SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers what they thought was the ideal season for high school swimming:
RESULTS
Question: What is the best season for high school swimming?
- Winter – 53.5%
- Spring – 23.5%
- Fall – 23.0%
More than half of voters picked the winter as the best season for high school swimming, with fall and spring coming in at a near-tie for second.
Winter is the primary swim season for high schoolers in most states. Between February and March, we see dual-gender state meets in Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and many others, along with single-gender state meets in Minnesota (boys), Illinois (boys) Michigan (boys), Colorado (girls) and many more.
The spring season narrowly edged fall for second in this poll, but neither had even half the votes that winter (53.5%) did. Spring gained 23.5% of the votes. States with spring season state meets include California and the Colorado boys.
Fall came in last in our poll despite being a pretty popular season for high school state meets. States with fall high school championships include Florida, Arizona, Minnesota (girls), Michigan (girls), and Illinois (girls), among others.
One factor that could play into this poll is weather. Most states compete almost exclusively indoors, but in places like California, outdoor pools are much more common, making spring a bit warmer and more conducive to a swim season than fall, or certainly winter.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters who they think should be #1 in our boys class of 2020 recruit ranks:
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Winter is tough with all of the holidays and weather cancellations, and it’s also the busiest time of year for club swimming. Fall or Spring seem like they might allow for more of a high school focus, even if kids were still training with club teams all year.
I’m confused why anyone would pick winter. All the school breaks, weather threats, lack of indoor pools….. Not to mention having state in November-ish and then you club championship meet in March mimics a little of the NCAA schedule. Mid season taper in Nov then back to training for March.
The school breaks provide a great time to train doubles everyday. Christmas break practices are always the hardest.
My club team always trained hard over breaks but most of the high school teams in our area had limited pool time to work with.
Winter season does not favor longer distance swimmers. In general it doesn’t help goong fast end of season club meets. Fall splits up short cpurse season really well.
This is so true!
Illinois girls swimming is in the Fall, not the Winter. Boys swimming is in the winter.
I coached in N.C. where the girls & boys season was in the winter. Winter season has so many school breaks. Thanksgiving, Christmas, MLK, Midterms….seems like with that and the snow/ice days, kids were always out of the water. Fall would be nice if they can start the season outdoors and then bring it inside when it gets too cold.
No! Training during winter break is the best! With days off more time to train!
Penslvania …enough said
Yeah, certainly must be a state by state deal! Living in CA, I can’t imagine having to do exclusively winter season meets – even if our winters are not as bad as many other states. But I’ll gladly take a nice outdoor pool over indoor any day of the week
If there were more indoor pools, I could see CIF switching to winter. But in Northern California I can’t imagine having the bulk of the season during the months of December- February. Way too cold.
Theres noway Southern CA could move to the winter because of Girls Water Polo season. Even if there were more indoor pools
Late April and early May is when school meets/section championships/and the State championships are held in California. Almost all outdoors. So we in California have some swimmers who may make late jumps (improvements) in their events which may or may not somewhat affect recruiting by colleges. I also am interested in how many colleges in the Midwest, East and South swim their dual meets and championships indoors.
All of them!