|
|
 |
04
vs 08 Trials Review American coaches did a terrific job preparing their athletes to swim their best at the Trials. Here are some comparisons between the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Trials. 2008 Review Improved Times
2004 Review Improved Times
The
Big Home Run in Omaha You have heard, and will hear, a lot about the Omaha USA Swimming Olympic Trials that were held last week. Deservedly so. Lets hand out some big congratulations right now. Omaha is no longer “just a baseball town”. Its a swimming mecca. The town embraced the sport like nothing I can remember. Everywhere you went the man and woman on the street were totally in tune with the event. Including the guy in the quick stop that i hit every morning for my 5 AM Diet Coke....he asked me about the meet every day. The vision came from USA Swimming’s Executive Director Chuck Wielgus. The best “number two man” in the world, Mike Unger, enacted that vision, in cooperation with H2Omaha’s great director, Harold Cliff. Harold’s on-site leadership and direction caught just about every possible detail from the near perfect seating, to a fabulous warmup pool, to perfect “hosting” capabilities. The production of the meet was head and shoulders above any other swim meet I have ever attended anywhere in the world, including every Olympic Games and World Championships. If FINA wanted to see what swimming “can be”, they needed to be in Omaha. Sadly, they were not there, except for potential future FINA President Julio Maglione from Uruguay, for one day. The swimmers were remarkably fast, and letter-perfect in their media and crowd responses. Whether they triumphed like Katie and Michael, or suffered the fate of now four time 3rd place winner Hayley McGregory, they were fantastic with the fans, especially the children and portrayed our sport exactly as we all would wish it to be shown.....class people performing as elite athletes. The hotels were close, very nice, convenient and did i mention close? The restaurants were varied, close, very nice and did i mention close? The crowd was animated, excited, and due to a great venue, Close to the action. The warmup pool was huge, complete, and did i mention, close? (and convenient for the athletes and coaches. The city’s swim coaches, led by Docker Hartfield and Doug Krecklow of SwimOmaha, opened their practices to visiting swimmers from ages 8 to 48 and they came to practice by the dozens each day. Young swimmers could stay in shape while visiting for the Trials. Thanks guys. Much more will be said, and deserves to be. In the baseball city, this was a huge Home Run. Hit by Chuck Wielgus, Mike Unger and Harold Cliff. (and their staffs and sponsors.......) Congratulations Guys.......I left Long Beach 4 years ago saying “can’t top this”. I left Omaha Thinking (but not saying) the same thing. I know they will “make a way” to do so in four years. Thanks for the memories, Chuck, Mike, Harold and the City of Omaha! (yes, we would love to come back in four years!)
International
Swimming Hall of Fame “The International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) would like to invite you, the members of CSCAA and ASCA, to attend the 45th annual Toyota International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Honoree Induction Ceremony…..and we are making it easy by bringing the induction to you! Please join ISHOF Honorees and emcee’s Rowdy Gaines and Debbie Meyer on Sunday, July 6, at 1 pm at the Qwest Center in Omaha, located next to the pool. ISHOF is hosting this year’s induction during the USA Swimming Olympic Trials so we may bring this spectacular event to the largest gathering of coaches, athletes, Olympians, and fans of swimming! This is your chance to socialize with old friends, make new friends, celebrate and honor aquatic heroes, and show your support of the International Swimming Hall of Fame! As a Member of ASCA and/or the CSCAA, you will receive a 25% discount off the $100 luncheon price. In addition, your discounted $75 dollar ticket will include a one year membership to ISHOF. If you are currently already a member of ISHOF, you may attend the ceremony for a ticket price of only $50! To take advantage of this fabulous opportunity (and seats are limited), please contact Meg Keller-Marvin, as soon as possible at 954-474-7010, home office; (954) 815-7946 (cell) or via email at marvingardens840@comcast.net prior to June 27, 2008. This offer is good for advance ticket sales only! Tickets at the door are $100. Please consider attending this once in a lifetime event as we honor the greatest of the great! Please join us in honoring Honorees: Fred
Deburghgraeve (BEL) Honor Swimmer ** Melvin Stewart was inducted in 2002 but was unable to attend, so he will be honored this year Other Award being presented at luncheon will include: Al
Schoenfield Media Award: Rowdy Gaines
“What
Universities do is take in teenagers and turn them into people.” “What Universities do is take in teenagers and turn them into people.” “Ten years from now, how many of your students will use what they learned in calculus? But ten years from now, how many do you think will be using the lessons they learned in athletics? Hence the validity of athletics as a part of education”. “Thus, Universities should subsidize the cost of athletics. The question is, how much is enough?” If ever there was an NCAA President who “gets it”, its Dr. Myles Brand. A philosopher by trade, his address to the CSCAA told fundamental truths about the nature of NCAA sports, NCAA administration and NCAA politics of Olympic and Non-Olympic Sports. Dr. Brand urged college coaches to strongly and continuously promote their sport to the larger audience of University and community, and be the strongest possible advocates for the sport which contains true “student-athletes”. In very direct language, he told College Coaches to “fight for their sport”. In a later meeting with CSCAA, USA-Swimming and ASCA leadership, Dr. Brand agreed to support and push forward several proposals to strengthen collegiate swimming. We are grateful for his wisdom and support and are working now to bring these ideas to fruition. JL
5 Critical
Action Steps for Any College Coach TODAY Realize that your program and every program in the USA, need to be in “URGENT” mode, today and everyday, if you wish to Preserve, Protect and Expand Collegiate Swimming.
As in “just do this”. Make sure you clarify, simplify and justify the importance of your swim program to your University and Community.
Nominations
for the ASCA Board of Directors Election Now Being Accepted It's that time of year. The ASCA will elect 5 Board Members at its September World Clinic Business Meeting. Our current group of Board Members, whose term expires this fall are Bill Rose, Peter Malone, Jim Tierney, Bill Wadley and Richard Shipherd. Each is eligible to run again this fall, and we hope they will do so. If you would like to nominate someone for the ASCA Board, please obtain their permission to nomimate them first, then send to the ASCA office (either electronically to JLeonard@swimmingcoach.org) or snail mail to John Leonard, ASCA, 5101 NW 21st Ave. Suite 200, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309, the following information:
We will publicize all candidates on our website and at the World Clinic. Thank you. John Leonard
Time
(and Impetus) To Move Outside Our Comfort Box The latest and greatest Game Plan devised by the USA Swimming Staff under the wonderful leadership of Executive Director Chuck Wielgus sets an ambitious goal......”Build...Increase Membership. Goal: We seek to increase membership by at least 20% by 2012.” Two key strategies under this umbrella goal are “Create a Centralized On-line Registration System” and “Develop bridge programs that seek to transition youngsters from learn to swim programs to competitive teams” Lawdy, Lawdy, I AM A BELIEVER! If we want to grow the sport, lets stop yakin’ and GROW THE SPORT! Great Goal. Great strategies. Now allow me to stop cheerleading and think of what this will mean in terms of needs: 1) Some more pool time for most clubs. (start getting creative...you may not need even a 25 yard pool for a bridge program from lessons to team. I teach my novices in a 12 yard area of the pool. Better control. Better focus. Better teaching results. 2) Capable, exciting, child-loving (as opposed to just sport-loving”) new coaches. Don’t need to be young. Don’t need to be old. Just need to be dedicated to helping young and new swimmers improve. Start thinking who might fit that mold for your club. 3) More swim meets. More SHORT swim meets. More Swim Meets that are great opening experiences to our sport. Since 20% bigger registration immediately implies 20% “new” swimmers, the chances are they will be “B” and below level athletes when they start out. 4) More entry level swim meets raises the next issue.....more entry level OFFICIALS. And therein lies our next great challenge in raising our numbers. Because volunteerism is down. Number of new LSC officials are down. Getting parents to volunteer to do officiating is down as the economy demands a greater and greater premium on compensated employment. Many LSC’s cannot today, appropriately field officials to run the number of swim meets we already need. So, whither the future? In exploring this, I went to a man who doesn’t “ask to be asked”, the redoubtable John Wilson of Athens, Georgia, USA-Swimming Vice President and himself a world class elite meet official, who came up through the officiating ranks in Ohio, where, in those days, one just became “an official” and not all the fancy titles we have today. His reply to my question was immediate and fair. “how hard is it to officiate a novice meet?” Clearly, not too hard. Know the strokes. Know what is legal. Understand it. Watch the water. Be fair. Be reasonable. Be aware of the philosophical concept of “if its giving someone an advantage not allowed in the rules, it deserves a disqualification” So, John, we make it easier for parents to be officials? Well, not so fast. We have no evidence now that the “difficulty” of becoming an official is the key problem. It may be, because how long does the average parent officiate? Well, the average child is probably in USA Swimming for about four years....so the average parent probably officiates about 3 years, at best. Not enough time to climb the big meet pyramid. Or any pyramid. So, what’s the answer? Use a different population. Who, like Martians? No, worse. Or better. Teenagers. Huh? Teenagers? Yes, teenagers. In one of our fastest growing and most significant competitors, soccer, kids officiate for kids. Bigger kids for little kids. Teenagers officiate soccer matches between little kids. All the time. As a matter of course. They have energy, knowledge of the sport, a keen sense of fairness, and oh, did i mention....energy? Also, they are more familiar with the internet than most of us are with our own face. So an on-line course and test to certify teenage officials who have either left the sport on a daily basis, or are summer only swimmers, or “high school only swimmers”, make a GREAT source of new officials for our coming expansion. They know swimming. They love swimming. They already know most of the rules. (especially how to swim the strokes) and they do the concept of “Fair” a lot better than some adults. And, they need part time employment. Whether they volunteer at officiating novice and “B” level meets, or whether we pay them a minimum wage, they are the best possible help we can recruit to help fuel our growth. And it will put a young, fresh, “cool” face on our officiating at the entry level meets....not the very serious, very formal face of adult officials...and in case you haven’t noticed, the coolest “sports” for kids are skateboarding, wakeboarding, snowboarding, etc. where no parents are around, no parents know anything about the sport, and no parents interfere. Its a fantastic idea. I hope our USA Swimming Officials group will set about creating an entry level “swim official” test that we can use as we grow to our new “raise you 20%” goal. Its the way to go. Back to the future. Kudos to John Wilson. Our “out of the box thinking” award of the year.
Complete presentation available in PDF(Adobe Reader) format.
Let's
Keep the Tech Suits With The Senior Swimmers The last two weeks I have been at our LSC Junior Olympic Meet and our LSC “Division II” meet, which is a nice way of saying, “the last B meet where you can qualify for Junior Olympics”, without making any of our supposedly delicate children swoon upon hearing that they are in a “B” meet. (but that’s another story.) One of the most disturbing trends that I have seen is age group swimmers, particularly 12 and unders and 10 and unders, in the new hi-tech suits made by all the swimsuit companies, in prelims and finals of these local meets. First of all, congratulations to Speedo, and all the other swimsuit companies. Some have done real and very expensive research and come up with fabulous suits that clearly assist the swimmers in swimming faster...much faster. Others have simply done the “Burger King Thing”. (Burger King does little to no demographic or other studies when it locates its restaurants.....it lets McDonalds spend its money on those expensive studies and then Burger King just opens across the street from every new McDonalds....saves them a lot of money and they get there 3 months later....so what? Good bottom line approach. Trust your best competitor to do the heavy lifting.) Now, the old man coach in me sighs at the sight of the new suits on anyone, but lets face it, they are here, they are good and they work. When it comes to setting World Records, American Records, Ugandan Records, Finlandian records, and making Senior/International Cuts, you’d better have one of these suits on, because the people swimming the fast times and setting those standards for the meets, are wearing them. If you don’t wear them, you are out of it. Unfair for you if you’re NOT wearing one. Case in point, over 440 College Women have qualified for the NCAA Division I meet this year with the “A” cut..phenomenally fast. The biggest number in any prior year to make the NCAA Meet with BOTH “A” and “B” cuts has been 259. Every college conference meet in the country was incredibly fast....why???? .....The Suits. Again. Good for the companies, Good for the Senior/International Swimmers. Now, we get to the Division II Age Group Meet where the goal is to swim fast enough and well enough to qualify for the Junior Olympics. And low and behold, here are the high tech $150-$450.00 suits on 10 and unders and 11 and 12 year olds. “B”
Level 10 and unders and 11 and 12 year olds. But Mom and Dad want to “support” their child, and they are told that those $150-$450 suits “work” and will make their child faster. And good parents help their child swim faster, right? Right? Right? SO........”honey, get the American Express card out and lets get Clarence one of those fancy new suits, so he can beat ________.” Meanwhile, some of those same parents are objecting when the club wants to raise dues from $50 a month to $70 a month, because the club wants to pay their coach some more, so he can get rid of that 15 year old car, and actually drive to practice in something safe. He does the teaching of the swimmers. Some of those same parents don’t respond when the coach says “Clarence really would improve a lot faster if he came to practice 3 times a week instead of twice." Or, “Gee, if you could get Clarence to look up from his cell-phone and text messaging when I am trying to talk to him, I’m pretty sure he’d listen and learn better.” Or, “Please help me get Clarence to understand that hard work in practice is what will help him swim better and faster in the meets”. Or, “You said that you’d like Clarence to turn better and can I fix that? Yes, I can, but I need Clarence to pay attention to his turns when he’s practicing if he’s to improve, and not just slop his way through practice without attention to details like turns. I’m here to teach and I need him to be here to learn”. By buying the Tech Suit for Clarence, his parents are teaching him that you can buy the things you want in life. You don’t have to work for them. You can simply buy speed. You can fix anything that you lack with enough money. No need to work hard. No need to Pay Attention. No need to Learn. And, of course, reassuring themselves that they fully support their child in swimming....”you know what we did at the meet this weekend? We bought Clarence a $400 swimsuit? Can you imagine that? When I was a kid, i swam in my underwear and now my kid has a $400 suit! But boy, did it work! In his old suit, he hadn’t beaten “_______” in the 200 free all season, but with this new suit, he dusted that boy!” So Clarence, who all season has gone 2:25 in the 200 yard freestyle, puts on the suit, goes 2:18 and qualifies for the JO’s where he puts it on again and low and behold, drops ANOTHER 2 seconds and gets to 2:16. Hooray for Clarence! Mom is happy. Dad is happy. Clarence thinks its pretty cool...for about 10 minutes, until he gets out his $200 cell phone and goes back to texting his friends. Since he’s really more into that than the swim meet, or swim team, or practice. Now what happens? Well, there are a couple of scenarios. Lets say Clarence goes to a meet, (a regular, ordinary, one session age group meet) about two weeks later. Mom says, “oh honey, you did so well in your new suit, put that on again and lets see you GO!”. So Clarence does. and surprisingly, he just goes about the same time...and actually, it maybe took some more work to get there. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
