Swim Meets -- Then and Now

The swim meet experience for me was mostly the same as I remember. As we drove up, I could see the flags strung across the pool and hear the familiar splashing of warm up. Spectators gathered and staked out their spaces on the bleachers or with their lawn chairs. I felt my pulse quicken. We walked in to the pool area and easily found the team. That's when I noticed some differences.

First let me say that I know this is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. This is a summer fun swim league, and I was in hyper-competitive club swimming. But with that said, I can still attest to differences between my swim team/swim meet experience and this one.

Immediately, I noticed that the atmosphere was fairly relaxed, mirroring the lazy summer day that it was. That's not to say that it wasn't busy or noisy or exciting. In my swimming days, meets seemed electric with expectation and heavy with the importance of performance. I didn't get that feeling from this meet. It seemed that everyone was there to swim well AND have fun without performance pressure.

Another difference was that teams did not congregate around the pool to cheer for their team mates. WEIRD! And coaches did not walk the sides of the pool "encouraging" their swimmers. The coaches were there and they were involved, but it seemed removed from individual races and limited to taking notes, reminding swimmers to touch with 2 hands or to kick, and talking with swimmers briefly after their swims. The sides of the pool were cordoned off for the officials (which, as an official, was nice).

Other differences revolved around team management. Of course, as a child, I may not have known how much organization there really was, but this SEEMED different to me.

First, each team sat in its own area (same). Our team divided the kids up by age group with a bench parent assigned to each group. (I remember sitting anywhere I wanted and being called to swim or checking in with a particular person to see how long I had until my next event.) The bench parents supervised the kids between events and observed the meet enough to know when their age group needed to be at the blocks for the next event. They lined the kids up in the correct lanes in the correct order, stayed until their last heat was complete and then returned to the team area to supervise. (I don't remember "official" supervision back in the day.)

The host team set up benches for each lane (for the younger swimmers swimming 25 yards) where the kids waited in their lane in heat order. (I remember a bench area, one bench for each heat, off to the side, where we waited in lane order.) The older kids swimming 50 yards had no bench area at all. I guess they are considered old enough or experienced enough to get where they need to go.

Timing was another big difference. The timers sat in chairs at the shallow end and didn't even get up to see the final touch of each race. Times are important in the long run but not critical to scoring or to individual swimmers. (Timers would stand over the lane to ensure accuracy, even with touch pad timing systems, as times were of great importance. It could make or break the swimmer's qualification for championship meets.)

As these are dual meets (only 2 teams), seeding is accomplished by assigning alternating lanes to the 2 teams -- one gets 1,3,5 and the other gets 2,4,6. Each team holds individual time trials before the meet and assigns its swimmers based on time trial results. As I recall, seeding was based on past performance as submitted by the coaches. Fastest swimmer in lane 3, next in lane 4, alternating out to lane 6. Of course, our meets involved multiple teams, so there was no lane assignment to individual teams.

Everyone swims freestyle and a freestyle relay. Top 3 swimmers of each stroke (determined in time trials) swim other strokes, individual medley and medley relays. This means that there are several heats of freestyle and potentially multiple heats of freestyle relay but only one heat of each other event. Makes for a faster meet. I remember swimming what the coach said I would swim whether I liked it or not, whether I thought it was "enough" or not or even "too much". We had multiple heats of each event, preliminaries and finals, and VERY long meets.

Ribbons are given to each heat based on the order in which swimmers arrive at the wall. There are finish judges who wear aprons the color of the place they represent who go and stand in front of the lane they judge to have finished in their place. Once the places are recorded by the scorers and the swimmers are allowed out of the water, they hand over a blank ribbon. This is immediate gratification. You get out of the pool and get your ribbon. (Awards were based on times recorded in all heats of a specific event with ribbons given out after all swimmers had swum, times had been recorded, and top finishers determined for each event. We would check the official place sheets posted after the event to see where we placed and whether we made finals. In swimming finals, official finishing was announced almost immediately, but awards were delayed while they were filled out with names and times).

Scoring is done on the first heat of freestyle and freestyle relay (if there is more than one heat) and on the single heat of other strokes. Additional heats of freestyle and freestyle relay are "fun" heats. Of course the younger kids don't know about scoring, so it is all fun. (Scoring was based on the top finishers in each event).

All in all, this is a really cool way to do swim team and meets. It is "different" for me. I do have to adjust my expectations and be accepting of the differences. Actually, most of this has been a welcome surprise. I LIKE shorter meets. I LIKE the emphasis on participation and not on placing and scoring. This is a GREAT way to do competitive swimming without losing or giving your entire life to the sport. It IS a big time commitment, but it is NOT as big a commitment as club swimming. AND it is a short term commitment -- just 2 months and we still have some summer left to enjoy.