A MESSAGE TO ALL CLUB COACHES AND HIGH SCHOOL COACHES:
We know it can be tough as a club coach to share your swimmer. You’ve been coaching Jim (let’s call your swimmer Jim for the purposes of this article) for years, and you know what’s best for him. However, today, you received an email from Jim saying, “I’m going to have to miss practice today because I have a high school meet.” But that’s not the same workout as your practice would have been. They never are.
As the high school coach, you need your star club swimmer as often as possible. Jim sets the example for the rest of the team. Jim swims those clutch races that score your team’s big points. He motivates the team to keep going. But this week, your best swimmer can’t swim because he’s tapering for a big club meet. No fair. You think to yourself. He made a commitment to this team. But he is also committed to his club team.
So what’s the best way to even it out?
Keep in mind that Jim is trying his best to accommodate both teams. He’s not slacking or trying to cause problems. He’s doing his best.
The easiest way to solve this problem once and for all is cooperation. Try shooting the other coach a quick email saying something like, “Hey, how can we cooperate so that Jim can have a successful season?” If you work out a pre-set schedule for your swimmer, all he has to do is follow it. Let the other coach know in advance what meets/practices your swimmer will have to miss. Settle disputes before they arise.
No more angry e-mails, guilt trips, or worries about a compromised taper. After all, Jim can’t be in two places at once.
Well I’ve run in to this problem quite often. I was an assistant high school coach and assistant club coach. There is one huge difference: high school teams may have a combination of year-round club swimmer who also swim high school AND seasonal swimmers who only swim during the high school season whereas club swimmers swim year-round whether with their club only or with their club except during high school season. I’ve seen many a good swimmer totally skip high school and later swim college. I’ve also seen may a good swimmer that would swim club until the high school season and then swim high school. College coaches are looking only for a few things; fast times, good grades and… Read more »
One last point. A club coach’s resume is built on the accomplishments of his swimmers in club meets, by and large. They get little or no credit for hs swim results.
Never forget that a club coach’s resume is the most important thing a coach owns. They state how many Olympians they’ve trained, how many Trials swimmers they’ve trained, how many Junior National swimmers they coached, etc. Their resumes do not state the grade point average of their high school swimmers, or how many academic All Americans they have coached, or list the academic scholarships of their swimmers. For the vast, VAST majority of swimmers, those statistics are much more important. After all, after college, how many professional swimmers… Read more »
Again, totally disagree. Lazy, lazy commentating.
High school swimming is an important part of the overall swimming experience. It’s the only time your child will really swim for a TEAM. Club coaches want their kids to think they are swimming on a “team” but when the kids’ first reaction is to look at the clock, that’s a club meet. When their first reaction is to see if they won, or what place they got, that’s a hs (and college) meet. Kids who want to swim in college but stick their noses in the air regarding hs swimming are those most likely to not have a good college experience or to wash out of swimming entirely. Were I a college coach, I’d ask the club coach how… Read more »
Oh yes, and Missy Franklin swam for her high school team. Even Missy wasn’t too big to swim high school.
Missy “swam” for her hs team in that she attended the meets and 1 or 2 practices per week. I know this for a fact. And I don’t agree with your comment about club teams not being “teams.” It’s actually lazy comments like this that paint USA Swimming programs in a negative light as if all we care about are times times times. So in fact, I take that in a somewhat offensive manner considering our own club team (founded in 2011) in SLC caters to low-income families and that 75% of our kids don’t have to pay a dime to have the honor of being members of our club. I’ll put our team spriti up against anybodies… high school… Read more »
I think just about everyone who has commented here lives in a different world than I do. I am a high school coach in a small school (graduating 50+ kids last year). The nearest club or YMCA programs are 60 miles away. So we are the only game in town. I have been around long enough to remember that the first club programs (AAU at that time) were begun by high school coaches to provide summer training for their high school swimmers (George Haines did the same thing at Santa Clara, where he began his coaching career as a high school coach). Sure, some high school coaches are effective and some aren’t, but I don’t think having a USA level… Read more »
Well said.
I’m a HS Swim Mom and former Club Swim Mom. Our HS coach is the best. He works around the club swimmers’ schedule (the girls HS coach doesn’t and it shows by the slowly dwindling HS team). Yes, we missed winning the league title because of 1 missed meet (club swimmers were at another meet). We got over it. Our team is better because of the club swimmers. Our HS coach lets their club coaches set the training. What do the club swimmers do at some our practices? They sometimes work out then help the new swimmers (sometimes they will just help the new swimmers). Our HS coach lets the club swimmers work on their leadership skills. Our HS team… Read more »
I am a mom of a HS (sophomore)/Club swimmer. While her HS coach allows certain club kids to practice with their club, after the mandatory 11 HS practice sessions, he certainly made no bones about showing favoritism to the ones who only stayed with him. Because of training requirements, my child informed the HS coach before the season started which meets she would miss (hers is a huge HS team vs many very small teams, so we even stop scoring in many meets). He said “fine”. Not so much. Cold, mean and abusive the entire season…until sectionals and states when he wanted her fast times to help bring the relays to states and a section record (thank you to very… Read more »
See, here in Illinois, like someone said above, once you hit HS you can’t swim club until you are done with your season. And most IHSA coaches and officials think that their “organization” is the prestige of them all. Case in point…Matt Grevers led off the 400 FR relay in a time of 43.5 but for some reason that’s not the State record in the 100 FR. Every other swimming organization would recognize that. The relationship between Club and HS coaches in IL is a joke! HS coaches think they are the cream of the crop but they only coach 3 months out of the year and their workouts consist of “how much yardage can we get in?!?”
HS… Read more »
Same goes for divers. The kids work hard all year to get to the level and have the timing down and learn all the dives and high school comes in and thinks they own the kids and should drop the primary program that brought them to this level for 3 months. College coaches care nothing about high school diving but the experience from competing with your high school cannot be duplicated. You either choose one or the other or try a balancing act…unfortunately, this is extremely difficult when each side is asking for 70% of the kids time. Egos involved only hurts the kid.