Parent Meeting and Article

Reminder: the coaches will give a brief presentation about swim meets in the bleachers at the Middle School Pool on Tuesday from 6:45 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Here is an article about swim parenting written by a swim parent. The article was originally published at usaswimming.org.

Paul Peavy: My Half Minute Career as a Swim Coach (10/12/2007)

My coaching resume includes a few years of coaching youth basketball, including a couple of back-to-back, undefeated seasons.

Mostly, I’m proud of the laughs we had at practice and the lifelong relationships I built, and the fact that a few of those kids went on to coach youth league basketball themselves because of what it meant to them.

My career as a swim coach entails all of about thirty seconds at Junior Olympics. The week before, I had seen my daughter working on a different technique on her breaststroke. She was really popping up out of the water and just flying. So all week I reminded her of that technique and then just before she went down to the starting blocks, I reminded her of how she had really popped up and down so quickly and how much faster that made her.

Boy was my swim coaching career shining bright as she kept up with the leaders from lane 1. Then after the turn, everything just fell apart and she didn’t even make her best time. When she came back up she explained that she can hold that technique for about twenty five yards. A real shame it was a fifty yard race.

From the beginning I have known that swimming was a strange bird to me. God reminds me of this every time I participate in a triathlon. So I read my Splash magazine, the family watches every televised swim meet together, I have read Natalie Coughlin’s and Jenny Thompson’s biographies, and generally try to educate myself enough so that when my daughter asks me a question I reply with, “Well, what does coach Bob say?”

If she or I am confused about something, one of us will go to him with the question. I have seen kids in swimming and other sports get different advice from different “experts” (including parents), and it generally leads to confusion and poorer performance. Kids are told to listen to adults and do what they are told. Well imagine a kid being told by one adult to shorten his stroke and another to lengthen it. My guess is you will end up with a kid with a long right arm and short left arm stroke.

If your child has a question about technique or strategy, make sure he talks to his coach about it. A big part of youth sports is about kids learning to take their questions and concerns to adult authorities and expressing themselves.

If you have a problem or a question or concern as a parent, you need to be able to do the same. Now, as a parent you have to respect the coach’s time as he or she supervises practices and is trying to focus on 20 backstroke techniques at a time. Perhaps before or after practice or by e-mail.

Now, repeat after me. “I am the parent,” followed by, “The swim coach is the swim coach.” Now, please, step away from the swimmer.