For many clubs and college teams across the country, the holiday season is also the time for holiday training trips. As if holiday travel with a large team was not already stressful enough, many programs this year were caught up in the Southwest meltdown, which resulted in the cancellation of almost 15,800 flights.
Located in the Attleboro area in Massachusetts, Bluefish Swim Club was one of many teams whose trip was upended by the Southwest disruption. Their final destination was Huntsville, Alabama, where swimmers would be able to get in a week of long course training in preparation for meets like Olympic Trials.
With the pool rental, accommodations, and food booked and paid for in advance, they ended up having to seek alternative travel options. They landed on renting a private charter bus, costing the club $25,000 for a one way trip. About 50 swimmers took the trip, meaning the bus cost breaks down to about $500 an athlete.
Bluefish swimmer Zuri Ferguson described the frustration in making the 25-hour-long trip in a crowded charter bus in an interview with CBS News: “It was very mentally draining, after all of that. It was a very tight, confined space. We only had a couple stops to get out and move around.”
Nick Rice, another member of the Bluefish coaching staff, echoed Ferguson’s thoughts, saying “I felt very confident at 10 p.m. on Christmas Day that I was getting on a flight the next morning, and everything fell apart and there was no help offered.”
Rice went on to praise the team on how they handled the situation, adding: “As a coaching staff we’ve been pretty excited to see the resilience from them and the bounce back and the mental fortitude and continuing to have a really good attitude about what we’re doing and why we’re here.”
Bluefish Swim Club is a 2022 Silver Medal Club under USA Swimming’s Club Excellence program and is designated as a Level 4 club under the Club Recognition program. Their most notable alumni is Olympic medalist Elizabeth Beisel, who joined Bluefish as a 12-year-old.
Bluefish Swim Club is not the only team who was forced to reevaluate travel plans in the wake of Southwest cancellations. Washington State University’s women’s swimming & diving team had plans to take their training trip in San Diego, but ended up just canceling the entire trip after their flight got dropped. They were among many teams that had their plans changed, or canceled altogether, by the cancellations.
There are stories like this across the country with the cancellations coming amid the busiest travel time of the year.
Southwest is reported to be back on a normal operating schedule as of December 30th, meaning training trips scheduled for after New Years should not be disrupted.
Guessing they saved more than $25k in SW refunds
Probably not quite (because it’s only a one-way refund), but I’m sure refunds covered a good chunk of this.
25 hours?? Google maps begs to differ. I know its a bus and will travel slower than your average car… But I suspect some over exaggerating going on here.
No exaggeration – with the holiday traffic in the northeast and mid-atlantic, it took them 25 hours. My kid was on the bus.
Club teams should not be going on training trips. This sport is already too expensive for way too many families… A local team in my area traveled the past two years. The rich kids went on the trip with the top two coaches, the remaining kids trained with a bunch of 12 year olds… USA Swimming should step in and stop this before it gets out of control.
So USA Swimming needs to monitor every team in the country to make sure everything is “fair?” Sometimes we can’t always get what we want, and most of us make do. SMH.
Did I use the word “fair” in my comment? USA Swimming should encourage responsible membership in a sport where participation is already cost prohibitive for a large percentage of the population. Not many lower and middle class families can afford to spend another $1500 over Christmas on an unnecessary vacation for their kid and their swim coach. College training trips are a different animal because they are almost always paid for by the school.
Clubs have the right to spend their money to benefit their club. If they want to go on a training trip, let them.
Agreed. Had no idea that kids’ club teams take training trips as college teams do. Seems ridiculous, entitled, and unnecessary.
Sorry but this is a bizarre story. Obviously southwest sucks but why does this team need to all the way to Alabama to train long course? Is Huntsville a travel destination? Is it a super cool facility or something?
very bizarre. even without raising the point you did there’s the question of when did dealing with a change in travel logistics get so traumatic or even newsworthy
The 24 hour bus ride is part of a standard training trip.
Off the bus and into the pool.
Believe it or not there aren’t very many options for LC training in New England in the winter
I get that. I’m just saying if you are going to travel that far I might want to target a more fun destination
Have you been to Huntsville? Believe it or not, it’s actually a pretty cool place with one of the nicest pools in the country. Having moved here from New England, I can tell you that nice LCM facilities are basically non existent up there.
Which is why Mass splits its high school season in half, right? In a nutshell?
Besides the obvious (great facility and Nick Rice being from there), Huntsville offers more enrichment opportunities than you think. Like the Smithsonian-affiliated US Space & Rocket Center (home of Space Camp). If you can tag on a trip to “NASA,” it appeals a lot more to certain parents.
I haven’t checked, but I’d have to imagine December hotel rooms in Huntsville are way, way cheaper than on beaches in Florida, too.
Downtown Huntsville is a pretty cool place. I know that people love to place-shame, but as someone who has spent a lot of time in a lot of different places, almost every little urban… Read more »
I wasn’t place shaming, I’ve just never heard of a team going on a training trip to Alabama. I don’t know anything about Huntsville, which is why I asked if there was something going on there
High school season isn’t really split in half. You have a handful of teams north of the city that are refusing to follow the directive from about 10 years ago to move to the winter and have a true swim season. They refuse to practice when other teams in winter get pools: 5-7am and 9-11pm. There are fewer and fewer pools, but unlike some states, apart from post season champs, most meets are dual-only.
Before Nick joined Bluefish, the team would travel to Chattanooga and before that Maryland. Basically, anywhere they could have major time in a pool they don’t have to share with a lot of other teams. The colds, flu and congestion starts to build. In Florida, teams are restricted to 2 hour shifts with as many teams as the facility can host.
Probably, the college teams in Boston get the 50 meter pools but Huntsville is a long trip.
I’ll give you one reason, $$$.
Another reason: Coach Nick is from Huntsville and has good connections there. Also, great facility set up.
Huntsville comp pool is where futures and sr zones have been hosted, 2 x 50 meter tanks in the same facility. Space for dryland. Inexpensive to stay & eat, easy to get around.
Zuri Ferguson is a swimmer and not a coach. Nick Rice is one tho