To Swim or Not to Swim – this is the difficult question swimmers in Massachusetts and many other states face each year when their winter high school season arrives. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) has guidelines geared toward ensuring that everyone competes on a level playing field as well as protecting student-athletes from doing too many sports during a particular season. One that is increasingly impacted by these guidelines is swimming.

Every sport has its “outside club” counterpart. Those sport organizations that run tournament teams, club practices or travel teams are hitting all high school sports over the past few years, but swimming is one that has been dealing with outside teams for more than 40 years. Many of these outside clubs, however, do not run concurrently with their high school sport, so many times, student-athletes are not faced with the difficult decision of not participating for their high school. However, swimming is a year-round sport that directly overlaps two of the three seasons of the year.

Swim teams that compete in the Massachusetts fall season usually do not run into many issues or conflicts with their swimmers not wanting to participate. Many of the club teams do not swim in September, and with so few fall teams actually swimming high school now, there is more time available to train, thus bridging the gap between what yardage these elite swimmers need.  However, once the winter season starts, when many programs are running both girls and boys teams and sharing pool time, additional issues arise.  

In the September 2014, issue of Swimming World, Mel Roberts, president of NISCA (National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association), wrote an incredible article on this conflict, and the benefits of swimming for one’s high school, while still acknowledging the conflicts that arise with U.S. club swimming. He offers invaluable evidence and thoughts about why student-athletes SHOULD swim for their high schools, and gives tangible rationales that any coach can use when he or she has that difficult pre-season talk with one of the better swimmers who is thinking about quitting high school swimming.

Here are some thoughts I have, supported by Mel Roberts’ recent article, about why high school swimming is so beneficial, not only to the club swimmer, but to all the swimmers on a team as well.

1. TEAM – Nothing can be more evident in swimming than what the power of a team can do.  Swimming is measured by time, and unlike a hot-shooting basketball team upsetting the No. 1 seed, coaches pretty accurately know what another team has for competition.   This does not really happen though when you swim for a club, just for your own best swim, when you have swum two days in a row, in 10 events, and you just want to go home.
2. COMMITMENT – Those high school swimmers who can find the delicate balance between their high school and club teams, learn prior to college, the value of time management and academic priorities. I truly enjoy the conversations with college coaches when I can say,  “This kid has it all. A great attitude about the sport, great time management skills, an excellent academic record and a true understanding of the team concept.” Oftentimes, the club coaches can only speak to an individual’s ability to swim, and colleges want to know more about these young future swimmers because in college, like high school, there are weekly meets, league rivalries, league championships and postseason opportunities.
3. BALANCE – Nothing can help a student-athlete more than being part of a high school swim program. It allows them a chance to show off their hard work, be recognized for their achievements in their school and local paper, and be cheered on by their classmates, who are now their teammates. But the balance I refer to is when the elite swimmer is on the side of the pool, cheering on the second or third string new swimmer, or the time a kid who wins every race, says something to the brand new freshman before the student swims his or her first race, or in a practice when a league champion sprinter is called upon to help some struggling kids with their flip turns, or when an emerging swimmer, who has trained hard, is placed with some elite kids on a  relay.  Is there anything better we can teach these young adults?

The debate, argument, disagreement, benefits or detriments of high school swimming and outside club swimming has gone on for years, and will continue to be discussed in schools not only in Massachusetts, but all over the country. Some schools in Colorado actually have state provisions where club swimmers can do both, as long as they let the principal know ahead of time their intentions. Just ask Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin, as she swam for her high school after the Olympics. But does that work? Are the rest of the swimmers who train every day given a different impression of the “elite” swimmer’s value on the team? Is it fair for them to work hard all week, to let some stellar swimmers show up at a meet and take the win?  Besides the score, who really wins.

Consider the options student-athletes have today, and in particular evaluate how much they are bombarded with information from school to sports to be the best! They hear nice things from a club coach who offers a program and says “you can be on our Senior A Developmental Team,” and now that kid feels an identity. High school coaches know their craft and know their sport, but they need to promote the core values, as well as the highlights that high school programs offer. Furthermore, we need to make sure each and every time an elite or club swimmer makes the choice to come out for our program, that the basic premises that high school athletics is based upon will be followed so all swimmers who are part of their high school team and their club team will reap the benefits of a sport that offers so much more than time in the water.