers who now coach and really don’t know all that much either.
IMHO, three simple rules:
1. If the high school swim season interferes with your club season, and your club season is more important to you, then maybe you should not join your high school team.
2. If you join your high school team, then you should swim all the meets because that’s one of the thing that it means to be on a team.
3. In really unusual circumstances, if you want to be on the high school team, but can’t swim in a particular meet, even a championship meet, then you and your high school coach need to be in agreement on this from the beginning of the season. If you can’t come to an agreement, then don’t swim on that team.