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High School Swimming:
How to Create a Winning
Dual Meet Lineup

By Bill McKeon

From your first swimmer's plunge into the pool, through your final swimmer's stretch to the wall, your lineup gives direction and purpose to your team's actions. It is the master plan of the hour and plays a major role in determining the outcome of your meet.

But creating the ideal lineup for an upcoming swim meet can be harder than timing 10 swimmers with one stopwatch while balancing a kickboard on your head. In which relay should you place your fastest freestyler? If you decide on the 400 freestyle relay, where in the relay order should he or she swim?

The answers to these questions and others like them are initially as clear as a pair of fogged-up goggles. Not until you've analyzed the underlying dynamics of a particular aquatic contest do the answers come into focus.

Why is it so difficult to pick the right events for each swimmer and the right swimmers for each event? Why is it such a chore to choose four swimmers for your freestyle relay? The answers are as close as your calculator. If you have 20 swimmer on your team, you can produce 116,280 different freestyle relay arrangements.

Add to this the thousands of potential lineup combinations posed by the individual events and you're up the creek without your hand-paddles. But this doesn't mean you should leave your lineup to chance. By organizing and simplifying the lineup building process, you can produce a maximum impact lineup in a minimum amount of time.

Collecting Data
Before you begin building a lineup, you must have your decision-making facts at your fingertips. Organize your data into an easy-to-use format by creating an Event Analysis Chart. Once this chart is complete, you'll have something for which your opponents would gladly trade their team mascot - a revealing profile of your team.

Across the top of your chart, list all the individual events in competition order. Down the left side of the chart, list your swimmers alphabetically. Where each row containing a swimmer's name intersects with an event column, enter a time. If you don't have a time for a swimmer in a particular event, draw a line through that box.

Your chart should include times swum in practice as well as times swum in competition, but be selective. Outdated times and lifetime best swims do not belong on this chart. Only enter times that reflect a swimmer's most recent accomplishments.

When you've finished entering times, fill in the chart's comments section with short assessments of each swimmer's current state of readiness. Use statements such as: "Ready to break 2:00 in 200 I.M." or "Too tired for 500." This focuses attention on each swimmer's key strengths and weaknesses. You'll need this information when you start building your lineup.

Your comments should also identify swimmers with hidden talents. A distance swimmer who is also a strong flyer is a valuable team asset, so record this fact on your chart. To capitalize on your team's talents, identify swimmers who are prepared to meet special challenges. Who's ready to swim three events all out? Who's conditioned to swim two events back to back? If you feel someone is ready to make a breakthrough, make a note of it. In fact, write down any detail that may eventually help you make critical lineup decisions.

When your team's Analysis Chart is complete, repeat the same process to create a similar chart for your opponent e recent meet results, newspaper reports, word of mouth, and anything else that provides information about the other team. Relentless research is the key to painting an accurate portrait of your opponent. Where gaps remain in your opponent's profile, fill in the blanks with estimated times if possible.

Suppose the team you're analyzing lost the 100 breaststroke event in a recent meet. The only information you have is the winning team's time of 1:04.5. On your chart, list 1:05E (estimate) as your opponent's best time, assuming that he or she may have finished just a stroke behind the winner. Later, when you're making crucial placement decisions, this estimated time will serve to remind you of your opponents' potential threat in this event.

To uncover the secrets your opponents would rather keep hidden, examine the collection of clues they leave behind every time they swim. Let's say your research shows that your opponent is weak in the backstroke event. You also know that the team recently swam a red-hot medley relay. Fast relay - no backstroker? No way. You've just discovered something that could mean points for your team. By estimating the backstroke leg of their relay, you can calculate the mystery backstroker's potential impact in the individual event, and be prepared, should he or she appear there.

As you evaluate the other team's athletes, ask yourself these questions: Did the swimmer compete in his or her best event? Was the swimmer pushed to the limit or was he or she just cruising in an easy race? Were swimmers swimming tired or rested? Were any swimmers strategically withheld? Who has performed particularly well recently? For each question you answer, you will learn something about your opponent. Record these insights for future reference.

Developing a First Draft Lineup
Chart completed, you're now ready to create a first draft lineup. Using a Lineup Work Sheet, list all events in the upcoming competition. Reserve the left side of the page for your team's lineup, saving the right side for comments about your opponent. Much changing and re-arranging will occur during this process so make your entries in pencil and have an eraser handy.

In the early stages of lineup construction, you're free to make extensive use of best-guess technology. This is the fastest way to establish a starting point. Adjustments and refinements at each stage of scrutiny will eventually mold your lineup into its final form.

Start building your lineup by placing swimmers whose abilities or circumstances present the fewest number of complications. Place any one-event specialists into their designated slots.

This category includes the swimmer who can only score points in the breaststroke and the athlete returning from an injury who is temporarily restricted to swimming a single.

Next, place swimmers whose specific talents dictate the events they will swim. For instance, if you only have one swimmer who excels in butterfly, your options are somewhat limited. Although this swimmer may have other talents, he or she is uniquely suited to fill the beckoning butterfly slot. Accept the inevitable and move on.

Mark the team roster each time you assign a swimmer to an event. This will ensure that no swimmer is overlooked or overbooked.

Continue by placing your most probable number one swimmer in each event. In most cases, you can best accomplish this by strategically dispersing your top four or five swimmers throughout the lineup. When all events have a top entrant in place, go back and place most probable number twos.

Keep filling successive tiers until all lanes in all events are full or until all swimmers have been assigned to their maximum event limit. You now have a working first draft lineup. This is the lineup you would use if your opponents were from Siberia, and you knew absolutely nothing about them. If this is not your situation, you still have work to do.

Sizing Up Your Opponent
Before you can further refine your lineup, you'll need to zero in on your competition. Study the Event Analysis Chart you prepared for your opponents. Try to identify your opponent's paramount strengths and fundamental weaknesses. See if you can visualize the meet from the viewpoint of the opposing coach.

Will the other team be depending on inexperienced or untested swimmers? Have they been on a losing streak or a winning streak? From this perspective, can you make any predictions about the level of boldness or caution they might exhibit? Does this reveal anything about their probable placement of swimmers? Which of their swimmers has not performed well lately? What adjustments might they make to compensate for this weakness?

Take your time and glean everything you can from the chart. Using the right side of your Lineup Work Sheet, attempt to produce the lineup your rivals will most likely unleash against your team. Try to create a lineup that's so good you hope the opposing coach doesn't think of it.

If you don't have swimmers' names, use initials or labels, such as "P.J." or "swimmer X". Try to place a primary swimmer in every event. If you can also place a second and third swimmer in each race, you will greatly enhance the value of the projected lineup.

To fully explore your opponent's potential threat, develop several lineup variations that would serve them well. Would one of these constructions be especially effective against your team? Try creating your opponent's lineup based on the privileged inside information you possess about your team. Suppose they actually showed up with this insightful lineup - could you defend against it?


Refining Your Plan
As you size up your opponent's strategic plan alongside your team's rough draft lineup, weaknesses in your lineup will emerge. These weaknesses are opponent specific. Clever deployment tactics that were successful against your last opponent may not be effective here. As deficiencies appear, modify your lineup to counteract your opponent's projected challenge.

Also consider the physical and psychological makeup of your swimmers. Sure, your 500 swimmer is good, but is he or she the best choice for this event, today, against this opponent? Refer to your team's Analysis Chart as you reconsider each placement. You might discover you have unintentionally placed a swimmer in back-to-back events. Should you make a change? Check your chart - can this swimmer handle the challenge?

As you re-examine a relay, you may realize that the combination of competitors doesn't click. This might set off a succession of changes and substitutions. Study each pending rearrangement for potential benefits and possible pitfalls. Then, if the move will indeed strengthen your lineup - make it.

Remember to consider the effects of intelligence and reconnaissance activity. Does the rival team have swimmers who know your swimmers? What information has probably been gathered by the other team through these associations? Has your opponent scouted our meets? Have your meet results been published?

Should you plan some misdirection to recapture the element of surprise? Can you make any changes that will confound your opponents without weakening your lineup?

Review your updated lineup one last time in light of your opponent's projected plan of attack. Did your most versatile swimmer end up in an event that he or she has little chance of winning? Are you wasting one of your stronger swimmers in an event that will probably offer little challenge? Have you gone after any long-shot events while not pursuing sure points elsewhere?

Finalizing Your Lineup
Make sure your lineup makes logical sense and satisfies the needs of your swimmers. Is every swimmer's role clearly defined? Are all swimmers positioned where their abilities match the projected challenge? Are opponents targeted for attack where they are most vulnerable? Does the lineup direct the team in a coordinated effort?

Although your finished lineup may not be perfect, your pre-meet preparations will start paying big rewards as swimmer after swimmer turns up in the right event at the right time. This will not go un-noticed by your swimmers. And if your team comes to believe that you have super powers - what would be so bad about that?

Bill McKeon has coached high school, college, and club swimming in New York and Florida.