SwimSwam Pulse: 53% Pick Winter As Ideal High School Swimming Season

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 Pollwhich asks voters who they think should be #1 in our boys class of 2020 recruit ranks:

Who should be the #1 recruit in the boys class of 2020?

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ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE

A3 Performance is an independently-owned, performance swimwear company built on a passion for swimming, athletes, and athletic performance. We encourage swimmers to swim better and faster at all ages and levels, from beginners to Olympians.  Driven by a genuine leader and devoted staff that are passionate about swimming and service, A3 Performance strives to inspire and enrich the sport of swimming with innovative and impactful products that motivate swimmers to be their very best – an A3 Performer.

The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner

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Patrick
5 years ago

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.

Coachy
5 years ago

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.

Swim2392
Reply to  Coachy
5 years ago

The school breaks provide a great time to train doubles everyday. Christmas break practices are always the hardest.

Patrick
Reply to  Swim2392
5 years ago

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.

SwimFL
5 years ago

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.

Swimmer
Reply to  SwimFL
5 years ago

This is so true!

mcgillrocks
5 years ago

Illinois girls swimming is in the Fall, not the Winter. Boys swimming is in the winter.

Fall fan
5 years ago

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.

Speedy PG
Reply to  Fall fan
5 years ago

No! Training during winter break is the best! With days off more time to train!

Cody Miller's breastroke kick
5 years ago

Penslvania …enough said

James
5 years ago

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

sleevetat
Reply to  James
5 years ago

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.

Elcoachoblanco
Reply to  sleevetat
5 years ago

Theres noway Southern CA could move to the winter because of Girls Water Polo season. Even if there were more indoor pools

longseeker
Reply to  James
5 years ago

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.

olde coach
Reply to  longseeker
5 years ago

All of them!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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