Confessions of a Swim Coach....

monster · 04-06-2009, 10:28 PM

OK, I have the heat sheets for the second and final meet. What a difference! we have swimmers seeded in the top heats for two events and the second-fastest for many more. And they're not made-up times We've been a little bolder and the other teams have been much more realistic.

We're also being a little more mercenary. One of the top heat seeds is my daughter in the 25 free. This is for 6th grade only, and -we presumed- aimed for the 6th-graders who can barely swim. so that's who we put in it last time -our 6 slowest 6th graders. The event was won in 14 seconds by a State level USA swimmer. So, this time, no prisoners. Hebe is 6th grade, but she's actually up a grade and is tiny. She is a USA swimmer, but not at State Championship level, so it's a fair play, we reckon. (In regular competitive swimming, you stop swimmming 25yards when you turn 9, so she's excited/amused to be doing a 25 after 2.5 years away from it!)

Also, last meet, we started planning our entries by putting whoever could fly/IM in those events -the meet was so soon after the start of the season that we had to rely on swimmers who already knew butterfly for those events. now we've had time to teach the fly properly, we have several new swimmers willing to swim those events, releasing our seasoned swimmers to swim what they're best at. In Hebe's case this is breaststroke.

Wish us luck for tomorrow....

unfortunatley, we just got word that one of our swimmers has the painters and decorators in and is scared of mice, so we have to completely redo our relays (she's "B" relay and we go through E.)

04-06-2009, 10:28 PM	#23
monster I hear them call the tide Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Perpetual Chaos Posts: 30,852	OK, I have the heat sheets for the second and final meet. What a difference! we have swimmers seeded in the top heats for two events and the second-fastest for many more. And they're not made-up times We've been a little bolder and the other teams have been much more realistic. We're also being a little more mercenary. One of the top heat seeds is my daughter in the 25 free. This is for 6th grade only, and -we presumed- aimed for the 6th-graders who can barely swim. so that's who we put in it last time -our 6 slowest 6th graders. The event was won in 14 seconds by a State level USA swimmer. So, this time, no prisoners. Hebe is 6th grade, but she's actually up a grade and is tiny. She is a USA swimmer, but not at State Championship level, so it's a fair play, we reckon. (In regular competitive swimming, you stop swimmming 25yards when you turn 9, so she's excited/amused to be doing a 25 after 2.5 years away from it!) Also, last meet, we started planning our entries by putting whoever could fly/IM in those events -the meet was so soon after the start of the season that we had to rely on swimmers who already knew butterfly for those events. now we've had time to teach the fly properly, we have several new swimmers willing to swim those events, releasing our seasoned swimmers to swim what they're best at. In Hebe's case this is breaststroke. Wish us luck for tomorrow.... unfortunatley, we just got word that one of our swimmers has the painters and decorators in and is scared of mice, so we have to completely redo our relays (she's "B" relay and we go through E.) __________________ The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity Amelia Earhart

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