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A
Different Way (Part 3)
How about a single, age group
championship meet?
By WILLIAM J
PRICE
Saluki Head Coach
Part 1, Part 2
I started this
series of articles with the premise that New England Swimming (NES) has too
many championship meets. In the first two articles I argued for elimination
of the 8 & under championship and for restructuring the 9- to 12-year-old
championship. Both of these ideas were based on the need to reduce the
number of meets in a way that enhances athlete development. In this
article I’d like to introduce what is perhaps my most radical idea of all—a
single, age group championship meet.
Aside from the nirvana-like
aspects of attending only one age group meet per season other reasons to
work toward a single meet include:
Reducing
meet clutter
Our present schedule is so
cluttered with championship or NES sponsored meets that the end of the
season now starts in early February. This not only shortens the regular
season and interferes with training schedules, it distracts coaches at a
time of the year when their attention to detail is sorely needed by their
swimmers.
This clutter is the
signature of one of the biggest problems with age group sport i.e.
providing too much meaningless structure for children. This is a result of
using the adult model of competition and trying to ‘gear it down’ so that it
works for younger children. Although this can be done easily in a mechanical
sense (witness the 8 & under championship) it serves no real purpose other
than to satisfy adult expectations of what competition is. This was brought
home to me when someone wrote and told me about his early experiences with
age group swimming as a parent watching his 7-year-old daughter … "three
adults at the end of the pool timing a little tyke that can barely get from
one end to the other, and half terrified for trying." We shouldn’t be
encouraging this kind of activity at the LSC level.
Establishing a true championship
A single, age group
championship would become a true NES championship. Presently swimmers have a
smorgasbord of competitions to shoot for blurring the distinction between
them. This plethora of competitive opportunities also encourages swimmers to
chase time standards from one meet to the next leading to inadequate
preparation and frustrating competitive experiences.
Some will wonder how we
could possibly run a single meet with the number of swimmers that would be
involved. This thinking though is an artifact of our present system. The
answer is we could never run a single meet with all the swimmers presently
involved in our championship structure. Qualifying times would have to be
tightened to get the meet to a manageable size which would further reinforce
the idea of a true championship.
Structure
of a single, age group championship meet
This meet would have the
following features:
- Prelim/final format for
all events except the longer freestyles, the 400 IM for 12 & unders and
relays. Finals would consist of an A and B final only, eliminating the
so-called bonus heat.
- Qualifying times to
allow for 5 preliminary heats of each event.
- Age groupings for 12 &
unders, 13-14, 15-16, and 17 & over.
- Same event list for all
age groups to include 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 free. 100 and 200
distances for stroke events. 200 and 400 IMs.
This is a true age group
championship format that focuses on meaningful events. It uses the adult
competitive model but because of it’s structure those swimmers who qualify
will have reached a certain developmental level.
Several things would have
to happen before this meet or any kind of radical change could be
implemented into our meet schedule. First we would have to reach some kind
of LSC-wide consensus that we have too many championship meets. Presently
this consensus doesn’t exist. Most of the discussion that takes place
between coaches at meets relates to tweaking the structure of the meet we’re
at. This includes things like allowing 8 & unders at the district meet,
having seniors before age groups, and, everyone’s favourite, adjusting
qualifying times. But these are small issues that make for light
conversation. Real change is not going to hatch at poolside during a lull in
the action.
But change is necessary.
The nature of the change however is not so clear. We would have to begin
serious discussion of what athlete development really is and then figure out
what kind of changes will enhance it. This article and the two that preceded
it addressed this issue in it’s most basic form by discussing how we could
manipulate the mechanics of the competitive structure but there is more that
should be discussed. Designing New England Swimming activities that mirror
what families see in summer league programs is easy to do but ineffective as
a way to move the sport forward. We need something deeper and more detailed
that will allow more swimmers to reach their full potential. No one talks
about this kind of stuff because we don’t really have a place or a way to do
it within New England Swimming.
When I suggested
eliminating the 8 & under meet several people disagreed saying the kids have
fun at the meet. Here in Vermont our kids have a good time just putting
their caps on before practice so it doesn’t take a lot to entertain them,
8-year-olds will have a good time doing almost anything. As much as we might
like to see kids have fun though, it simply isn’t the job of New England
Swimming to make sure this happens and to make a decision, or to hold a meet
based on this underlines the fact that no one has ever held a serious
discussion about athlete development.
Why we do something should
be based on sound principle and not just because it’s easy. I hope I’m not
giving anyone the impression that restructuring our competitive schedule is
the magic bullet that will address all athlete development issues.
Structural issues can be solved at the LSC level others can only be
addressed within local clubs. The LSC issues are big ones though that affect
clubs--the competitive structure drives development. With thought and a
cooperative attitude we can make the schedule work for us.
Part 1,
Part 2
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